Planning A Vacation With Your Older Children

Hubby and I are doing the unthinkable…we are taking the kids to Walt Disney World two days after Christmas.  We will be there through New Years into the first week of January.  Why is this unthinkable you ask?  Because our girls have only been home for about 18 months, it’s to soon by all the literature I have read and our therapist.  Why are we doing it them?  We know they can handle it and Disney is one of our favorite places on Earth!

I’ll start with the reasons why a trip to Disney (or any other amusement park) can be a bad idea for your older adopted child.

1)  The stimulation is overwhelming for everyone, let alone kids who have behavior problems triggered by overstimulation.

2) Safety.  If your child doesn’t speak enough English to be able to tell others how to find you getting seperated from you can be more traumatic for a child with abandonment issues.

3) They most likely will not react how we want them to react, and we cannot hold this against them.  Even though an insane amount of money is being spent on the child having an awesome time, they don’t understand this and you might not get the family togetherness warm fuzzys you are expecting.

Here are the reasons our therapist thinks it is a bad idea:

1) Waiting in line for even a few minutes can put a child in an overexcited mode that can actually cause pain and anxiety when it usually causes anticipation for most people.

2) Putting your adopted child on a plane can throw them back to the adoption trip they may have made and all the feelings of stress, abandonment and sadness can become fresh again.

3) The stress is to much for the entire family and not worth it at this time.

( A side note, we scheduled and paid for this trip long before we were seeing our therapist regulary and didn’t get her input until only recently.  I normally take my therapist’s recommendations!)

Here are the reasons we decided to go to Disney this year.

1) Our plan had always been to go when Elle was five as this is the best age possible in our experience to take a princess-infatuated little girl.  We took Meg when she was five and it was so amazing. We would have, of course, changed these plans if all our girls were not ready for the trip.

2)  Mita and Enu have wanted to go to Disney since they found out about this magical place and spend time looking at our albums.  What amazes me is that there is no apperent jealously over  Meg and Elle having been there before.  It is not unusual for Mita and Enu to be jealous over the smallest of things (happy meal toy, who has what, even bad things like hang nails and bruises are often a sore spot of jealouy for my girls.)

3) We have taken them to King’s Island twice and they have done wonderful and loved it.  They are roller coasting riding fanatics and the lines at this amusement park were far longer than Disney’s with the FastPass that they have. 

 We have taken many steps in preparing for this trip.  I will let you know what worked well and what didn’t work well, once we return and I have caught my breath!

1)  We are taking our camper rather than flying.  I swore I would never drive to Disney (about 16 hours by car) but since we have a camper, the kids are familiar and used to it we feel it will help keep the kids regulated during the trip.  Hotel rooms can be very stimulating for all children, let alone children who have been in institutions.

2) I have no plans made, exept for a reservation at Cinderella’s Castle for lunch a few days into our trip.  The last time we went to Disney I had a small binder full of plans, reservations and expectations.  I know I cannot do this on our trip this year as we are going to have to take it day by day and hour by hour.

3) We are willing for downtime.  If the kids are overstimulated we can play on the playground instead of riding Space Mountain.  We have to focus on what our kids need rather than what we paid for.

4) We are keeping our expectations simple.  I know we will not go to everything in the parks.  If we can get 3-5 things done (rides, shows or experiences) in each park I will be very happy!

5) We will divide and conquer.  Hubby can take two and I can take two and we can keep things ages appropriate for all of them.  I do so wish a Grandma was coming with us this time as a date night would be wonderful with my dear Husband, but we couldn’t con get any grandmas this time around.  Maybe they think we are nuts?

So please wish us well and think good thoughts around the New Year!  I am very excited, can’t you tell?!

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