DON'T WORRY CLAIRE! YOU DON'T HAVE TO GO TO BED!

Claire: "Adios Brian! Goodnight!"
Me: "Goodnight Claire! I love you!"
Claire: "I don't wanna go to bed Bwiannn." (in a stressed tone)
Me: "Don't worry Claire! You don't have to, but Brian does! I love you Claire!"Claire: "I love you Brian. OK. OK. Don't worry Claire."
      There is nothing better than getting a nice bilingual goodnight from Claire before bed.
She doesn't like bed in the least bit. Claire would love Vegas for that reason, she would never have to go to bed.
      Every night she tells me, "I don't want to go to bed. I don't want to go to bed, Brian." To which I calmly respond, "You don't have to Claire, DONT WORRY."
      One of the hardest things for autistic people to deal with is change. Claire hates change. And no, not the loose kind. She hates the transitions between different setting or events. It is very hard for her to adjust to different things but there are some tactics that we have found successful in helping Claire adjust. One way is making a list for her. By making a detailed list for Claire of things that she would be doing during the day, she is able to have more understanding of what will be happening which makes adjusting to change easier for Claire. As you can imagine, Claire relies immensely on routine because routines are very comfortable for her. She knows what will happen when she has a routine. If Claire doesn't know what will happen in the near future she gets stressed and worried and does not want to do anything.
      Claire has developed a routine over the years before bed. She goes to every door on the second level of our house and proceeds to continually walk in and out saying "IN" "OUT" very enthusiastically while she is walking back and forth. After she is done with that, she slams the door as hard as she can then runs to the next door. Once she is finished with all of the doors, she is usually ready to go into her own room and go to bed. Even though she will rarely actually admit that she is in fact ready for bed. I don't know the exact reason why Claire does this, but I suspect that she uses this as a routine to help her ease into the idea of making the switch of actually going to bed. 
      I suppose that the reason she doesn't like bed is because of the sudden change and she is worried about bed for some reason, but nobody really knows for sure. 


Me: "Hey Claire! We don't have to go to bed! Let's play the guitar instead!"
Claire: "That is a great idea Bwian!!!!!"