Hand Dryers = Terrifying

typeset

Any tips for dealing? His anxiety was so bad visiting the restroom at the museum yesterday a stranger took pity on him and dried her hands with toilet paper rather than use the blower. He freaks out when we even mention going to certain restaurants because he knows which ones don't have paper towel dispensers. My thought is to start with YouTube vids on low volume and slowly crank it before tackling them in person. 

abs05

Ugh, I'm sorry. I can relate. We've made a lot of progess with public restrooms but she still won't actually use one. Any advice on that one would be welcomed, too. Public restrooms petrified DD for the longest time. I don't know if it was the smell, the look, or the sounds of one but I couldn't get her to go in one without an absolute meltdown. I mean, strangers would look at me like I was abusing her. We did baby steps. I'd just open the door of any public restroom that we went to and would have her peer inside (Target, the grocery store, etc). Then after a few weeks I'd make her step inside for a second. Then she had to stay inside while I used the restroom. Now she has to go in the stall with me. The next step is going to be to have her sit on the potty clothed and then finally have her use it. It's been a long freaking process but she will now enter any public restroom willingly. The idea of using it still incites lots of "No but I don't WANT to! NO! NO!!!!!!!!!!!!" followed by screaming and crying. It's super fun. Anyway. Maybe something like that would work for him? Slow desensitizing?

Princess_Lily

If I see a hand dryer, I just have DS wipe his hands on his pants, nbd!

At a rest stop on the way to WDW there were 10 people using dryers at one time, so I told DS to cover his ears to allow him to cope with the sound better.

typeset

Princess_Lily said:

If I see a hand dryer, I just have DS wipe his hands on his pants, nbd! At a rest stop on the way to WDW there were 10 people using dryers at one time, so I told DS to cover his ears to allow him to cope with the sound better.

He freezes if he even hears it through the wall. I promise him he doesn't have to wash his hands if he doesn't touch anything. We both use my pants as a towel. It's ... yeah:

"You won't use the dryer, right? Right? No hand dryer. I don't like the hand dryer. You won't use the hand dryer ... " This while he's shaking with fear. We're going to have to knock out the script, too. 

Princess_Lily

DS was like this when he was younger, and conversations were similar:

"Now DS remember this bathroom has the dryer you don't like - with the noise. If it gets too loud, cover your ears." (If it was a public bath with other people). If it was single use rooms, "...remember how mommy showed you to wipe your hands."

Let him pick up on your confidence that you are protecting him from the big bad noise machine, and take charge. Don't avoid situations because you are picking up on his fear, acknowledge his fear - its real, but teach him to conquer it.

funchicken

How does he handle a hair dryer?  Is he afraid of that?  Last year, DD1's teacher had this activity where the kids built all different types of houses out of different materials for the Three Little Pigs.  She had a hair dryer that she had taped wolf ears and a nose to, and she went around the room trying to blow the houses down with the hair dryer.  I thought it would bother DD1 because she's never been a fan of hair dryers (the very sight of them used to make her cry), but she thought the activity was so much fun that it didn't bother her at all.  She even wanted to hold the hair dryer and pretend to be the wolf. 

Just a thought since they're kind of similar and make a similar sound

mightmom13

Have you met our vacuum?! Same type of reaction to any type of noise such as that, hand dryers, etc. DD has the script thing going on too - but with everything she has anxieties about basically - i.e. going to the library, church, any public place with warning "I'm going to be nice, I'm going to be nice, going to the library I be nice."

With the vacuum I defiantly need a more sutble approach but sometimes I explain what will happen, show it to her, ask her if she wants to touch it (always a no), and have her scream through it with tears. Being a single mom I have one day a month where she is at school and I am at home to vacuum - so working on it but sometimes I just have to do it and warn her first with a mini Social Story and tell her the purpose. It is not however kept inside the house as she would have aversions.

typeset

I can't figure out the quote function this morning. Thank you for the ideas and commiseration.

Absolutely in favor of intervention over accommodation. 

I'm wondering if explaining how they work and that it's just air will help. My husband's approach was to force him to use it. Thanks for compounding the problem, honey. Hair dryers are a situational fear. Mine isn't paralyzing. Might be able to get him to wield that and eventually pretend we're in a restroom and blow it on his hands. When he's in the chair at the haircutter and confronted with the hair dryer and the clippers of doom? Epic freak out on par with our hand dryer situation. The clippers are next on the must tackle list. I can live with crooked hair cuts, but I have to pee, damn it.

I didn't learn how to drive until I was twenty-three, @-auntie-. I went under the speed limit for the first three years. Massholes ascribe to "eat or be eaten," though, and I had to adapt to survive. 

funchicken

Just to give you hope, typeset   DD used to be terrified of hairdryers, the vacuum, public restrooms (and hand dryers), and now she's not bothered by any of them.  I want to say she started doing a lot better with all of them around 3.5.  We kind of had no choice with restrooms since she was potty trained, and she needed to use them when we were out.  She's even used the hand dryers in restrooms herself.

mightmom13

-auntie- said:

mightmom13 said: Being a single mom I have one day a month where she is at school and I am at home to vacuum - so working on it but sometimes I just have to do it and warn her first with a mini Social Story and tell her the purpose. It is not however kept inside the house as she would have aversions.

One of the most challenging parts of parenting a kid with an anxiety piece is not dumbing down your expectations for them. I'm not saying you should run the vacuum in the corner of your DD's bedroom 24/7, but it should live in the house giving her the opportunity to get used to it. Out of sight is confirming her fears. 

DS's psych would say that removing it from her day to day is a no confidence vote. It's you saying thatyou think she is so impaired that you don't believe she can grow around this. If you don't believe she's capable, she will believe it as well. Some of the hardest bits of parenting are putting on your game face and pretending you absolutely trust your child can do something even when you aren't 100% certain yourself.

DS transfers to the university in September, he'll need a drivers license. I am assured by his psychologist, dev pedi and psychiatrist that he can and should drive but lemme tell you- acting as though I believe it while seated in the passenger seat is sofa king hard.

You defiantly have a point; mainly it is not in our house because it is my folks spare. However, my friend has a simple sweeper she can give us for the everyday under the table messes so that may be a good transition piece for her and she loves to obsessively clean (though I do have to help her with that behavior too) so she may want to help pushing that eventually and segway.