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.
Re: Hand Dryers = Terrifying
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.
"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.
"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.
Just a thought since they're kind of similar and make a similar sound
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.
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.
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.