Bipolar Children and Family Outings

Playdates and birthday parties only last only a couple of hours. But taking a vacation or even going on a trip to a museum with a bipolar child can be more challenging. After a few false starts, one family learned some new techniques with their bipolar child to turn their family outings into fun.

The minute we parked the car and hit the street, I knew something was wrong. Our youngest son, who had been full of questions about that day's trip to the Museum of Natural History, grabbed my hand and stopped talking. I told myself he was just taking it all in. We walked through Central Park, and he clung to me, begging to be picked up.

We pressed on. Arriving at the museum would perk him up, we thought. We went on a whirlwind tour of the museum, which ended with a life-size skeleton of a dinosaur. It so traumatized him that we never spoke of it again. (When fear spread over his face, we realized that it was tied to the nightmares he once had about a skeleton.) We then dragged our weary travelers to a restaurant. All the kids wanted to do was go home.

My husband and I were confused. We thought we had planned this excursion so carefully. First a brisk walk to shake off the car ride, taking in the architecture and people watching along the way. We showed all the children the buildings and points of interest. It wasn't until later that we made the connection between too much sensory input and my son's subsequent meltdown. The uncertainty of our impromptu schedule and the energy of the city thrown at him all at once were too much. He was telling us, "I'm exhausted," and we thought he was saying, "I don't want to walk."

Since then, we've become more skilled at planning trips. We build in time to rest during our journey and provide safe havens within the adventure. We don't expect the children to be able to keep an adult pace. If one is opposed to seeing the IMAX movie, we agree to pick something else or split up for awhile. Maybe our children are in better places emotionally, or maybe we as a family just know each other better. Either way, we have found our pace, and family trips are a blast!

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