Toilets/public restroom trouble

[Aventhe]

My son is 9 (nearly 10) and is diagnosed with high-functioning autism. He had recently gotten ok with using public restrooms at school as long as he can use the urinal. However, we are going to Disney World soon, just the two of us, and I do not want him going into the men’s restroom alone. We were planning on using the companion restrooms there, but they do Not contain urinals. He refuses to use “commercial toilets” because they don’t have lids.

Does anyone have any suggestions to get him ok with commercial toilets? I have suggested practicing other places before the vacation but he refuses to even try at all. I’d really hate to have to cancel the vacation due to restroom issues.

 

[tree]

Maybe he would respond to logic?
Urinals don't have lids either.

So there is no logical reason not to use a "commercial toilet."

What illogical reasons might he have for this refusal?
Does he consider the age of nearly 10 to be too old
for a female escort to the toilet?

Has he had negative experiences in the past with
"commercial toilets"?

 

[Tom]

This is typical autistic fixed thinking. Let him know he has a choice. Either he learns to learns to use different types of facilities or the trip is cancelled. Its his choice and has consequences.

 

[MysticEmber]

do you use a reward system? how about every time he uses the public toilet he earns a sticker towards a reward? I use this method with my youngest two who are on the spectrum. They love screen time and games so they earn stickers for new apps on their ipad and if they worked with me or others well that day they earn screen time.

 

[Buzzerfly]

In my experience, autistic people can get a little off track between having an issue then communicating it. In communication, they might get locked into fixed thinking over something not quite logical. Best to find the real issue, then offer real help.

My guess would be he doesn't like to touch/flush the toilet. Offer to do all the touching and flush it. Also, tell him you will flush after he leaves the stall? Those toilets make a terrible noise!

 

[Bolletje]

Avoiding a problem sadly isn’t going to solve it. I think @Tom hit the nail on its head there: you’ll need to give your son an incentive to adjust. As a kid, I used to be terrified of public toilets because I accidentally got locked in once. My mom respected that I was afraid, but also told me that I couldn’t come into town with her as long as I refused to use toilets that were not my own. Having IBS with regular flare-ups since my childhood, going out was always a gamble, but not using public restrooms would have meant soiling myself.
I chose to adjust, because I loved going out with my mom.

 

[the_tortoise]

Why are lids important?

There is probably a reason that the lids are important, and it may be more than just being freaked out by things that are different...

 

[fairy_girl]

I used to hate the commercial toilets because of the flushing water noise. He might want to learn to like these toilets with the lids because they mask the toilet's flushing noise. He doesn't have to touch anything just use your foot to move things down like the lid and use your foot to push the flushing handle down, then unlock the door and go away from the restroom.

 

[Cazelle]

My ASD son is currently 7 years old and still uses the women's toilets when we are out and about. While he is pretty much independent with toileting, I worry about him using public toilets I can't access (ie men's) because he can easily get distracted and doesn't always know what to do if something unexpected happens, such as running out of toilet paper. If this happens, he may just wait until someone comes to help him.

I am aware that at around age 7-8 most children would be using the gender appropriate toilets. At what age did parents here allow their child to use public toilets completely independently?

 

[Gracey]

As soon as they understood the reason why boys use the Gents and girls use the Ladies.

I wasn't comfortable with the situation at all.
I spent alot of my time waiting outside the Gents, fretting over my own young son.

I also had a rough idea of how long my children could spent on their ablutions at home, when all was as it should be.

Anything over that in a public toilet and I would check all was okay in there.

- by opening the outside door slightly and calling in to ask if he was okay,

not just walking into the Gents toilets to check

 

[Judge]

Anything over that in a public toilet and I would check all was okay in there.

- by opening the outside door slightly and calling in to ask if he was okay,

not just walking into the Gents toilets to check

That sounds pretty reasonable under such circumstances given the OP's concerns.

 

[Autistamatic]

I've never liked public toilets and always use a cubicle even now. As to age - as soon as I was old enough to understand gender roles I had to use appropriate facilities.

 

[SusanLR]

Don't know what it is like in most of the world, but, here in Florida, the past several years have
seen the popularity of a family or a combination gender creation of public toilets.
The splitting of the sexes has become mainly a matter of choice where ever you go now.

 

[Cazelle]

Don't know what it is like in most of the world, but, here in Florida, the past several years have
seen the popularity of a family or a combination gender creation of public toilets.
The splitting of the sexes has become mainly a matter of choice where ever you go now.

I'm in New Zealand and while unisex toilets are becoming more common, there are still plenty of places like shopping malls where there are men's and women's toilets. I do sometimes take him into the disabled persons' toilet when available.

Thank you for all your replies . I think I am destined to be that strange woman lurking just outside the men's toilets for the foreseeable future!

 

[GrownupGirl]

I'm female and naturally so is my mother who usually took me out most places, so gender wasn't usually an issue. It was my absolute terror of most public bathrooms that was the issue.
I've seen a "family bathroom" at the mall, along with the male and female ones.

 

[Mary Terry]

I started allowing my son to use the men's bathroom alone when he was about 6 years old. I, too, lurked outside the door, listening for anything amiss, and looking at men who entered the bathroom so I could describe their features if something went "wrong" in there. If he spent more time than I thought was needed, I would knock on the door and kind of yell "hey, everything okay in there?" to alert him to the fact that he was taking a long time and to send the message to any perverts in there that a mean mama bear was standing right outside the door.

 

[Schism]

The western world is getting used to''gender neutral " loos now. In the east, it's always been a hole in the floor. I wouldn't stress too much therefore. Go where you need to & feel safe with your children. They don't care. Honestly, they don't. We need to be more like them sometimes. I would rather pee in the woods than a chemical, overused public loo. Hate them.

 

[Wren]

I thought this thread was going to be about those auto-flush toilets. My six-year-old grandson has recently regressed badly in toilet training after being reasonably well trained for two years—he couldn’t tell us he needed to go, but if there was a toilet, he could take himself there and use it. Trips out tended to be a tour of bathrooms because we couldn’t tell if he needed to go or not. The backsliding seemed to start with a fear of auto-flush toilets in public restrooms (also hand dryers), moved on to not wanting to sit on toilets at home, and now he doesn’t want to have anything to do with toilets.

 

[Cazelle]

Wren, that sounds very frustrating!