Airplane
On board a plane someone else decides almost everything, when the belt goes on, when you may move, how long it takes. The pictures below give a child back the sense of knowing what comes next.
Airplane
A blue cartoon airplane flying to the right.
About this visual support
Few situations take as much control away from a child as a flight. The crew decides when the belt must be on, the cabin presses and clicks, and between take-off and landing there are long stretches of waiting that nothing can hurry along. Being strapped in with no way to influence what happens is uncomfortable even for an adult, and for a child it can stir up real worry.
When the journey is shown as a row of pictures, some of that control moves back to the child. The plane cannot be steered, but knowing what comes next, taxiing, take-off, the meal, landing, makes the outside constraint understandable. Predictability replaces some of the power the child does not have.
Go through the pictures together before boarding, so the puzzling moments like the sudden pressure in the ears or the sign that lights up already have a place in the story. Then they are not surprises in the middle of the flight. You can put the whole journey together in the Routined app and carry it in your phone.