I understand your hesitation, but are your friends aware of is morning ritual? I stay with my brother and his family when I visit San Diego and they are aware of her issues and in all honestly, it bothers me more than it bothers them. Maybe set up to stay 1st night in hotel, give him time to meet your friends and see how he reacts around them. If they are tense or your son is uncomfortable you will notice and you can make a decision. My daughter gets very excited when she meets new people or people she hasn't seen in a while. Just a thought. Hope you work it out and have a fun time. You all deserve it.

I'm afraid, I can't help you too much with this problem....See, we view stays in hotels as part of our vacation. We have never stayed with friends or relatives while on vacay. We always make sure that we book at a Hampton Inn because of the complimentary hot breakfast bar (plenty of choices for the indecisive ADHD) and that the hotel has a pool. That way they can swim for a couple hours to burn the extra energy before bed. It seems that your son may not be familiar with these friends (you said its been years) and that alone may add stress to him.

Talk to your friends and explain how your son is. Ask them to be honest with you and ask them if they think that your son's routine will be alright with them.

I have a call out to my friend and I'm just waiting to hear back. I keep flip-flopping on what we should do but it's probably best to run the situation by her and get her thoughts.

I think even if you ask your friend about this, she will probably be hesitant to say if she thinks it is not a good idea. Frankly, I believe this is a bigger issue. Your son probably feels, inside, that he doesn't want to be disruptive and out of control. Not sure if you have considered medication, but there are pros and cons to everything, and, although I often feel guilty about medicating my daughter, when I see how her self esteem is improved when she gets positive feedback versus the negative feedback without minimal medication, it is all worth it. If you have not done so, read Edward Hallowell's book called Driven To Distraction. He himself is ADHD, and his take on medication is refreshing because he explains it, but he doesn't push it! Let's face it, you don't want to have to always be uncomfortable for your child's behavior or choose to keep him away from other kids "if he is having a bad day." After all, ADHD kids really need opportunities to connect with other kids. I hope I don't sound judging of you, but please consider it, and, above all, work with a good child psychiatrist and psychologist to get this straight. Good luck!

PurpleFam,
Thanks for your post. Our son is on medication, but it takes over an hour to kick in, so the mornings are really rough. Late afternoon and evenings are also difficult because Vyvanse has konked out then.

You do make a good point about our friends not saying if they'd be hesitant to have him there. I bet they'd agree to it and then be, "Oh, wow!" once they saw ADHD in action. Still playing phone tag with them, so we haven't set plans yet. I'm really leaning toward booking a motel instead.

Thanks for all of the feedback, everyone!

For me I find that my boys feed off my stress/negative energy. I worry like crazy about taking them certain places. I am the one that ends up being on edge and snapping at them for the little things. Staying with other people, even family stresses me out. It's not that my boys are off the walls in the morning (although they sort of are lol) they wake up very very early and they of course are pretty darn noisy. Both of them talk loud and then they start the jumping around and wrestling with each other. It takes a while for their meds to kick in and even then, they are still two little boys.
I took them on a very very long road trip when they were 2 and 4, drove from Canada to San Diego, just me and them, before they were diagnosed and on meds. We drove for a couple of hours then got out and let them run and play. Usually we would stop at a school or play ground. We stayed in hotels and luckily ones with pools. They got to have some fun, burn off energy and slept pretty good too. ( I did the bad thing and even let them jump on beds a little). We also stayed in the places that have breakfast included which really helped with the cost of things.
So the question is, what will give you the best vacation? What will make you more relaxed/stressed? Weigh the pros and cons. A hotel/motel will offer you the morning with just family. You can go visit after everyone has done their morning "routine". Sure you might have a little less actual time for visiting but it might be a better quality of visit. Really hard to visit if you are worried about what others are thinking etc. and like I said the more tense I am the worse it seems to be. Thankfully my boys have never been as bad as I feared they would be either! Do you think he is ready to be given the chance to stay with someone or does he need more time? Now that my guys are a bit older 7 & 9 and on meds and they seem to be crazier than ever, we do still go places, for us it's all about them getting enough exercise.

Finally caught up with my friend today. I had completely forgotten that her nephew has autism. So, they've seen extreme behavior before. She didn't seem freaked out by our son's behavior issues, so we're going to give it a shot staying with them.

glad you have decided to stay with your friends. I always find my son behaves a bit better around people he doesnt know very well but more than that your son is your son and you need to try and live your life regardless of his troubles. I know how stressful things can be especially when staying with others, i am off to stay with my own mother soon and i am really worried about his behaviour. All we can do is be as honest as possible and hope that those we are about are not put off by our children but in my opinion if they are then they are not really friends.

I'm glad that worked out! =) I hope you all have a great trip and enjoy seeing your friends!