Emotion Work of Parents of Autistic Children on Holiday

Background: The benefits of family holidays are well documented formally and informally in our societies, yetthese benefits are often false promises to parents of autistic children who deliver higher degrees of emotion workto manage their own emotions, the emotions of their autistic children and siblings and those of other holidaymakers.Methods: Our work is situated within the humanist philosophy where establishing trust is of paramountimportance and within the social relational model of disability (Jepson et al., 2023; Martin, 2013). We employedsemi-structured interviews with 20 parents with one or more autistic children (aged 4-16) about their holidayexperiences. Following interview transcription, we used NVivo for inductive data analysis and followed Braun andClarkes (2021) stepwise coding strategy of developing open, axial, and theoretical codes.Results: Our paper demonstrates the complex emotional landscape of holidaymaking in the context of parents ofautistic children. Our study distinguishes between the emotional labour performed by tourism providers and theemotion work undertaken by parents during family holidays. While theories of emotional labour and emotion workare often conflated, they involve different actors, processes, and implications.Conclusion: Our paper advocates for redefining parental efforts as “emotion work”, highlighting its uniquesociological implications in contrast to emotional labour. This perspective addresses a significant gap in leisureresearch concerning families with autistic children and provides insights into how emotion-man.