As I have mentioned numerous times, I am the father of an autistic 16 year old boy. Most people have no clue as to what parents of an autistic child goes through. It is not that our kids misbehave, it is that they often do not have the filter that a lot of "normal" kids have.
Earlier this week, my wife had an extremely difficult occurrence with our son. She needed to go to the local Target store for some reason. While there, my son had one of his meltdowns. For him, his meltdowns often include dropping to the floor and refusing to move. Often, these occurrences are accompanied by hitting or kicking anybody that comes near him. Such was the case with our son on this day.
In no way do we condone these sorts of actions on the part of our son. On most trips out and about he is able to go to stores like Target without an incident. We have no way of knowing when these outbursts will occur or what can set him off. Sadly, most folks do not have the understanding or patience in helping a parent through these occasions.
On this particular occasion, the police were called. Fortunately, after some time, my wife was able to get our son up and out of the store without police intervention. As well, it is fortunate that we did not have to deal with a physical attack upon my wife or son like the asshole that these folks had to deal with at Olive Garden. Parents of autistic children need support of the community, not calls to the police or physical attacks.
If you are unable to view the video below on this website, I believe you can click on a link in the video to watch it on YouTube.
Since I heard of arrests of autistic people because they couldn't deal with being touched without asking, I've made an autism passport.
ReplyDeleteMy kids wear it in their pocked and I have always some of them with me.
If necessary I hand them out and when the police wants an ID or passport there's an autism ID attached to it too.
One of my boys had meltdowns in shops too. At times.
The shopowners and ladies at the check out centres knew and that made a huge difference and they kept people from making stupid remarks.
the autism passport sounds interesting.
ReplyDeleteOne time my brother in law had our nephew, who is also autistic, with him when he was pulled over by a policeman. Our nephew was talking loudly about being pulled over when the police asked my brother in law to get him to quit talking. My brother in law explained that it wouldn't do any good because our nephew was autistic. fortunately, the policeman was able to accept the explanation.