Tuesday, June 8, 2010

Try Not to Stare!

How many times have you been out somewhere and seen a child misbehaving and thought to yourself, "wow, those parents have no control of that child".  Do you stare?  Do you whisper to other people about it?  Do you go so far as to say something to the parent of the child?

We have experienced all of these at some point with Hunter and Shana.  We do discipline our children, probably more often than the parents being critical of our parenting.  We have read books, tried many programs and nothing seemed to help.  When the kids were finally diagnosed with Asperger's and PDD-NOS it helped us look at the situation a little differently.  As i mentioned before we still discipline and do everything we can to help our children.  This does not always work as our children can become very physical and we have to protect them and ourselves.  We do everything we can to keep them safe and ignore the stares and under the breath comments from other parents.

Now I want to explain what these meltdowns entail, this is not your typical temper tantrum or fit a child might have, these are scary and dangerous meltdowns.  This is not a kid who has not been taught to behave properly or is tired or just trying to get their way.

They will often start with something not going the way Hunter or Shana expect it too.  This may look like a typical child not getting their way. However, this is the point where if we are lucky we may be able to solve the problem before it goes any further, but many times this small window closes too quickly.  This happens most often with Hunter and his doctor, his teacher and we feel that what happens is the initial trigger is a typical problem for a child his age, but he gets so frustrated so quickly that he loses control and cannot regain it without completely wearing himself (and usually those around him) out.  During the time he is out of control he won't respond to talking and cannot control his emotions.  He will kick, hit, bite, scratch, pull hair, throw things, scream and anything else you can think of.  It can be terrifying and frustrating even for the most calm adult.  We often have to restrain him in a "basket hold" in order to keep him and anyone around him safe.

We have had meltdowns everywhere: grocery store, swimming pool, Disney World, parks, zoo, museum, library, clothing stores and anywhere else we have been.

In Disney World in January, Hunter had a major meltdown in the middle of Hollywood Studios.  We were at the back of the park and had no way to get out.  Grandma was with us and sat with Shana off to the side and made sure people didn't interfere.  We had to restrain Hunter in a basket hold and work to calm him down.  People stared, made rude comments and my mom said that one walked back a few times, she felt they were trying to see if we were hurting him.  Thankfully, he must have seen we are very careful and only hold him to keep everyone safe.

At a pool Shana had a meltdown when her googles weren't working right.  The teacher made her get out of the pool.  She was crying and upset, I tried to get her to leave the pool area but she was clearly not hearing me and was getting out of control.  We were in a corner and I was talking to her trying to calm her when another parent came up to me, my initial thought was she was going to offer help.  Instead, she said that Shana's crying was upsetting her child and was making his swimming ineffective.  I told her that both of my children had disabilities and that if her son (who was in Hunter's class) was unable to swim while a child had a meltdown that she should move him to another class because Hunter was likely to have a meltdown worse than Shana's at any time.  We ended up changing classes and then after Hunter had a meltdown in the changing area and I heard more comments about his behavior, at this point I had heard and seen enough and we withdrew from the school.

The next time you are somewhere and a child is having a meltdown or temper tantrum, try to resist the urge to stare or comment.  Everyone thinks they know exactly what the problem is and it's not always the case.  Ask if the parent need any help, especially if they have a sibling with them, Shana will either be scared or continue talking to me like nothing is going on, which can be frustrating.  Ask them if you can call anyone or even offer to help get them out of the public area to limit the embarrassment.