Autism in Public

For parents of children with Autism, every step of the journey is filled with joy and sadness. We're joyful that our children are intelligent, hilarious, quirky individuals - yet faced with comparisons of their typically developing peers. It takes courage to stand up and advocate for your child, create Autism awareness and accept that everyday situations are extremely difficult for your whole family.

No doubt, you have taken your child somewhere and experienced stinging remarks from strangers. You have heard passing comments from people you know - and maybe even deeply offensive judgements from people that are close to you. The older your child gets, the more likely you are to experience uncomfortable social situations where you will need to stand up and publicly accept your child's behavior for what it is. This doesn't mean that you're giving up on his social skills, but you are showing unconditional love for him at this very moment in time. Nothing is more powerful to a child than being accepted for who he is, not what he does.

One of our team members was working with a 4 year old client with Autism, who was in Occupational Therapy for issues with peripersonal space (not knowing where is body is in space, or if somebody is close to him or actually touching his body) which caused him to hit other people. The little boy was letting off some steam in a bounce house by himself at an off-peak time of day, when another child entered the structure and took a ball from our client. Naturally, the 4 year old hit the other child. With no time to explain (and frankly, we do understand any form of hitting is socially unacceptable) the other child's parent began to yell judgements at our team member, assuming that she was the client's mother. Children with Autism have behaviors that are socially unacceptable, but they are not bad kids and you are not a bad parent because your child does these things.

You will most likely, at some point, be accused of having a problem with disciplining your child. Here's the thing: How you manage your child's behavior is nobody else's business. Other parents don't understand how far your child has come, or the lengths you have gone to to actually create behavioral boundaries for your child. They are unaware of the schedules you have on every wall at home, the sticker charts you're chipping away at every time your son makes eye contact and says, "Hello" to you instead of jumping straight into a conversation about train schedules or cell biology.

They won't understand that he just threw his shoe at you and told you that he hates you because he has seams in his socks and that is uncomfortable for him because his sensory system just doesn't work properly. They won't understand that he screamed with every step he had to take in shoes with those socks. Shoes that were too tight, shoes that were too loose, shoes where the velcro stopped sticking because he undid them and did them up way too many times to get it just right. They won't understand that he peed his pants on the airplane because he is afraid of the toilet, and he also doesn't always feel when his body needs to 'go'. They won't understand that he is singing an inappropriate song because he heard it once at summer camp and has a photographic memory - even though you try your best to limit his media input. They won't understand that he is singing the same line over and over because he likes the sound of those words, and that he is singing so loudly because he has no voice modulation.

The empathy that your child is lacking, will be given to you in double portion. You will most likely see everything through your child's eyes. You can not change the way he behaves, but you can help him to understand life, and encourage him to be who he is. Parenting isn't about fitting in with everyone else, but about loving your child in private, in public and in every day that he lives and breathes.