To ask you all

[hanaka88]

That if you see a child in tesco on the floor screaming and head banging with his mum trying to get him into some sort of safe restraint while being bitten and nipped to please walk round, don't try and squeeze your trollie and small child through the smallest gap imaginable past them, please ignore it, don't make comments about naughtiness and tantrums, tut or shake your head.

Please just try to understand that it's hard enough watching your child have a total sensory overload and meltdown, harming himself without other people making it more stressful.

I know it's inconvenient and I'm very sorry to impose on your shopping trip, but sometimes I need to buy milk.

Thing is the child may have autism or another disability like mine, or may just be having a tantrum. Children have tantrums. Just walk away if it bugs you.

because they need to learn how to behave in certain situations and we need to explore ways and strategies in which we can make these situations work for her and err no i can't get someone to watch her, my severely disabled child, for 10 minutes. Do you suggest I stay indoors with her forever? and all children need to learn how to behave and some of those children need longer to learn. It's a diverse world we live in and we are all entitled to get the best out of life and to learn from our experiences within it.

I always try and give a smile to the mum which hopefully says... yup been there, hope it stops soon, have a hug from me

I would have done that too before joining MN

But since being here, I keep reading about 'sneers', 'smirks' and 'filthy looks'...and I'm sure a lot of them are just well meaning smiles.

We had no milk. I can't keep him locked up. One day he's gonna be an adult and what's he going to do if he can't go into a shop? 80% of the time he's absolutely fine. But today they had changed the aisles again.

And no I have no one to watch him for 10 minutes. DP is on holiday and doesn't live with us anyway he's busy caring for his mum at home most days or working.

I am not being funny either, but I do wonder WHY and HOW people cannot work out or see that there is 'something else' going with the child. I understand to a point that disabilities can be invisible, but surely there comes a point where you would understand a 7 year old upwards wouldn't be throwing themselves on the floor by the sausages

Worra I wouldn't even notice a sneer or filthy look in that situation. I'm too busy trying to restrain. It's only people who make themselves obvious that I'd even notice

hanaka88, i have the same problem with the changing if aisles. I try and planahead, so i will go at a quiet time and we will plan which way around we will walk etc, but sometimes there is something unexpected and it's like a bloody train crash coming towards you in slow motion and you can't stop it! We went to sainsbury's recently and sainsburys is ususally fine and we were going to buy a waybullo magazine, all fine, except when we got there they had ran out of waybullo magazines Nightmare!

Againcourt I'm not sure. I don't think there's enough awareness. I'm organising a big walk for autism awareness day and doing a talk in my sons special school to parents but I doubt that'll even make a dint I'm awareness levels

Exactly hanaka, I think sometimes people are just understandably paranoid when they think people are sneering at them.

Againcourt I repeat 'they have changed the aisles around' over and over. But I hardly ever know until I get in. Wish they had a big sign up 'aisles changed again' haha

To be honest worra I couldn't care less if people stare. I have stared before trying to suds out if I could help in some way...and besides, screaming child headbutting a floor is going to attract attention. I just hate tutting, comments, and today's trollie lady

Aww bless you. It's really horrible isn't it? I think DS went through a tantrum phase quite early as he was around 18 months when they really kicked off and all the usual methods of distracting etc stopped working. So, I chose to ignore where possible (he wasn't a danger to himself though as with your DS so not suggesting you do that of course). They went on for about 2 months and the amount of comments I had in that time about "ignoring a crying baby" and "not fit to be a mother" along with the tutts and funny looks were unreal! I was quite often upset by it and dreaded going out.

The last time I remember was in Morrisons and he'd plonked himself on the floor refusing to move and making grunting sounds to try and annoy me. So I stood a bit further away and pretended not to be taking any notice. A really nice lady walked past and I instantly thought "oh here we go" but she smiled and politely said "been there, done that". It made me feel a WHOLE lot better!

Luckily they stopped quite quickly and until the other day when he screamed and cried all day because I had my nieces stay over (jealousy I think!) I've not had a tantrum at all since July last year. But I'm hoping and praying there's not another phase of them to come...

It makes me laugh in a sense though because now everyone makes comments on what a lovely, well behaved, pleasant little boy he is and what a good job I must be doing with him. Yet, I know full well that should that lovely, well behaved, pleasant little boy have a tantrum at any given time, I'll then be the worst mother walking!

I remember in Morrisons dd was having a massive tantrum and was actually far to flipping old to get away with it tbh. I was getting the usual stares when suddenly she decided to swear at me-VERY LOUDLY- she had never done this before and i was gutted and expecting a total judging i braced myself as a woman and her teenage son approached me. Samiling the lady shared some sympathetic words and her and her son then helped me to the checkout and with the packing. I was amazed,its the single most lovely thing ive ever experienced. Thanks those people

I tend to find people do stare anyway, I am completely oblivious to staring now! I just find it upsetting when my dd screams, unintentionally (which she does, she shrieks out of nowhere) and you get someone going 'oh good grief, did you hear that? my god why can't she control her' etc etc at the top of their voice. It's completely unnecessary and often makes the situation worse because it aggravates the person you are with, my dd in my case, and because of her age it usually results in the person getting a two fingered salute off her

Good luck with the talk at school hanaka88 :)

People can be arseholes, we've had adults step over my niece when she's having a seizure so they can get a closer look, shop staff at lightwater valley of all places ended up forming a barricade for a while because she'd collapsed underneath the thingy where the photos are viewed and a crowd of people tried to step over her so they could view their pics on the board, she was out of the seizure but was still unconscious.

OTOH my (very tall 10 year old who has autism ) regularly attacks me in public, just last night when we were getting some shopping he punched me in the face, pulled my face down to his and tried to bite me on the cheek, yet no one's ever commented. People HAVE made unkind comments towards/ about him but never when he's belting ten bells of hell out of me

Did have a police car pull up and offer me a lift home when he'd managed to pull me down on the floor once tho

Againcourt. I've had a woman once scream at my DSs friend (aspergers) in a park cafe for 'bursting her eardrums' I calmly explained he was disabled and couldn't control it. She said 'well he hurt my ears' I said 'he hurt mine too but I can't explain to him that it's inappropriate to scream when an adult is doing it too' then I got the old 'well he doesn't look disabled' line all fun.

Sorry you've had a rough time :(

A couple of years ago I may well have been a bit judgy, I'm ashamed to say. MN has really opened my eyes to reality.

Poor you, it's no fun, and people can be so unhelpful!
If it will make you smile, I'll point out, that this thread 'to ask you all" is in the active box, directly above "to fuck the fuck off". It made me chuckle! {{hug}}

Cheesetoastie... Really??? That's disgusting! I'm sorry her fit made them wait for their photos I just can't imagine what some people are thinking sometimes. I'm glad MN has helped get awareness out

Saggy...that is funny :)

Any problem they have belongs to them and them alone, repeat repeat repeat. Next time, grab their ankle as they squeeze through

S'pose everyones just in there own little world, they looked pretty ashamed when my sis went banshee at them.

Last year a disabled woman flung my nephew out the way as he ran into the disabled loo ( he has autism too, non verbal and is prone to soiling himself aged 10, course he's too old to go into the ladies and still needs help so he uses the disabled loo ) lovely scrap followed when the woman came out ( of course, kids can't have disabilities etc and so on )

I hid behind a bush, scoffing a mars bar in shame staying well out of it as the other two sisters tore ten strips off the woman. Tbh due to a combination of tunnel of vision and not giving a shit I rarely notice staring / judgey hoiking, plus i'm a lazy cow, I really can't be bothered getting wound up. It's very that I ever do and that's only ever been because of genuine, out and out pisstaking which may result in a snappy, barbed comment.

Only advice I can offer is to ignore, carry on with your day, they'll still be arseholes whether you get wound up about it or not !

my son has austim, and change really effect his behaviour.

how i manage my weekly shop is by him having his own shopping list a laminated a4 sheet of paper he has his own toy trolley and i bought velco strip and he has pictures of foods to stick on the paper....that way every shopping trip is the same.

Hi hanaka, sorry you've had crap to deal with. People are, in the main, ignorant. When DD2 was in her transport incubator, some folk were trying to look under her cover complete with "Aw, there's a baby in there" comments. How I didn't scream 'fuck off this ain't a zoo' at them, I do not know.

I will endeavour to offer my help with a tantruming child from now on, to help spread a little good. And hopefully get some in return the next time DD1 has a meltdown.

Under her cover?? Seriously?