Woman in sainsburys with autistic son....

[Pinot4me]

I joined a queue in sainsburys earlier today. There was a woman with a baby in a buggy (probably about 2 yrs old) and a boy of about 7/8. The boy was really agitated and playing up and the mum asked me if I would mind queuing at a different till as her son was autistic and was having a really bad day and he hated having people behind him (or crowding him). Tbh, I didn't mind moving at all as I could see she was struggling, so went to the till on the next aisle. The same thing kept happening as it's a big, busy sainsburys and, for obvious reasons, the queue she was in was the shortest. She politely asked everyone who joined he queue to move away. There were 2 people in front of her...I just can't believe that nobody let her go in front of them...she was really struggling and the boy was getting more and more distressed. I've never come across anything like this before...the cashier could see what was happening. Should she have offered help? It made me realise that we take he simplest things for granted. Surely someone should have offered to let her go through first? I definitely would have done if I had been in front of her...would you?

[YouTheCat]

I remember waiting in a queue in Superdrug once next to a mum and 2 young lads. One of the lads was clearly on the spectrum and was stimming and making some agitated noises. I didn't try and engage with the lad as I thought it might make him worse but I did have a nice chat with their mum. It cost nothing to be a bit understanding. It was very clear the child has having problems.

[AliceDoesntLiveHereAnymore]

Delphinium if it helps, mine would be the one screaming. He's usually easy to spot. Then of course, you get those people that think they know better and step in and actually try to verbally discipline him or shame him into settling. Those are the ones I respond to through gritted teeth telling them to back the fuck off.. please. (See? I say please - I'm polite! )

[Delphiniumsblue]

Having read through it all it appears to me that supermarket staff need training and the obvious answer is to quickly open another lane and let the one family through quickly. Thinking back to when my sons worked on the checkouts of major supermarkets as teenagers they wouldn't have had a clue how to help and, as weekend staff, they had no training other than how to operate the till.
If you are in a busy supermarket you have the whole cross section of the public and you are going to get all reactions from the understanding to the 'give them a big smack' brigade- with the vast majority being totally disinterested in the middle.
I would move, but I can see that many wouldn't.
To be totally honest, if I was miles away in a daze doing my shop, it would take me a while to realise that it was out of the normal and I needed to get involved with a helpful response.

[adrianna22]

I don't bother with the supermarket anymore. DS has autism, but his only issue when it comes to supermarket, is the constant picking.. i.e. sweets, snacks, mags, toys and throws a right tantrum if I refuse.

It doesn't help that his dad always buys him what he wants.

Though he can wait in a Que for about an hour, though at times will get bored and moan.

[ouryve]

Bring him here, Saintly. There's an airfield a couple of miles away and we often have light aircraft either taking people for jumps or doing loop the loops, overhead.

[ouryve]

All so true, Doris.

Alice, I prefer to go when it's quiet to avert meltdowns of my own :o Supermarkets make me punchy, at the best of times. Supermarkets plus over stimulated boys, plus said noisy motorbike would probably have me on the floor, sobbing all over my carefully written by aisle shopping list.

[saintlyjimjams]

I think one of our hardest to deal with sensory issues was light aircraft. Ds1 was fine is a ruddy great jet/concord flew overhead, but a light 2 seater aeroplane would lead to huge meltdowns. They were so quiet and unnoticeable (to me) it actually took me a while to work out what the trigger was. Shortly afterwards we went to the beach and a light aircraft, out on a beautiful sunny day..... circled the beach repeatedly. AAAAGH!

So yes sometimes there's not a lot you can do to avoid trouble (and how the hell do you desensitise your child to light aircraft? )

[AliceDoesntLiveHereAnymore]

doris true. I despair some days when people go on about how "oh you must teach them this or you must teach them that, as I did..." or better yet "you just need to avoid taking them during busy times or don't take them places they can't cope with..."

Yeah, okay, I'll just become a hermit and not ever go to the supermarket or out of the house. There's no real way of guaranteeing that even if the supermarket is not crowded that something won't set him off. We could be walking through the carpark to go in and a loud motorcycle drives by. That's it. Ds1 is immediately on high alert, anxiety through the roof. And the supermarket is now going to be treated to a meltdown. But I need milk and bread and a few other things. If I try to take him home now, he'll have a meltdown as I'm changing our plans. If I take him into the supermarket, he'll have a meltdown as he's already anxious and won't cope well.

So if he's going to have a meltdown anyway, I might as well get what I need to as quickly as possible and get through it and get home. I just try to ignore the whispers and people shaking their heads and pointing (yes, people actually point! apparently they're not aware that it's rude!) and making nasty comments about badly behaved children. Never mind that he's shaking, and that his eyes are swinging wildly about, and it's patently obvious to anyone with a brain that this child is UPSET. He is instantly labelled as a "naughty child" and tutted at.

[Eliza22]

Beautifully put, Doris. Thank you.

[Dayshiftdoris]

Is it not bad enough that our children' difficulties are not wholly recognised or understood by the rest of society without parents of children with autism judging others on their parenting of their children with autism

I have a child, considered high functioning in mainstream but with an overlying anxiety disorder.

He has meltdowns in supermarkets, on occasion, usually out of the blue despite an overarching aim of supporting his independence long term.

What I do is right for us. Some of the principles might help others and I learnt them from other parents. However, far be it from me to judge another for how they manage their child's needs.

I now have a wide circle of friends who have children across the 'spectrum'...
Every single one of them is unique.
Every single one of them surprises us all the time.
Every single parent wants the very best for their child and loves them unconditionally.

Do you have to play my parenting is better than yours? Empathy costs us nothing but is worth so much

[ChoosandChipsandSealingWax]

(I'm not suggesting it was OK for DS to hit her btw. Just this when I tried to explain she wasn't interested and walked off in the middle of the explanation. I couldn't follow her as trying to help DS not go into meltdown).

[ChoosandChipsandSealingWax]

Yes on the whole people don't help, just assume DS is being naughty.

A lot of people don't really want to know/hear even when you do try and explain (for those upthread who were saying "why don't you just tell them" - if the meltdown isn't too severe for that of course). Eg yesterday we were walking in the street and it suddenly got busy and DS couldn't cope with sudden influx of people and hit the nearest person (not hard at all - more a vertical "keep away" warding off pat). I of course apologised but she got all huffy that DS (he's 5) hadn't himself apologised - he'd lost his speech by that point as he was agitated and struggling not to go into meltdown - I said he had autism and difficulty talking but she just didn't seem to hear/want to understand - just walked off huffing to her friend about how rude DS had been not to say sorry.

[Pixel]

The other problem of course is that it doesn't take much to go backwards. So true. We'd actually got ds to the stage where we could manage short journeys without the Houdini harness if I had someone else in the car just in case (and his school never used one at all in the minibus). Half a term with a new --clueless- escort and his behaviour had deteriorated so much that not only were we back to using the harness in our car but the taxi firm was refusing to take him to school!

I took ds to the supermarket today and he was totally hyper the whole time, (I actually still feel a bit battered, he's not at all violent but very sensory-seeking). This thread made me realise that the checkout is now the easiest part of the experience when it used to be the worst. How/when did that happen? This is the problem, you work at solving one issue and another one pops up in its place. It's very wearing .

[Owllady]

You need to complain, honestly, even if it's only by email each time. They need to be disciplined. It's completely inappropriate and not at all professional.

I only had one comment in asda once about the disabled trolley, she (the person on customer services who I I asked to unlock it)said I was lazy. I took her name and spoke to the manager and she received a written warning and was put on some awareness training. Apparently.

[AliceDoesntLiveHereAnymore]

I have had more negative comments from the employees at Sainsburys, Tescos, and Asdas. I suppose it's not a coincidence that these supermarkets are generally more crowded, which of course means he struggles more with sensory overload. He does marginally better at Waitrose (and they have yet to EVER make a snarky comment), so I do tend to aim their direction when he's with me, unless money happens to be very very tight that week.

It's unreal the number of checkout clerks that have asked me very personal questions and point blank asked why he is in a wheelchair or asked about his disabilities. Honestly, whether or not they are trying to be polite, do they think it's appropriate? professional? Would you ask an adult why THEY are in a wheelchair? Why should I divulge his medical information to a stranger? And in front of him as well, like he's not even there?? And in front of other strangers in the queue?? Just maddening!! Just let me pay for my shopping and leave, without putting me on the spot please and making me say "really, it's not your business." because it really ISN'T their business, but then I feel like I look nasty for saying so.

[Owllady]

I worked as a manager in food retail (and worked in various retail prior to that) and if a member of my staff had behaved like that they would have received a disciplinary. It's just not acceptable. It was in our code of conduct regarding all sorts of stuff regarding these issues. I suppose it depends where you shop though.

I didn't work at waitrose by the way, it was the opposite end of the spectrum :o

[PurpleBoot]

YY to supermarket employees IME not often providing a lot of positive assistance. Dd2 (13) is not diagnosed autistic, however she has profound learning disabilities and anxiety, and has very loud, vocal meltdowns in supermarkets. Having been directed by an employee to the 'autistic chair' , she then commented loudly to her colleague about dd's screaming. I usually end up charging round the shop, saying loudly to dd, "Look, all the people are staring"! One woman actually came up to me once and said "I'm not staring!"

[ouryve]

Only halfway through this thread. My boys are used to supermarkets and 9 times out of 10, everything goes pretty smoothly (I can never take them alone - only with DH and we either take a boy each or DH takes both of them, while I do the actual shopping bit).

That 10% can go spectacularly tits up, for many reasons.

I think this is why you're getting a hard time, Ham. You have no idea whether this mother was having one of her 10% days in an otherwise OK experience, or whether she'd spent 3 years getting her child to the point where they could go round a supermarket, but hadn't yet been able to carry off the bit at the checkout where you need to stand still and can no longer wander around and look at things or whether her actions were unnecessary because she was worried unduly about what might happen. The last scenario is possibly the least likely, but not entirely unlikely in a mum who is frazzled and has hardly slept for a week.

[Pinot4me]

I am the OP. Thank you all for your comments and views. I'm so glad I posted. I feel like I've really learned something. I knew absolutely nothing about Autism and I admit, in the past, have been guilty of thinking a child was just 'playing up'. Obviously, this was not the case yesterday as the mum explained to each and every one of us why she was asking us to move , so we were all well aware that her son was autistic. Let's hope that others reading this who are equally as 'ignorant' about the condition as me will learn something from it and not pre-judge again.
To the woman who was peed off at the way I phrased the title of this thread, sorry, I can't remember your name, I apologise. I meant no disrespect or harm.

[AliceDoesntLiveHereAnymore]

To be fair, having gotten a lot of negative reactions from supermarket employees, the last thing I would likely do is ask them for assistance. Possibly counterproductive, I know, but it just feels like asking for criticism.

I'll admit that numerous bad experiences has most likely coloured my opinion on this.

[NinjaLeprechaun]

If she lets customer services know when she goes in they'll help her
It's always possible that the woman being discussed in the OP didn't realize it was going to be a problem until she got in the checkout with her son. Maybe he copes with supermarkets more often than not but was just having a bad day.

I have sensory processing issues (undiagnosed, but very real) and severe anxiety w/panic attacks (diagnosed) but I usually do a reasonable imitation of a functioning adult because I know my limits. Most of the time.
About 60% of the time I can handle a trip to the supermarket, maybe 30% of the time I know I'll have a problem before I walk in the door - unfortunately, online shopping is not an option where I live - and in those cases I just don't. But the rest of the time I think I'll be fine until I'm in the middle of it. And that's assessing my own state of mind - assessing another person is a whole different level of complicated.
Also, I don't know how other people react, but when I'm in the middle of it, it simply wouldn't occur to me to ask for help after things have already started to go wrong.

[saintlyjimjams]

But before you can teach that you need some ability to sit for half a minute & indicate cards etc - so if someone said their child wasn't at that level I would agree it wasn't going to work for them at that time.

[saintlyjimjams]

Sometimes things can work after a break as well. We first tried teaching 'yes & no (hold up a picture of a dog say 'is this a chair' physically prompt to yes/no cards, repeat x 10000) when ds1 was about eight and he didn't have a clue. So I binned it, revisited about a year/18 moths later & he got it within 2 days. Obviously some other sort of development had gone on in the meantime.

Something like that is IMO worth coming back to because it revolutionised our communication with him & gave him much more agency over his life.

[AliceDoesntLiveHereAnymore]

I think it's less stressful for other parents to simply say "I've tried this this and this... however this in particular is what worked for us. Not sure if any of these things will help you, but there you go." That's generally what I do if someone asks. I give them not only what worked, but what didn't work for us as well simply because it's worth recognising that just because it didn't work for us - well, that doesn't mean it won't work for them!

[saintlyjimjams]

Yup - ds1 is also in a very complex class (6 kids 6 plus staff members). Last year he had a boy in his class who when younger looked a dream - quite easy to take places & doing well, much less feral than ds1 at the time. Things changed -& he became incredibly complex & ended up very quickly needing resi & a 24 hour curriculum. The year before the same thing happened to a different boy in his class. I am well aware of the tightrope we walk with ds1 & also that a lot of outcomes are out of my control. I'm just grateful really when it is working.

Lovely photos youthecat. And when it stood working I hope families get the intervention that's needed quickly (my own experience this summer suggests not).