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?

Still reading the thread, but wanted to point out that I've actually had a similar situation recently. Ds1 is 8yo and doesn't cope with the supermarket well at all. Generally I shop online during the summer holidays to avoid distressing him, but a few weeks ago I HAD to go into the supermarket to pick up a few things - very little cash and absolutely needed a few things that could wait until I had enough money in the account for an online shop.

Anyway, ds1 was all over the place, crying, shouting, flailing about by the time we got to the checkout. He was contained safely in an "older child wheelchair trolley" while I was checking out, but still noisy and distressed. The clerk said to him a couple times that he was being noisy and naughty. I finally snapped and said "look, he's autistic and just can't control himself right now. It doesn't help him to say that to him, it only makes it worse." She shook her head and said "it wouldn't happen in MY house." And while she was exchanging lovely judgemental and knowing nods with the person behind me in the queue, I had to tamp down the urge to throttle her. I finished up, got ds1 home, and then fired off an email to their corporate office (Sainsburys) with a complaint, which was then answered by email saying they had alerted the manager of the store, who then contacted me as well. I've filed a complaint with the individual store now. (I went through corporate, because I know that they then can't just sweep it under the carpet) I have had this kind of comment NUMEROUS times at this store and I refuse to go back there now. Appalling.

People never say "oh he's upset, you can go ahead." If I was in the shop on my own, I would happily let another parent go through ahead of me in the same situation (especially having been on the other side of it!!). They look at you and make nasty comments about horrible spoiled children and how children should be seen and not heard and how he needs a good smack. And it's always loud enough to be heard.

Oh bloody hell, Ham. Don't you realise that quite a lot of us here have kids who will never get to college? Never go into a supermarket without carers? Never be able to be independent? If you child has managed in mainstream school without a statement then that is great. Quite a lot of our children haven't managed that. Some even have struggled with special schools. My own ds was excluded from an autism specific unit at 6 because they couldn't handle him. At 14 he was excluded from his autism accredited specialist school because they had exhausted their knowledge and expertise. I don't thin Supernanny has a clue about autism.

I have 2 children on the spectrum, at opposite ends. At 13 ds's psychiatrist told us that he was the most complex and severe case of autism she had ever come across and recommended fulltime boarding education for him (and helped push for him to get it, along with SW) as there were no local facilities that we hadn't already tried. He can now cope with a short, specific trip to a quiet supermarket. He will never cope with doing a full weekly shop in a packed Tesco. No amount of firm handling will make this so. It takes 3 adults for ds to be able to go out. If he has a meltdown that is what is needed to keep him and others safe.

I have always been firm in my parenting style. Ds's twin sister, who has Aspergers, has had one true meltdown in her entire life when she was 3. She only has a problem if shops are very crowded so we avoid those times. She does get stressed out and suffers with anxiety but this is improving as she learns coping strategies. I never had to use any major firmness with her as I could explain things to her and we could talk things through.

saintly that video has me in tears, he looks like he's having a great time!

Autism is such a complicated thing to deal with, every child is so different that trial and error is the only way. My brother has Asperger's, the tough love approach worked for him and he now appears relatively normal, but there were years of screaming and door slamming and physically fighting to get to that point. He still has the odd meltdown, but it's very rare now. But we're lucky, he's capable of living a normal life, and I know there are lots of ASD kids who just can't do it. I have the utmost respect for all of you, you're all doing your best and that's all any parent can do.

youthecat your DS sounds just like mine. The psychologist who assessed my son last year said he was the most complex case that she had ever come across and that she couldn't see how any of the strategies she usually recommends would help. The psychologist carried out a very thorough assessment and concluded that my sons behaviours and complexities were an integral part of him and that school had identical problems as us at home despite them having a very high level of expertise and resources (very specialist SN school).

Missunreasonable, I have to say the change in ds and how well he copes day-to-day has been immense since he started his 24 hour curriculum. The people who work with him are amazing, patient and know when to take a step back so he can self-regulate. He is so happy now.

That's lovely to read yourcat

Thanks don't - surfing gives him a very special freedom that he doesn't get elsewhere.

This is ds doing things he couldn't have managed just a couple of years ago:

I just think it's naive to think we are all the same. My daughter is in the most complex class at her special school, six children in her class. Only two children still live at home full time (my daughter and another child) the rest are either full time residential or under shared care arrangements. I don't think she is at home because I tried harder, she is at home because she's easier to cope with in some ways, harder in others but I no longer have to work - which has helped. I have never thought to judge the others parents, I think it's bloody hard work, emotionally and physically and if home no longer works, it no longer works. As I said, all our realities are different.

Those photos are lovely, they gave me a happy fuzzy feeling

I have never thought to judge the others parents, I think it's bloody hard work, emotionally and physically and if home no longer works, it no longer works. As I said, all our realities are different.

Yes, yes x 1000%.

Totally agree.

I'm sorry you have been upset, Ham, but you have very clearly used phrases like you have to and it works. You have also said that other posters approaches were wrong.

Everyone gets that what you have done has worked for your children but they are all individuals and different parents promote independence in different ways depending on their parenting styles and their own children's needs. What is normalising autistic behaviour to you is meeting the needs of their child to someone else. We all have different experiences and perspectives.

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).

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!

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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!"

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

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.