AIBU to expect parents to keep autistic son safe in supermarket?

[middleagedbread]

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2936089/Parents-seven-year-old-autistic-boy-asked-leave-Iceland-not-controlling-son-running-aisles.html

I've checked and can't see this thread started anywhere else. I think that the security guard was within his rights to ask both parents to supervise their son or leave store and I don't see where they were being discriminated against. The £20 'apology' from the store after they complained isn't enough it seems; they want com-pen-say-shun. Cue sadfaced pics in article. I am certain that, should their son have injured himself while not being supervised, these same parents would be featuring in an article about 'unsafe supermarket injured my child'.

Parents of autistic children have enough to cope with without these sort of negative articles.

oh come on "trash a business"
really

And knowing what that area is like and if they were kicking out every badly behaved child they would have no customers left! It would have to have been pretty bad and the parents pretty unresponsive for it to get to the stage where they were asked to leave.

"knowing what that area is like" ?? Wow. And you say I'm making assumptions??

The scenario I put forth is perfectly plausible. How do I know? Because it's fairly similar to what's happened with my ds1 on a couple occasions.

And yes, nearly all of us have sympathy for parents of child with a disability

"trash a business" LOL

There may be sympathy for parents of a child with a disability, but in this day and age there should be more understanding for the child, and for the challenges their parents face.
Sympathy is a very selfish and pointless emotion.q

Alice, in describing that potential situation with your ex (post late last night), he is not parenting, which is what causes the problem for you. I'd be quite happy to judge him to the end of the earth for how much harder he's made things for you.

ouryve judge away on him , no worries.

I was merely pointing out that people that saw us in the supermarket might think "well, why don't they split up - her do the shop and him stay home with the dcs" or whatever divide of duties they may come up with.... but that it simply wasn't an option for me. I was well and truly stuck. Lots of families have dynamics that we cannot understand just from looking at them in the supermarket. I just think it's important for people to remember that.

I also agree with what MrsD said earlier - families that have children with SNs/disabilities have every right to be out and about in public, doing things as a family. I really despise people saying "oh well one should have stayed home with that dc, while the other parent took the other dcs out." Nonsense.

personally I think sympathy/empathy is infinitely preferable to being judged as a crap parent

bottom line is the child was either banging as he was distressed or banging because he is sensory seeking ie he has pretty severe SN.

In neither of these cases is perfunctorily throwing him out the right thing to do, and in neither of these cases is the behaviour caused by crap parenting.

I'm making assumptions because I know that area and I walk through it every day? It's a big improvement from the old market which was basically a haven for drug addicts and alcoholics but it still has very bad problems with anti-social behaviour.

I've been in that very shop when my child had a meltdown. I've seen other people with kids in there having meltdowns. The shop has said that this child was on the verge of breaking very expensive equipment and causing a danger to himself and other people. From my own personal experience I do not believe that this shop would have been heavy handed, children running around screaming and having tantrums is a normal occurence in that shop and nobody bats an eyelid. They say that they had to remove the child because he was causing a danger and I believe them.

I don't know what trying to break a freezer with a heavy ring can be called except for trashing. I'm bemused as to what people on this thread expected Iceland to do. Wait until he actually smashed the freezer, injured himself and other people? Just shrug and say, fine, smash our equipment, it's okay because he's disabled? I think in this instance Iceland probably showed a more responsible attitude towards him than his own parents did. He was doing something dangerous, they removed him from the situation where the danger was. If he'd injured himself and other people there would be a sadface story about that so Iceland can't win really can they?

Well what do you want them to do Fanjo? These are people who work in a supermarket, they are not trained in special needs, they have no knowledge of what to do. It's not their responsibility to calm down a child in distress. There only responsibility is to keep their customers safe, therefore if a child is doing something dangerous they have every right to ask him to leave to remove the danger.

I'm making assumptions because I know that area and I walk through it every day? It's a big improvement from the old market which was basically a haven for drug addicts and alcoholics but it still has very bad problems with anti-social behaviour.

Well, hey... if the area has a rep, then of course everyone in that post code must be a wrong 'un then.

I don't necessarily think they are crap parents. I think that they may well be parents who are trying hard in a very difficult situation. But I think it's unfair for them to smear the shop and their staff when they were doing something fairly reasonable in asking them to leave because they couldn't stop their son from doing things which were a danger to him and other people so at that moment in time it wasn't a suitable environment for him to be in. I just think it's a shame that the parents didn't recognise that themselves before they had to be told.

Do you know the area Alice? Have you ever been there? I'm pointing out that it's not the kind of shop where they are intolerant of badly behaved children. There are plenty of them. It would have to be pretty damn serious for them to start booting kids out. Getting sarky because you can't really argue with that is a bit undignified.

so they don't have a bad day. when the SG is a stand in, or having a shite day,

It doesn't matter Moan. You are making assumptions based simply on the area. That's wrong all the way around.

As with many posters on here, my son has ASD (Aspergers), he is also prone to meltdowns and running amok in public places. This does not mean that I tolerate it, I try and manage it, not always successfully but mostly. He is getting better as he is getting older. I most certainly wouldn't go to the press, this is utterly ridiculous. They are just embarrassing themselves.

As with many posters on here, my son has ASD (Aspergers), he is also prone to meltdowns and running amok in public places. This does not mean that I tolerate it, I try and manage it, not always successfully but mostly. He is getting better as he is getting older. I most certainly wouldn't go to the press, this is utterly ridiculous. They are just embarrassing themselves.
Couldn't have put it better myself, Mrs C. Bringing up a child with ASD is hard work, no one is denying that, but it is up to us as parents to teach our children what is acceptable (and safe) behaviour. My DS is 20 now and I am certain sure that if I had not gone over the same ground, day after day, after day, he would not be the adult he is today.

True but they don't reach that point overnight. It can take ages for a child to "get" appropriate behaviour for a particular situation. In the meantime, parents still have to buy groceries and are actually still allowed out as a family in public.

Not all kids can learn safe behaviour you know.

Plus what alice said

If he is running around banging things he is likely to be quite different from a child with aspergers IME.

Once again people shouldn't judge what they don't understand.

I am assuming this because it said he wasn't going around having a bad meltdown so i assume he was sensory seeking. Which IME is more.common in classic autism.

I won't be able to post much more today.

If people with kids with HFA and AS stopped judging those who may have lower functioning kids it would be great.

My DD poos on floor as she is unable to understand it's wrong. It's a spectrum and not all kids understand about good behaviour.

We know not where this boy falls but IMO It sounds like his needs could be quite severe.

So people should think before judging.