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.

Goady much, op?

I think the invisible "chav" parents link has already been explored here... look at how people are viewing these parents...

• comments about the area
• comments about whether or not the child really has a disability
• comments stating they did nothing to stop the child (when we absolutely do not know this to be true)
• comments about the big ring the child is wearing (bling = chav in so many eyes)
• comments stating the parents are exploiting their child because they spoke to a newspaper

If this family were better dressed, looked different, were shopping in a different place and were more able to work the press (rather than just sit there being written about) the response to this would be very different.

This story was a convenient excuse to display some very unpleasant attitudes around disability and class.

I absolutely agree with this.

I had to laugh at the comments about how the store is in an area where they're "used" to badly behaved children so are more tolerant. Seriously? We have had hassle from employees at Sainsburys (made a complaint), Tesco, and Asda about ds1's behaviour - and each and every time he was contained in a wheelchair and not actually touching anything, just loud as he was distressed. When we went to Waitrose, however, the employees were kind and patient. They didn't judge and they asked if everything was okay, offered to help, and were generally not shook up at all by his noise. For that alone, they get my business now. I suspect that flies in the face of the whole idea that certain stores are "used" to badly behaved children so are more tolerant, even if it is set in the whole class belief that Waitrose is more "middle class" than the other stores.

op you didn't open a debate
you stirred

Ignore the Frothers OP. Take heart that most people who posted on the thread actually agreed with you,- even parents who had Autistic children themselves.
nobody I know in real life would disagree either

'Frothers'

Well how very patronising of you, considering the very real struggles that posters have talked about wrt their children.

Take heart that someone really patronising agreed with you

Yes hazey. Very sympathetic eh.

Yes. People tend to associate with those who hold similar views to themselves.

So my friends are not similar to celticlass and the OP in their views.

:):):)

Funny that. My friends would also disagree with the OP and her views. But then, my friends know my dcs who has disabilities/SNs.

I (and my friends) would be more inclined to believe this scenario:

The child could have been with the parents, then broke away from them and ran off. Perhaps the parents were following him, talking to him to calm him, trying to stop him but not succeeding. Once he gets to the freezers, he is opening them and putting his hands in. Parents maybe near him, talking to him, encouraging him to move away from the freezers or preparing to physically intervene and the child senses that - he then starts banging on the freezer doors with his hand (and the flaming ring people keep going on about). Total time elapsed? Perhaps 3-4 minutes, tops.

than the scenario put forth by the OP and her "fans" as well as implied by the paper that the child was running riot throughout the store for ages while the parents apparently just stood by and either ignored it or watched it without doing anything whatsoever.

But then, we tend to go for logical rather than inflammatory.

Oh, sorry... almost forgot the

urgh.. my dcs who have disabilities/SNs. yeesh....

Actually I like to think a certain proportion of mumsnetters don't exist in real life. I prefer to believe that they are created in a petri dish in Mumsnet HQ laboratory, combining judgeyness, class superiority and ignorance in one perfect organism. They are then set free to infest the comments board of the Daily Mail, AIBU threads about disability and baby names and radio phone ins.

I see all the reasonable people have left the thread. Time to say ta ra I think.

I want to apologise if I came across as judgmental. I didn't mean to be.

bye!

now all the unreasonable people have left

i would rather be called a 'frother' than a bigot

anyway its the people who were outraged at the boy in the story who were frothing IMO.

There were two parents present. One could have been in control of the child.

Before one of my grandsons was diagnosed with Asperger's, my DH and I took him and his brother (something like 2 and 3yo) around a supermarket. Each sat in a trolley seat with me pushing one trolley and my DH pushing the other. They stood up in the seats, reached out and brought down a display of drinks in plastic bottles, removed the charity box at the checkout and one climbed out while I was looking for my purse. He never reached the ground. I can just say that it was a challenging experience but my DH and I both coped (one person to one child) so I don't see why two parents could not cope with one child.

Lambsie - The op was either questioning his disability or saying that having a disability is something to be ashamed of. Either of which are unpleasant views. The OP was doing neither, Lambsie. You decided to misinterpret their comments for your own reasons.

I see that none of my questions posed to Up have been answered yet. Would anyone else like to answer them?

I am so glad that all the unreasonable posters have left the thread . But then again Mumsnet wouldn't be Mumsnet without unreasonable posters, eh?

but my DH and I both coped (one person to one child) so I don't see why two parents could not cope with one child.

because....

not all people are the same
not all children are the same
not all disabilities are the same
not all circumstances are the same.

(an apparently unreasonable frother)

That's why we count on them to start inflammatory and disablist threads, eh? Just. Like. Clockwork. tick tick tick