Parents of a child with autism- I'd value your feedback

[Flounder2022]

Sorry this ended up longer than I expected!

I was at an interactive museum today with my son and his friend. They really wanted to experience one exhibit that a little girl was on - it involved a large screen with touch points that took you through the entire human body. It was quite detailed so lots to see but could only be used by one person at a time. The waited patiently for a good while- 10 mins initially. They then decided to go to another screen close by and returned about 3/4 mins later and again waited. All in all we waited approx 20 mins. It was clear we were waiting for that particular one as it was in a little room of its own and we waited at the door. Eventually I asked the dad is they would be much longer to which he replied yes most likely. I asked if there was any way we could have a turn for a few minutes. He said no as she had autism and wanted to stay on it. He then said I could say it to her if I wanted but that he wouldn't be forcing her to move.

I told him I wouldn't not be saying it to her as she was not my child nor was I asking him to force her but maybe he could have a conversation with her. I'll admit my back was up by this point, not because of what he said but how he said it. He was so rude and dismissive. (the above is not the entirety of the conversation but the main jist of it.)

He then told me he was going to speak to management about me and walked off. We left the area then as waiting any longer was futile. Shortly afterwards I saw him re-enter the area (I have no idea if he spoke to staff). I approached him and said that had he acknowledged our presence, that he was aware we were waiting and explained that they might be there a while we could have moved on. He said we should have done so anyway as his child was entitled to spend as long as she wished on the exhibit. I told him consideration for others (from him) was not too much to ask.

Was I out of line here? I'm very aware that he angered me a lot with his attitude and the dismissive way he spoke to me that I may not be clearly seeing the situation.

Thanks!

I have two children with autism and I’d certainly not allow them to ‘hog’ an interactive space for as long as they wanted. It’s not always easy to move them on, I won’t lie there’s times only bribes have worked but they don’t have more of a right to use it than anyone else. But of course it was a dad issue, not child issue here.

@cyncope you ok hun 🤨

Not quite. What she was doing was using socially acceptable code to remind him that he should not hog a public exhibit. The right thing to do was to have said they would be only a few more minutes and to get his child to finish up. It's not ok "to be long" when others are waiting.

@Wenfy
Your attitude is the entitled one!

It is not entitled to expect someone not to hog something for 20 minutes.

As autistic people we have to learn how to live in the society we are in, and that includes not selfishly hogging public exhibits.

My son is 5 and has ASD and is high functioning and verbal. In similar situations I would give a time limit, explain we can have another go later (in the example you describe), he might stand and watch other kids doing it, but ultimately I enforce turn taking. He may not always like it, but it’s a skill he needs to learn.

If the child is profoundly autistic and non verbal that’s a much tougher situation. On the one hand it’s unfair to monopolise something, on the other hand life is so hard for those kids and parents I’d try to be understanding.

Sounds like an arsehole and only his own child matters. No consideration for others. And from the looks of it, there's a few on this thread too 🙄

She wasn't hogging it, she was using it.
A detailed exhibit about the entire human body sounds like it could easily take more than 20 minutes to use.

Good god you give the rest of us a bad name - both SEN parents and ones of toddlers. Reeks of ‘how dare you make the day difficult for me and mine by a perfectly reasonable request’.

ASD mum here. He was out of order. There is no way I would allow my son to monopolise in this manner. He has had to learn to take turns like everybody else. The father was the problem here and he's doing his child a disservice with his attitude.

And from the other side of things an autistic child would often find it very frustrating to wait for 20 minutes to use an exhibit when there was only one person ahead of them. The lack of awareness of the other father could equally spoil a trip out for another family.

Damned right I’ll be entitled for my kids but you need to remember that OP was the one who rocked up to a free exhibit with no time limits and decided to cut off fun for a disabled child so her kids could benefit in what she decided was a ‘reasonable’ time frame. There are lots of other exhibits there she could have distracted her kids with rather than target the only one the disabled child wanted.

It's people like you who give SN families a bad name. What a dreadful attitude.

You cannot be serious

It's a tough one because he should have let them have a go, but I don't really blame him for being defeatist without knowing how his day/week/month panned out. It could be that she'd already had an hour long meltdown waiting for her turn, after asking specifically for it every day for weeks. She may have waited way longer than your boys were waiting for her turn. Imagine dealing with meltdown upon meltdown for this particular activity and she finally gets on it, is engaged with it, and you can relax and less than ten minutes have passed and a group come and stand and wait for their turn. I'd just let him have his selfish moment rather than trigger a meltdown and come back later. She will have a meltdown coming off that activity, your kids probably won't if they don't get to go on. When you are exhausted with an autistic child you don't often make reasonable decisions. Let your anger go.

As a reverse of this, if the autistic child wanted to use the ‘20 min+’ exhibit and an NT child or adult was… making full use of it, then what? Would you deal with the huge wait to use it and the inevitable meltdown that would bring? Or would you ask the people if looking at the human body really needed the equivalent of a lunch break to fully inspect it and would they mind kindly letting someone else have a turn?

I'd have sone the same and im a mum to an autistic 4yo who has no awareness of other children, other people in general, waiting or taking turns. I always encourage now and next and countdown timers I'm not ev3n sure he understands but if I tell him he's got until we get to 10 or 20 then we have to move to next then I do it especially if there's another child, if he becomes upset then I have to deal with that as a parent. He can't and won't be taught to share or have manners because he us unable to let me know if he understands or he will scream and be ome upset if moved on just no. Good on you for saying something he was out of order

You shouldn’t of kept on at him. You didn’t need to go back up to him again. He already said no he wasn’t moving so that was that.

There was no time limits so the child can spend aslong as they like on it and if she has a special int in it I wouldn’t remove my child either, specially if it would cause a meltdown.

How do you know she hadn't already had a long wait for her turn?

Ah here, that’s out of order. I did not rock up and decide to cut off anyone’s fun or target anyone or anything.

You would move on and show them other things for more then a couple of minutes…

Nah mate, using misogynistic term’s because a woman was reasonably frustrated by an entitled man and his attitude problem is the issue with society. You accept her request was reasonable, we all can see his response was not. He just didn’t want to deal with a meltdown, he didn’t want to make an adjustment for others, he hadn’t fully planned the day around his child’s needs. That’s not the ops problem.

It is part of a social contract that if a museum is open say 10-5 and has say 5 really popular exhibits, you don't spend more than 10-15 minutes on it to give all museum goers, especially other children, a turn.

Sometimes you might have to come back another day. Or get to the museum early and go straight to the favoured exhibit.

As parents, we should teach children that museums aren't first come first served and that turn taking is expected. It is not like the front seat of the bus where you can stay until you finish your journey. It's more like a ride in an amusement park. Your turn finishes, you get off and the next people waiting in the queue have a turn.

@Wenfy
I will fight for my child too, but that doesn't give me free reign to be selfish.

And what if they still weren’t done when you got back? They may really want to immerse themselves in the exhibition…