Torn on this. Autistic little lad in restaurant.

[EggsBenedick]

Hi all,

I firstly want to make clear that I am not wanting this to be a bunfight or an ableist type of thread. I'm genuinely interested to hear people's views on this, as the family in question have asked to put in a complaint to the restaurant along with them.

We were eating an all you can eat type place, mostly Indian / Bangladeshi cuisine. I've added this as this may be relevant from a culture perspective.

It's a nice place, not somewhere too posh but not your run of the mill everything you can eat for a tenna place. Was quite busy in there too.

Seated next to us was a family of 3, with a little lad about aged 8 or 9. After he came back with his plate of food he took his jumper and T shirt off. People were looking over but the parents didnt seem bothered by it.

A member of staff came over and asked the parents if the boy could put his top back on. The member of staff was pretty polite initially. The parents refused to ask the boy to put his top back on. The staff member then went to get another member of staff, who came over and said he just put his top back on during the meal or they would have to leave. The mum then said to the waiter 'if we put his top on he will just scream the place down and ruin everything for everyone'. And explained that the child is autistic.

The parents made no effort to put the top back on the boy.
The staff member said to the family that they would have to eat quickly and leave. By this point the mother was visibly upset and indirectly spoke to us saying 'I wish my son could just be accepted.'

The boy was completely topless in the middle of the restaurant with lots of other diners around.
They had a few mouthfuls and came over to our table and asked if we would leave a Google review complaining about their time at the restaurant and how they aren't inclusive or family friendly.

AIBU to be torn in this? I'm genuinely intrigued to hear people's opinions on this. I could see how difficult it was for the mum. But on one hand I think the parents should've at least tried to put the T shirt on the child as it's not appropriate for a child of that age to be topless in a restaurant. But, the child shouldn't be confined to their home to eat. I would be concerned about strangers / men looking at my semi - naked child most of all.

I don't think I am going to do a review as I can see it from the restaurants POV also. I said to the mum that I was sorry she had such a stressful time. She clearly needed support. The dad didn't say or do a lot which was most helpful!

Indeed. I think, when you strip it all back, humans (most of us) mean no ill will, but we do have this intrinsic need for orderliness, that can perhaps make us a bit anally retentive around rules. And we're all so wrapped up in ourselves and our own perceived problems that it can be a challenge to put yourself in the shoes of another.
I hope the lad is okay, I hope he was blissfully unaware, and I hope he has good people around him.

@Rosscameasdoody the issue is , in most of your arguments you're talking in absolutes and advocating (even if intentionally) inclusion for all ,no matter what. This kind of thing, like I said to Iris in a previous post end up predominantly excluding the very people/children you're advocating for.

I'll give another concrete example, where while I completely understand the difficulty of the parent, another ND kid ended up excluded and missing out.

I work with kids and we take out children with SEND and/or SEMH on outings and activities. For some of these kids(for various reasons), going out with us is the only opportunity they have to experience and try some of these places .

Kid 1 at a jumping/bouncy place. He is on a beam enjoying himself, practicing his balance etc. Another child comes and starts wobbling and shaking it. I ask his mum politely if he could stop as it's upsetting kid1 . She says no as the child has ASD and doesn't understand. I say that's fine , but so does kid1 and can she at least stop her child while I get kid1 off safely. She then says "well , child is younger. He doesn't understand." Neither does kid1 but I'm not starting an argument in front of him or letting this go any longer. kid 1 is now freaking out , which is amplified by me removing him for his safety and ends up having a meltdown, kicking and punching me . I remove him, we go outside , I calm him down, it's all good eventually.Except for the past year he hasn't used the beam at all and is reluctant to try any high up equipment when other kids are in the vicinity, which is most of the time. I recently managed to gently coax him on some as long as i'm up with him, so we're making progress.

Like I said before I work with another child with ASD (and traumatic background)for whom the kid without a top would mean an anxiety attack and subsequent meltdown. She would not go to that restaurant ever again because now it's deemed "not safe". It isn't too bad if she sees the other adults at least attempting to manage behaviour, but when there's nothing, she freaks because she doesn't know what else will happen ,possibly to her so she tailspins. We're working on it, but it's painfully slow.

I have plenty of other examples and it's fucking heartbreaking. There needs to be some compromise and give and take, for all of these children's sake.

I will be the first to hold my hands up and say I don’t know much about autism so fully appreciate I may have got the wrong end of the stick. My question is: if being in this restaurant was causing such sensory overload that the child was on the verge of a meltdown, was it a good place for him to be? Would he be enjoying it? Not for anyone else’s sake, but for his own well-being? I can imagine it feels very frustrating for parents in this situation to maybe not be able to go out to eat easily, but is that because actually it’s not really a great environment for the child and he’s finding it difficult?

This.

Disabled people's civil rights matter. Families can make their own judgements about what's within their child's tolerances and best interests, and generalising from one individual's needs, to your 'excluding them is a kindness' schtick, is offensive and misguided and plays into the hands of people who don't want to be confronted with disability in their daily lives. Or who only want to be around 'normal' disability that doesn't impinge on them, even though their wants and expectations impinge on disabled people.

I didn't just use it for autistic children, I used it to describe what we are doing without son. The word 'training' is perfectly acceptable , it is associated often with 'conditioning' 'learning' and 'teaching' which is what we all do with our children- it's about appropriateness.

Well, according to you only some disabled people’s right matters. Apparently there’s only a certain type of autism, presentation and needs that must be catered for and others are what? Too normative? Not disabled enough?

It’s not a shtick just because it doesn’t suit your narrative of “only bigoted ,ignorant NT people are bothered” it’s fucking reality.

And do you think it’s appropriate to use this phraseology on a thread about ND children - some of whom have such severe cognitive impairment, that they likely won’t be able to respond to the teaching because they have no ability to recognise what is, and isn’t acceptable social behaviour.

Oh and btw, I never said excluding them is a kindness or even implied that.

What I said is that inclusion for all is a myth and that there needs to be compromise and give and take, otherwise you're just playing disability top trumps and creating a hierarchy of needs.

I'll tell the next parent who cries into my arms because they can't take their kid anymore to one of the few places they enjoyed and found accessible that it's all a "shtick" and not to cry because that's against disabled people having rights. I can make up shit you haven't said and I randomly inferred too.

It depends very much on what’s gone before. If the parents have got the child to a point where they’re confident as they can be that he can cope, then fine. That’s their decision. Sensory overload can happen for a variety of reasons and isn’t always predictable, so the solution to many on here would to be just not to do things that you think might be a trigger. That’s not what inclusivity is about and it panders more to the people who don’t want to see it, than it does to support parents who are picking their way through tricky territory and, as some of the posts here show, ending up isolated as a result.

Training is a horrible word to use. Educating, teaching, those are nicer, but training is absolutely horrible in this context.

I have no idea of the point you’re trying to make here. If you bothered to read my posts you’d see that I’m advocating for compromise where necessary. You absolutely cannot establish the rights of one group of people at the expense of another, and I’ve never advocated that. It’s just that in this particular case no compromise is needed. The child isn’t bothering anyone else. He’s trying to cope with his anxiety and the fact that people here are advocating that instead of allowing him to do that, he should be forced to do something that will result in a meltdown is concerning - not least because it demonstrates that despite a level of ignorance of what ND conditions actually mean, people who have no experience and clearly no knowledge, feel entitled to comment. Presumably they think that once the child has been forced into meltdown, people in the restaurant can then point fingers and say ‘told you so’ and have him removed. How is that inclusive ?

👏 👏👏. As do I. Well said.

Oh I see. You are changing tack now.

Yes, plenty of parents of ND children posting on here have talked about how they have had to teach their children to understand /cope with what is and isn't considered appropriate , how difficult it is, the methods they used and the success or not of those. I actually say in my post how difficult it must be for them.

Are you just determined to be offended? Do you enjoy taking offence?

Thank you, you've explained it much better than I have!

Not changing tack at all. Just calling you out on the phraseology you used. You say you know little about Autism, and your assertion that traits can be ‘trained out’ of autistic children bears that out. It’s not a question of taking offence or not - we’re talking about high levels of disability that are not always obvious to others, and which do not respond to the same type of chastising for bad behaviour used for NT children. I’m just advocating for them. And I’m not the only one.

Same. Any onlookers might also just assume the child is autistic anyway.

I personally wouldn't feel compelled to damage the restaurant by writing a public review, although they were in the wrong.

Whether we like it or not, there are rules that we must follow within society. Autism or not. If the restaurant states you must be fully clothed then follow that rule or leave. Simple.

Plenty of parents of ND children here have talked about doing exactly what I described. I'm not apologising for my language. You're wrong.

What a lovely inclusive attitude. I'm guessing your child isn't autistic.
I can see where mum is coming from. My son doesn't strip off but he absolutely hates having his clothes changed and I will let him go out dirty rather than endure the meltdown and stress of changing him. So I can see why his parents didn't attempt to put his top on
I can't see why an 8 year old can't eat topless, why does it matter? I wouldn't leave a review on their behalf though.

No, I think the idea of 'training' children who lack the developmental capacity to behave adaptively is unusual. The evidence base from interventions like ABA suggests you cannot 'train' long term generalisable benefits.

I agree, and as an Autistic woman, with an Autistic daughter, I've found some of those posts by parents of Autistic children, pretty bloody shocking, actually.

My DD has Situational mutism. Her Speech and Language Therapist has been very vocal (pardon the pun) with the school about not forcing her to speak. This is likely to make her communication disorder worse. It's not rocket science, really.

It's akin to telling a depressed person to pull themselves together. I thought society had got past that.

Nobody really gives a shit until it affects them directly, though - same as being physically disabled - you don't even think about it until everything is inaccessible and the general public find you an absolute nuisance.

My sister was born in 1973 with profound health issues, including Downs Syndrome. People used to ask all sorts of rude questions (including what did my Mam do wrong in her pregnancy to 'get that')

We haven't really moved on.

👏👏👏

Exactly. What it amounts to is picking your battles.

Eggs, you shared the terrible things that happened to you when you were a little girl, in an attempt to explain why you feel as you do. I think some people are so busy arguing they haven't even noticed or read it. I'm so sad for your 6 year old self and glad to hear that you are having therapy. Look after yourself, enjoy Easter.