If you have a SEN child, would you be comfortable with this?

[Beetrootisthesecretingredient]

Context: DS7 is autistic. Verbal but with lots of sensory issues and is very rigid.
Yesterday we went cycling along the canal tow path, one of our usual Saturday activities. Its usually quiet and we have a nice time cycling to a certain bridge and back. DS is very noise sensitive. Yesterday there was a series of unfortunate events (in our world): someone using a chain saw, a baby cried and then a loud car backfired, all within 2 mins of each other. DS leaps off bike screams and cries and lies on the tow path. Meltdown.
This happened on a very narrow bit of towpath. At this exact same time 4 older male cyclists in all the lycra wanted to overtake us. DP went to DS to sooth/move out of way. Cyclists have now stopped and said loudly 'FFS just move him out of the way'.
I replied 'it won't take a second he's upset'.
More grumbling and general unkindness from cyclists. DP then loudly called cyclist 'inconsiderate twat'.
DP now wants to get DS a high vis vest that says 'I am autistic please be patient ' but I feel uncomfortable about it.
Fwiw we have a sunflower lanyard but these cyclists either didn't know what it represents of didn't care and DP just doesn't want to get in that situation again.... which ended with all stressed and called people twats.

This is so odd to say if they were in a road you'd react differently. Well yeah, the liklihood and severity of the risks are different.

If you are solving a problem, you assess the situation they are in, not another scenario.

A 7 year old in meltdown currently safe on floor, cyclists stopped but irritated safest option for everyone is to sooth for 20 seconds and move when calm.

Most dangerous option in that scenario is to escalate meltdown by draging a child who might get injured in process and start thrashing and around, injured parents, get lose, fall in canal.

People really don’t understand what an autistic meltdown is. Which is fine, I don’t expect them too. But they really should be less judgemental. People have tried to explain, it unfortunately sometimes people are too busy being superior parents to try and empathise and understand.OP clearly did the best in the situation with her knowledge of her child and the situation, she moved the child within 20 seconds , I’m not really sure how they could have done it differently.

Is your grandson autistic and does he have meltdowns?

They were just rude, the hi-vis wouldn’t have changed this (living up to the cyclist stereotype…)

I suggest buying ear defenders, they help my DS a lot. He hates babies crying and hand dryers so just pop them on if we come across either of those sounds.

Autism is a developmental disability, not a life threatening illness, or indeed an illness or medical condition at all. A meltdown from sensory overload is not a medical emergency.

If an autistic child is usually fine in certain circumstances and once reacts badly, it's bad luck. If a person is normally fine and experiences their first epileptic seizure, you need to call an ambulance. Medical attention is needed if they've been seizure free for a while and it happens again.

Official guidance is that shouldn't move someone having a seizure (not a meltdown), but there's still a caveat that you do if they're in immediate danger. Autism is not shock or a potential spinal injury, which can be worsened by movement.

Can you actually " soothe" a kid having a meltdown in 20 seconds though? .If so it's not actually that severe And for all the people saying about autistic kids. What the hell will happen when they get to adults with that behaviour?

Well that depends on how the autism impacts the person for my son is severely autistic and has no concept of how his behaviour impacts others ,but as an adult he won't ever live independently and will always need 1:1 care and it's very obvious to anyone who meets him how disabled he is
However it's a huge spectrum. And lots of adults do learn to control how their behaviour may impact others, that may cause them to meltdown later though.

Exactly this.

I'm sure OP and partner could have dragged the child away faster if there was an immediate danger but why should the have to subject their child to the increased risks (not to mention indignity) of being physically dragged out of the way when for the sake of a few seconds the whole thing could be done a little more calmly and safely?

I feel like the cyclists probably lacked and empathy for what was happening because they didn't understand it. If the child had fallen from the bike I think it's likely they have been more sympathetic but they probably just saw a child "acting out" and tantrumming.

I've been in situations when scrambling up a steep mountain path where grown adults have lost their nerve and people behind them on the path have patiently waited for them to calm down rather than insisting on barging past, probably because - even if they're coping perfectly well with the conditions themselves - they can empathise with the fact that they are challenging for other people. I think part of the problem is people don't 'get it' when it comes autism.

I’m not really sure why I am bothering … but do you behave the say way now as when you were seven? Or have you learnt how to deal with/ cope with different situations. Have you been given tool to equip you to deal with different situations. Autistic people are not different, their experiences and things they need to learn might be different but the concept is the same. Are you this intolerant to all disability? You may not soothe them but you can talk to them and treat them with dignity. The cyclists are not more entitled to use the path than anyone else, the parent has been considerate of others in the situation, they have moved the child when it was clear they were in the way, it’s not too much to ask others to do the same. It is completely different to a road as it’s somewhere people could be walking/ standing/ fishing so people should be using it safely with others. If I saw someone had tripped over I wouldn’t shout at them to get up so I could move past, or is someone was walking along with an aid. Would you have patience for this people or should someone move them out the way in less than twenty seconds?

It'll vary massively depending on the person and the circumstances. Meltdowns can look very different depending on the individual - I've known children who throw furniture and those who curl up and hide under the table. In 20 seconds maybe you might get a child to co-operate with moving to the side of the path even if they're still highly disregulated.

The child was not in immediate danger. OP clearly risk assessed that there was more danger involved in potential injury to him or others by trying to “drag him” across the ground as some posters have suggested than by calming him for a few seconds before moving him. Having not seen the situation but seen many meltdowns, and given that it’s reasonable to assume OP knows best from experience how best to deal with her own child, this was a perfectly reasonable thing to do to minimise overall risk and inconvenience to others in a balanced manner: not leaving him on the path until totally calm, but treating him humanely and minimising risk of an injury by calming him a little rather than “dragging him” across the floor like an object when this was not necessary to do and the only negative effect of this would involve some poor cyclists having to wait 20 seconds. Remember this is a child with heightened sensory sensitivity so being dragged across rough ground is likely to have increased his sensory overwhelm and made him even more distressed and possibly also panicked. Next to a canal.

Had she “dragged him” and he ended up with broken bones by thrashing around or had panicked
and got loose from her grasp and jumped into the canal you’d all be criticising her parenting for that. Her behaviour was completely reasonable given the risks and trade offs at the time.

Autism is a neurological condition and it poses risks to those who have it unfortunately, especially if situations are not dealt with appropriately. A meltdown is caused by overwhelm of the nervous system: it is a medical incident and not within the child’s control. I doubt you’d be able to find a single neurodevelopmental paediatrician who would support your proposal of dragging a child is distress like this across the ground when it was unnecessary to do so. Part of parenting an autistic child - and making meltdowns less frequent and gradually teaching a child how to self-regulate better - is for the parent to be a safe person that they can trust when distressed and vulnerable and guides them through calming down. Clearly what the OP did to calm him quickly sufficiently enough to move him safely worked and was therefore entirely the correct decision. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that dragging him across rough ground was extremely likely to have had the opposite effect.

Your disdain for autistic people and minimisation of the condition drips from your unpleasant posts. The way you have spoken about the child is dehumanising.

I would be appalled if I saw a parent dragging a distressed child, autistic or not, across the ground in any circumstances unless the child was in immediate danger from them not doing so. Frustrated MAMILs losing 20 seconds of their day does not constitute “immediate danger”.

Your posts are so disingenuous. Nobody has said the meltdown was over in 20 seconds. 20 seconds is how long it took for the OP to calm him sufficiently to move him safely, rather than dragging him across the ground like an object, potentially injuring him and highly likely to make the meltdown far worse.

Ultimately the meltdown and autism are irrelevant, because there will always be ignorant people or those who wilfully refuse to understand. The fact is the child was in clear distress, the parents were clearly dealing with it and asked these cyclists to wait a few seconds while they calmed him sufficiently to move him safely. Any reasonable person would have done so, not started swearing at them. It’s indefensible and appalling behaviour from the cyclists even if they were oblivious to him being autistic. If they want to cycle somewhere that they have a free run with no obstructions they should use dedicated cycle lanes.

You misunderstand. And because you can't refute what I've said, you focus on the subjective judgement of 'immediate danger'; however, if you read closely, you'll see that I was only referring to urgent medical issues where one risk might have to outweigh another.

There is no such requirement to ONLY move a child experiencing precisely no physical harm if they are in immediate danger. Autistic children can be moved without causing injury.

And it's laughable that you refer to being taken to a more private or safer place, away from strangers as losing dignity and preventing regulation, as opposed to screaming and crying while lying on the floor in full view of others, where there are additional stimuli and you are creating circumstances for conflict.

I think you need a reset - You were being selfish and should have moved your child.

Nobody but you has tried to imply it was a “medical requirement” not to move him. What people have explained to you - repeatedly - was that the OP will have had to risk assess the situation at the time and risk of injuries or further unnecessary distress to the child versus the extremely minor inconvenience to others of them having to wait for 20 seconds.

The side of a pathway isn’t a “private space” and your attempt to portray dragging a distressed child across rough ground, humiliating them and potentially hurting them in the process, as being more “dignified” and something likely to help them to regain emotional regulation is what’s laughable.

Those faux pearl clutching “how will they cope as adults!?” posts and the pretence that really these people are being dehumanising to the child out of concern for his future are the most implausible and laughable disingenuousness of all, aren’t they?

As if a child who has been treated with contempt when in distress and dragged across the floor is more likely to grow up into a well-regulated adult with healthy coping mechanisms than one who is modelled and taught regulation techniques with kindness by their parents. A very similar mentality to those who used to claim that hitting children was good to teach them discipline when in fact we know that it causes trauma and makes a child far more likely to grow up to become a violent adult. Statistically valid facts ascertained from research analysing large data sets is irrelevant to such people. It’s like trying to have a discussion about poetry with a Vogon.

If it was my DC, then there very definitely would have been a medical requirement not to move him - my own from a doctor and physiotherapist. Of course, if he was in a busy road the risk to his life would be so high I would have risked permanent damage to myself, but on a tow path where he is safe on the ground, absolutely not.

I agree this. If the cyclist had seen him knocked off his bike by a rock and crying over a grazed knee then he probably would have been sympathetic and offered a plaster rather than stand by and tut.

OP describes the path as a canal tow path, not as a cycle path. Presumably walkers use it too as well as young children as in this case. Why would cyclists go fast, or be timing speeds as a pp suggested, on such a path?

No one was suggesting OP and her husband 'drag' their 7 year old across the ground, especially in such a way that would potentially break bones. I mean really. How ridiculous to suggest that was the only other option they had and that OP was 'clearly' risk assessing that situation. She was not risk assessing anything. People are making shit up.

He's 7. They could have picked him up and moved him, and they would have had he been having a meltdown or throwing a tantrum on a road.

FFS

She did move her child, in 20 seconds. Did you bother to read even the OP’s posts before commenting?

This. It is not a place for cyclists to be so concerned about getting a good time that they refuse to slow down or stop for other towpath users.

No to what the high vis vest says but yes to a high vis vest overall.

My personal experience has been that there seems to be a subconscious bias when wearing a high vis. We have found it cycling with our children and also skiing. We are usually given more space when we have them on compared to when we don't. I dint know if people automatically think learner etc but have found it definitely helps.

Just pick up five stone of dead weight?

It is often not easy or safe or fair to move an autistic person in meltdown. Sometimes waiting a minute or two really is the fastest way through.

OP, to answer your question, I wouldn’t have my child wear a vest announcing his disability. If and when necessary I’d tell people who need to know. In this case I’d have told the cyclists and hopefully they’d have been more considerate of the disability.

ETA I agree with pp that high-vis in general is helpful, just not one with the message imho.