worried for son's safety after incident today

[emanjay]

on way home from park today my son (6) had a meltdown. He ran straight across our road to the other side. When I crossed over he ran into road again, this time straight down the middle towards a junction with a busy main road. A couple of mums with children from his yeargroup live on this road and they came out to help me. Sunny day and lots of neighbours out gardening etc all saw the whole horrid incident. Am terrified and embarassed. He has adhd but has never done this before.

Dont be embarassed, it happens.
I used to have this with Dd3 where if I went towards her during a meltdown she would run.

One thing I can suggest is depending on his level of understanding, explain to him that he will either not be able to go to the park if he runs off or he will have to wear a wrist strap or similar to keep him safe.

I used to carry reins in my bag for along time after Dd3 stopped using them so that I could show them to her and tell her that if she wasnt calm and walking by me she would have to go on them.

The other thing we did alot of was practicing stopping when I said stop. We used to do it over and over when she was calm in the hope that in a moment of stress she might be programmed enough to still stop.

Be kind to yourself, he is ok and that is the main thing

Don't be embarrassed. The unpredictability of some children with sn is one of the reasons they are hard work at times. Ds did similar to me when he suddenly decided to run into train station and along a platform with me in hot pursuit shouting at total strangers to stop him. I was utterly terrified he would cross the track. I have now learnt to hold him very firmly by his arm rather than his hand. He s. ok you are in bits but you now know to be wary.