There a lots of brilliant blogs and open letters about children with special needs having meltdowns in public and how the surrounding people in said public place have reacted to these mammoth meltdowns. These posts have saved my sanity. I don't excuse everything that my son does but each day I'm gaining more of an understanding into some of the things he does, and the more understanding I gain the more protective I get. I love and take great comfort in reading the accounts of parents who are feeling the same. The way that parents protect their children in these situations is a real insight into how it is when we venture out with children for who even popping to the shop down the road can be a traumatic experience.
My elder son Billy (3) has sensory and behavioural issues and ever since he was a newborn baby leaving the house with him in tow has never been easy, but coping with it is getting easier. Like many other parents I often feel the need to explain his behaviour even to strangers in shops, which can then lead to questioning how you're supposed to cope with leaving the house. Here are my top tips...
1. Practice makes perfect. There are many places where I have ruled out going to with Billy - visiting certain shops, certain parks, and even walking down certain streets just isn't worth the stress or risk of danger that a potential meltdown will bring. There does however have to be a line. It would be far too easy to rule out going anywhere, but as well as being impractical it would be unfair - unfair on Billy, unfair on me and definitely unfair on his one year old brother. Billy has very poor immunity, so if we find ourself on a 'well day' we have to seize the opportunity to leave the house. And even though it may be difficult, even if he draws attention our way and it seems like all the eyes in the world are staring at us, I remind myself now that as long as we all got home safely it was always worth it. Practice makes perfect.
2. Be prepared and stay calm. Any parent will recall how leaving the house was much simpler before they had children, this is true for all parents but even more so when you had a child with additional needs. As well as being practically prepared with all of the extra equipment, food, clothes and medicine that is needed when you leave the house, I've found it is also good to be mentally prepared. There have been times when I've over done this and aiming to be prepared has turned into stressing out, but when the balance is right, when I've given it some pre-thought but not too much, it has always been beneficial. At the beginning of the week we took the children to a local country park which has a fantastic play park in it, I considered some of the things that may be problematic and it definitely paid off - Billy got stressed with some boys who were standing close to him behind a slide, and as I was running over to the slide he pushed one of the boys, causing his mum to fly off the handle and stand there yelling at Billy. I had given this scenario a lot of thought on the previous day, so I was prepared with how to deal with it. I was able to calmly speak to the mum explaining that shouting will cause Billy to go into sensory overload and will only make the situation worse. The mum calmed down at once, I was able to talk to Billy after which we apologised to both the boy and his mum and it all worked out okay.
3. Vent. It can take a while to find a group of people who are in a similar situation to you, but it definitely helps having someone to talk and vent to. For me it is my mum. I now have some wonderful friends who have children with additional needs and will understand my musings of day to day life, but before these friendships formed it was my mum who used to share my puzzlement with the way that Billy was developing, laugh at the embarrassing scenarios we found ourselves in when out in public with him, and share in the frustration when the help he deserves hasn't been available.
4. Be proud. There will always be some days that have gone better than others, there will always be things we can improve on, that is life. I always find something to be proud of, even if it is just sitting with the boys in front of the TV or a book once we've eventually made it home after a disastrous trip out, after all we made it home.
