http://www.sdcitybeat.com/article.php?id=5456

I talk (in fact, people sometimes wish I would shut up and I don’t realise when I’m essentially repeating myself or going “ranty”–which IS something I tend to do when I get nervous or don’t know people or a situation all that well–no, I *don’t* always realise when it happens) but if I’m in conversation with someone, sometimes I have to sit and think how to actually word something properly–and sometimes, with me, there is an obvious pause or slowing as my brain does the “translate mental image to word” bit. (I also, of note, tend to actually be better with writing than speech IMHO in this regard–less “translation” to do–and some of the times I do get ranty is when I’m not sure I’m phrasing something right or that I’m not sure people are in fact “getting it”.)

This stuff with the restaurant scares the hell out of me because frankly, I can all too easily see myself giving “too much of a delay” to a waitress–especially if I’ve been really stressed, or really tired, and I’m trying to phrase something properly so that it doesn’t sound like something straight off of engrish.com (and yes, my English goes…*weird* if I’m tired; I’ve uttered things like “It chuckles to me, I love it so” when meaning to say “I am amused” during tired and stressy periods). Heavy pressure to do something NOWNOWNOW tends to make this worse (and make the conversational level in the restaurant to the point of painfulness). This could happen to me at times NOW. :P

And re the CNN thing–congrats. And take whatever decompression time you need, seriously (I’ve been overwhelmed to the point of needing “defrag time” with stuff I’ve posted on forums before (on religiously motivated child abuse–I’m a survivor of this and also a survivor of being raised in an abusive religious group, and unfortunately autistic-spectrum kids are a rather severe target of religiously motivated child abuse so it is something I’m trying to bring awareness of), and I think my brains would be frizzled if I had stuff like CNN media attention!).

I’m not autistic and, to the best of my knowledge, I don’t currently know anyone who is autistic. (Past contact was too minor to be of much relevance here.) And I’m not even a parent.

But I’m deaf, so I, too, tend to need a little more time in restaurants. Although my speech is pretty good, the high background noise that you find in most restaurants makes it harder for some waiters to understand me, especially if they already have problems understanding English. And the same noise makes it harder for me to lipread the waiter.

When I’m with hearing companions, I admit I do sometimes turn to them for SOME assistance — for example, in helping me understand the waiter. But I generally prefer to take charge of my own ordering. And even as a kid, it would have bugged me (and DID bug me the few times it happened) if a hearing person tried to cut me off and take over, but ESPECIALLY without checking with me first. It would have made me hurt and angry to think that they both underestimated my competence and also overestimated my fragility. Sometimes it’s better to let a kid muddle through their own problems and solve them in their own way, or wait for the kid to ASK for help before you give it. Yes, even if it looks like they’re starting to get upset.

Sure, to some extent you can anticipate problems and maybe check with the kid beforehand how they want to handle things (for example, make sure they know that ordering food for themselves is entirely optional — if they want the independence, great; if they’re already close to overload and need to minimize social contact by handing over that job to someone else, fine). But once you’ve agreed on what you’re doing, I think showing trust in the kid’s own ability to problem solve (INCLUDING their ability to ASK for help), in the long run, does more good than the harm you could do to their self esteem by jumping in too quickly.

Of course, each child is different. For one thing, age makes a difference (I probably would have felt differently at age 3 than I did at age 8 or 14, in terms of how much help I wanted and also in terms of how quickly I would have wanted an adult to step in if I got stuck.) So I’m not in a position to speak for David, nor am I in a position to speak for momlovs4’s children.

Also, given that autism may run in families, it’s also possible that the parents themselves may be slightly along the autistic spectrum and their own conditions may have made it difficult for them to react with the kind of fire and split-second decision-making necessary to leap to one’s feet and smack down someone abusive.

Focusing on the response of the parents is counterproductive. In truth, they did everything that society required of them, including complaining in a reasonable manner to the manager. Pokez is at fault here.

What KimJ says is also helpful — it may have been MORE stressful for the child to have someone order FOR him. No one could possibly expect that the consequence of him ordering would be that the waitress would snap and go ballistic!

–Kynn

I was wondering myself when I read the blog how the parents could just sit there and let the waitress do what she was doing to their son. The only thing I can come up with is that they must have been stunned over the unexpected actions of the waitress and failed to react in a timely manner.

There is something that bothers me about this man’s blog entry, though. I am a single mother of 4, my oldest is high-functioning autistic. Now,I am going by what this man wrote in his blog. How he described their restaurant experience. I know that I am putting myself out on a limb here, but I have to comment. By writing the following comments, I am in NO way condoning or accepting the restaurant’s behaviours. I think that they should be charged and fined. Here we go… Why didn’t this father step in and help his son when he saw that he was having difficulty ordering? Better yet, why didn’t he make sure his son knew what he wanted before the waitress got there. Autistic kids have different ways of processing things. It helps to keep them focused. It could be the menu was visually overwhelming for him and he was having a difficult time staying focused and making a choice. If I saw that my autistic son was having a difficult time, I would have tried to help him with his ordering. I think that this boy was becoming more stressed because he couldn’t get out what he wanted to order. And I think this led to him repeating several times what he wanted and then ultimately not being able to say what he really wanted. As parents of autistic kids, we have to try to anticipate situations that will cause our kids stress. I actually do this with all my kids, but when we are going somewhere such as the mall, restaurant, friend or family home, etc., I talk to them about where we are going, how I expect them to act, and what the consequences will be for not behaving properly (loss of privileges, etc.). This helps my autistic son tremendously. And believe me, even with this prepping, things don’t always go smoothly. They’re kids for heavens sake! To be honest with you, if this had happened to me, that waitress would never have had a chance to touch my child. How was she able to sit next to him, shake him and yell in his ear? How far away was this father from his son? I am not confrontational. I am very tolerant because I have a son with special needs who sometimes makes noises and makes unusual arm movements and is still learning proper social cues. But if anyone were to inappropriately approach any of my children, I would be in their face before they knew what was happening. I was also bothered that the teenage brother of this boy was upset with his brother and blamed him for having to leave the restaurant. These few observations (again, I am going by what this man wrote in his blog) make me think that this family is not 100% supportive of their autistic child or not fully educated in autism. I know that this may generate negative comments from some, but please take a moment to consider what I am saying. I want society to be tolerant and accepting of my autistic child. But is my job as a parent to help my son learn and understand how to follow social cues and to protect him when his limitations put him in harms way. I no longer apologize (haven’t we all in the beginning felt embarrassed by our child’s unusual behaviours) when my son feels the need to hum loudly(he’s filtering out unwanted noises), or has to feel the texture of wallpaper or a fuzzy sweater on display, or makes circular arm movements (he does this when he is feeling stressed). Instead, I try to help him find a more socially acceptable way of dealing with these issues.

I would like to know if anyone else picked this up from this man’s blog and his account of their terrible restaurant experience. Did anyone else make the same interpretations as I did?

Thank you for letting me express my point of view.