As my second post on here, I felt it fitting to tell a story about my oldest son; he is autistic (mid spectrum.) and this means social interactions are hard for him... Anyway this is a post I put up quite some time ago on my wordpress.com account, and thought this could tell a decent story.
oh and I drew the image.
Today (Saturday) I took my son to his sports day, an interesting style of class where each week they do a different type of sport.
This is the second time I have taken him; the first time I had taken him they were playing hockey.
You would think that would be an amazing experience for my son right? Well… I thought so too at first.
Now, for full disclosure my son is on the spectrum ( middle spectrum autism disorder.) this means that at times he can really struggle to follow linear instruction. Not due to him not listening, but because he takes in every sound, movement and light in every room he walks into.
So sometimes he can become overcome and retreat into himself (in extreme cases externally.)
So to get back on track…
By the time I had the opportunity to take him he had been attending this class for approximately 6 weeks and had no incident, he was making friends and had been getting really involved in the classes.
This time with hockey I thought would be an amazing chance for him to see a new sport and an amazing chance to really improve on his hand eye coordination.
The moment he started the class there was an air of hostility surrounding my son, he had an unsettled morning (he was excited that dad was taking him to class.) He was having issues focusing which meant he took a while to join the group to begin the class.
Moving on…
My anxiety started to flair once I saw him handed a stick… the coach has said (directly looking at my son.) that if you are dangerous I will take the stick from you…. So naturally I expected him to have it taken off him super quick, much to my surprise that never actually occurred.
Instead (the coaches knowing his condition.) didn’t give him any one on one time to show him how to hold and swing the hockey stick. So naturally when all the kids were in a line the first time he swings the stick he collects the boy standing next to him. There is an argument to be made that there wasn’t enough space between the kids to prevent any potential injury, but I digress.
From that moment on, this mother and farther that were standing next to me decided that they would critique my son, every time he moved they would move and yell out to him telling him what to do.
Naturally this served to be a point of frustration to them as my son didn’t hear a single word they said.
At that point I thought they were foolish and wasn’t about to tell them to shut it. Towards the end of the class the children do an obstacle course… this is where the fun began.
The kids all ran in a line, the boy in front on my son was running slower then he was, my son almost bumped into him, but placed his hands out to cushion any impact; this resulted in the boy hitting the floor.
The farther of the sun (the man standing next to me) manned up and yelled out “Don’t you dare push him again Eli!” I assume they didn’t know I was his parent as they never once looked or spoke to me.
Needless to say I was shocked, I never expected that kind of verbal abuse to be spouted at a child, little own someone else’s child.
So I just stood there shocked, soon my shock turned into rage and I was using every ounce of self control not to do anything that would potentially have the police involved (as I wanted to strike him.) or worse have my son and expelled from the group.
After the class was over my son comes running up to me all happy because he was having fun… the look of realisation on the man face that he was standing next to the farther of the boy he just verbally attacked was fitting, he looked embarrassed and a little afraid that I would retaliate to his childish behaviour. I didn’t I used ever ounce of self control I had to just walk away and show my son that fighting isn’t the answer (outside of a professional fighting environment.)
Today’s class was much better, he didn’t play up until the end, we had a talk about paying attention and staying focused. Which he did for nearly 40mins of a 45 min session. So I am really proud of him for that. The parents that caused problems didn’t show up, I will admit that the possibility of them being here spiked my anxiety again. But no incident occurred so I have to call that a success. He earned himself a frozen raspberry drink.
As always if you made it here I love you very dearly. Pleas leave your comments in the section below and if you know anyone who has experienced what I have spoken about please share this with them, or share your experience with me.
Thank you.
Rick
