At School Social Stories
Local Autism Support Groups
Parents Engaging Autism Quinte (PEAQ), an autism parent support group, meets once a month on the first Tuesday of the month (no meetings in January, July and August) at Kerry's Place, 189 Victoria Avenue, Belleville at 6:30 to 8 p.m. If you have questions or suggestions for autism topics that are important to you please go to our FaceBook account and post your suggestions so that we can invite appropriate autism professionals to speak at these meetings.
Autism parent support group meeting hosted by Mental Health Agency, Trenton and Military Family Resource Centre (MFRC) is on every second Thursday of the month (from September to June) from 6 to 7:30 pm. For more info, please contact Bryanna Best, Special Needs Inclusion Coordinator at 613 392 2811 ext 2076 or email at bryanna.b@trentonmfrc.ca
For info on Community Living Prince Edward County Parent Support group, contact Resource Consultants @ 613 476 6038
Central Hastings Autism Support Group meets in Madoc at the Recreation Centre. Contact Renee O’Hara, Family Resource & Support, 613-966-7413 or Tammy Kavanagh, Family Resource & Support, 613-332-3227
Parenting your child during Covid-19 pandemic
Monday, April 23, 2012
Going out to a restaurant to eat with your ASD child
The truth, however, is ... the world outside is most of the time ugly and most of the time, the child with autism and his family would encounter people who get ugly when their leisure time gets disturbed by such incidents at restaurants. To be fair, some children, especially young ones are hard to control in public and they seem to take an absolute delight in rebelling against their parents despite the glowering looks and deep frowns they are rewarded with for that behaviour. The child with autism in the tv segment obviously displays other behaviours that clearly tell others who do not know him that he has disability of some sorts. In that way, the irate man's behaviour is boorish and comes from being an ignoramus. But parents of children with disability such as autism can't totally expect situations to turn out as positive as on this tv segment always. People are not always going to be kind because no matter how much one would like everyone on this planet to be aware of autism, it is going to take time to reach just a quarter of that ideal goal. The only thing they can do, that they can really take control of, is to invest in some preparation time before they go out to eat outside. For sheer fairness to the child himself/herself, they will need to clearly understand the child's needs right down to how much time he/she can endure in public space, understand what information they need to give the child to enable a clearly outlined transition time, what kind of food he might want and ask for, a sitting area where they might be shielded from the crowd etc. A visual social story answering all the questions he/she might have about the outing, how they'll get to where they will be eating, who will be there, how big it is, what the tables and chairs might look and feel like, what sounds he/she might hear at the restaurant, how long they might stay there etc.etc. He/she might have all these questions but may not be in a position to ask. So it falls on to the caregiver to make sure he/she has these questions answered as comprehensively as possible before doing something like eating out, which is throwing him off the routine right off the bat. Children with autism needs routine and structure and anything else derails them and causes anxiety which might manifest itself in unpleasant situations whether one likes it or not. So, in my opinion, the parents are also in a position to make the outcome a whole lot better themselves with better preparations for such an outing – for simple fairness to the child they love and ... never mind all those ignoramuses out there.
I couldn't agree more Benzie. When we have Cameron with us he enjoys going to our favourite breakfast place. He knows what he wants before we arrive and also knows his boundaries when there. He likes to visit the washroom so that is his reward for being well behaved and eating all his breakfast. We find that familiar places and faces make for easier outings.
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