A Touching Story

I read THIS STORY today and it touched me, cause I can relate. Please read it and come back to the rest of my blog here.

Kindness of strangers always gets to me, especially where children are concerned. and I can relate to this story. Our Scott-bot is hard to handle sometimes in public outings like restaurants and things. Sometimes he's a complete angel. And other times he can be difficult as hell. It really does keep us at home most of the time and we have to pre-plan our strategies to go out and enjoy a visit out and about somewhere. I never want to put my kids on anyone else. In fact, I loathe doing that. I know some would think that I should not care, but I do. I guess I shouldn't. On one hand, I don't want to "hide" our kids because thats not what you should do. But I am just hoping each time we go out that the stars align and he is co-operative. Its 50/50.

The other day we went to Wendys. We went inside to eat, which is normally what I wouldn't do. We sat down and bots was being unusually loud. An older couple came in behind us and sat very near us, despite the rest of the lobby being pretty empty. Instantly I started to sweat a bit cause I knew bots would annoy them. And sure enough toward the end of our stay, he freaked out at something minor and the older couple moved their table to further away. I heard them in conversation say something about how horrible our kid was and we should spank him for screaming.

I was told that recently too from a close family member that we don't spank our kids enough. Thing is, Bots has autism. You don't spank an autistic kid. You just don't. Cause they probably have no idea what he's being spanked for. Hitting a child is something I am just not into. Not judging anyone who does it, I'm just saying its not right for our situation with him. So we struggle with it. We are embarrassed by it. But its what we got on our plate. And I have other ways for discipline that he does understand.

So today I read this and I was moved by the kindness of the stranger to say such a nice thing to the struggling parent of this child. While I don't necessarily agree 100% with the wording of the comment, it is appreciated and the thought was a very great one. I don't desire anyone to pay for my meal as a "reward" for me. But just some common understanding from people. I sometimes am in a store with bots and he's acting up a bit and I get the looks. I say "He's autistic" and immediately, people turn their heads either in shame for thinking what they thought, or some sort of societal shame. I read a story recently about a neighbor who wrote a note to parent of an autistic child that they should put their kid down and they were a burden and annoying and all that. UGH! But for every asshole out there, there's still some good in people. This story helps me think that we're not out of the woods yet, but we still are getting there.

Thanks to everyone who understands.