Changes – Fri 5th June 2015
By Jeannette | June 5, 2015
Change is to be expected, isn’t it? It’s part of everyday life.
Unfortunately changes – however subtle and insignificant they may seem to us – can really throw a child on the autistic spectrum off kilter, big time.
Both T and D thrive on routine, T travels to school by school bus and he always gets very frustrated because – as the timetable says – it’s meant to pick him up at 8.05am, not 8.12 or 8.20 or even 8.07am, it’s meant to be 8.05am. For T, everything is either black or white, there is no grey in between.
D can be a little bit more flexible, sometimes. It might be because she’s not as apt at reading timetables than her brother, that any delay doesn’t seem to register with her, as long as whatever is meant to happen does.
This afternoon was an example of how a tiny change could manifest into a much bigger (and potentially) dangerous situation.
Hubbie and I both picked D up from school, something that should have pleased her as it meant a lift home. The roads were busy and instead of D and I waiting in the car, we agreed we’d all walk to where we usually meet T (which is what normally happens).
This wasn’t popular, in fact D decided she’d walk home, on her home and made for the (busy) main road. Erm, no, just no. D has no awareness of road safety, no ability to judge an oncoming car’s speed and does not seem able to recognise the lights when a car is indicating. It couldn’t happen. My biggest fear was that she would bolt – as she once did in front of a (fortunately) slow moving bus.
Eventually she retreated from the kerb and there posed a further problem as T’s school bus was pulling in and we weren’t in the usual place, in fact we were still on the other side of the road and further down.
All was well in the end but T was agitated about the fact we weren’t there and D still upset about the earlier issues. Softly softly.
And then. During tea, we all did our “round robin” “best, worst and funniest bits of the week” and it was as if earlier never happened. Both D and T are always very much in the “here and now” so, it’s all been seemingly forgotten, until a time when D is anxious about something else and it will all flood out.
C’est la vie. A weekend with downtime is called for, I hope everyone’s day has gone well Jx
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