As the clock starts to count down to 3pm my anxiety and adrenaline levels start to climb. Shuffling along the path waiting for the caretaker to unlock the gate I feel nervous. ‘The Shawshank Redemption’ springs to mind. No, stop-it! Other mums and dads are laughing, chatting, shouting for their younger children to come back. I am swallowing, taking deep breaths suddenly aware of my hands. Can anyone see me? Are they looking? Luckily it’s sunny and I have big dark glasses to hide my worried, tired eyes. The crowd surges forward and I am swept along with it.
What will I get today? Happy or sad? Chatty or angry? A cuddle or a punch? Over the last four years I have learnt that ‘the drop off’ and ‘the pick-up’ is a bit like Russian roulette. A horrendous drop off can result in a smooth pick up. A seamless drop off can result in a pick-up with numerous meltdowns until bedtime and beyond.
There is no rhyme or reason with Autism.
We are all neurological cocktails, each with perhaps a dash of glutamate here, a splash of serotonin there and a sprinkle of endorphin to finish. Once we reach adulthood we become less in tune with our emotions and can have good and bad days with seemingly no reason. Its only when you become more aware of what your body is trying to tell you, your emotional patterns that we understand what is really bothering us.
Children are way more emotional than us.
Neuro-diverse children are emotion squared.
Last week I had two very different pick-ups on consecutive days.
Pick-up 1 – The Supermarket Weep
I have recently received parent coaching where I relayed my fears and experiences of pick up. Most off-the-rails PDA behaviours seemed to stem from L not being allowed to ‘do anything fun’ after school. If she wasn’t collected with the promise of a trip to the shops to buy a toy (or in her case another pair of shoes) or a visit to the seaside (logistically impossible after school) she would flip. She would then want to control me and what we were doing for the rest of the day. ‘Going home’ was her idea of deprivation to the nth degree.
To manage this we decided that L needed to know what to expect after school each day and discuss and/or negotiate it calmly and logically the night before such as, ‘we can’t go to the seaside but perhaps we could get the paddling pool/sandpit out instead?’. With a clear plan we agreed on (letting L have as much control as possible) this could help to calm the post school meltdowns. (When I get the time I can make this into a visual choice board. I’m still waiting for ‘the time’.)
L has been into ‘making salads’ in the garden recently. Or in layman’s terms, filling a saucepan with the choicest cuts of rose, vibrant blossoming plants, grass and sprigs of lavender. However it is a solo effort on her part so the shock and disappointment of the pretty flowers slowly dwindling is swallowed down whole with no residue of blame. In response I thought a nice post school activity would be to write a shopping list, buy the ingredients at the shop and make a salad. Simples.
Shopping List – educational – practising her writing *tick*
Buy the ingredients – develop Ls interest in food *tick*, give her control *tick*, educational opportunity *tick*
Make a salad – not too difficult to do so will allow L maximum control of cooking *tick* she might even be tempted to eat some of it *tick**tick**tick*
So the pick-up rolled around and she came out of school smiley and excited to be going to buy ‘her shopping’.
‘Have you had a wee?’
‘Yes. Let’s go hurry up!’
<Hands L a muffin and carton of milkshake. No comment made so food or drink isn’t a demand but hopefully she will want one or both as she probably hasn’t eaten or drunk much all day and hanger usually sets in as we cross the threshold between the school and outside world.>
Once in car – ‘I want to buy a toy’ <ignores this comment>
In the rear view mirror I clock that muffin is half eaten. Drink is half drunk. Phew.
‘Were going to buy your food shopping’
<FIRST MISTAKE>
L loves Tesco because it has ‘Mars’ Milkshakes and ‘Marmite’ rice cakes but most importantly toys, clothes and shoes. In my perceived wisdom I had decided to go to Aldi as there were less distractions and hopefully we could concentrate on the task at hand instead of being sucked into a negotiation over toys/shoes. This is clearly important to L, she likes Tesco and knows it as we have been so much therefore my control over the choice of shop had already started to lay the foundations for trouble. However, I only realised this after analysing why it went wrong at the end of the day.
‘Why aren’t we going to Tesco?’ Ls sense of direction is unfortunately amazing.
<Deflecting the question> ‘Aldi have a big selection (read that ‘cheaper selection’ and if you’re going to waste it which I’m 99% sure you will I’d rather spend less) of fruit and vegetables‘
‘I want to go to Tesco’ <ignores>
‘I want to buy a toy’ <ignores>
‘A tiny toy. Mummy look this big’ – shows thumb and finger pressed together. <I raise my eyebrows non committantly>.
‘Here we are. Wow there’s a parking space. Woo!’ I’m starting to get more nervous about how this is going to go down so I am talking nonsense and getting over excited about a car parking space.
We get out, there is a small kerfuffle over who shuts the car door, then which trolley is the chosen one but the novelty of the pound coin in the slot is a big enough distraction, and were in.
Maniacal laughter ‘Mummy look oranges! A pineapple! Bananas!’ L tries to pick them all up. <I produce the list with a flourish, the visual, concrete and pre-agreed.> ‘Do we need a pineapple?‘
‘No’ pineapple gets thrown back. Hard. ‘Lettuce’.
The items are taken off the shelf and with the exception of the first item which I absent-mindedly toss into the trolley followed by ‘I WANT TO DO IT’ I learn and let L do everything.
‘I need a wee’ clutches bum and thrusts it out. <Ahhhhhhhhh. There’s no toilets, we’ve only just got here. Ahhhhhhh.> ‘Why didn’t you go at school?‘ <Stupid question, pointless it won’t solve anything.> ‘Ok. Ok well have to go and ask if we can use theirs’ ‘no its ok I don’t want to go now’ ‘are you sure?‘ ‘Yes. It’s cold in here.’ holds self and shivers. ‘Ok let’s go to the next aisle. It’s the refrigerators’.
I think L is done now.
She has the salad items and seems to have lost interest.
<SECOND MISTAKE> Whilst were here I start to think ‘hmmmm perhaps I could just get some of them crackers I like, L eats them too, ooh and some hummus oh and some milk actually.’ I began to deviate from the list.
What’s the first rule of Autism club? Don’t ever attempt to do anything for yourself on an outing!
L started picking up on other people, a child crying ‘why is she crying?’ the trolley started to be pushed a bit too forcefully. She ran over my flip flopped toes. OMG! That hurt. Do not make an issue out of it, keep going! ‘Come on then let’s go and pay’ <quick! Evacuate the shop, withdraw! Withdraw! Regroup and get out>.
L has recently become very choosy about who serves her in a shop or which till we go to. It was getting quite busy but she was adamant that we went to the busiest till as it had a woman on it and the others had men. I gritted my teeth ‘ok, ok let’s get in the line.’ L suddenly becomes fixated by her shoe strap and bends down to Velcro it shut and open, shut and open. I’m mindful that if we don’t get in the queue properly it will get even longer but she isn’t budging. ‘L!’ ,’L!’ I call. Finally she comes and stands by the conveyor and helps to unload the trolley however, now we’ve lagged a bit I subconsciously start unloading things myself to speed up the process. ‘I WANT TO DO IT!’ The first tears of frustration begin. We get through the till but the check-out lady is running on ‘Aldi speed’ and the groceries are coming through faster than L can pack. She gets angry and starts to cry harder and falls to the ground. ‘I WANT TO DO IT! YOU ALWAYS DO EVERYTHING!’ I try to half pack and half calm her down which makes her even angrier. She punches my arms, slaps my hands away and falls to the ground crying and wailing. People are starting to stare. I need to slow things down but I am bound by social conventions and starting to feel embarrassed.
‘I’m sorry she has autism‘ I whisper and the lady is very nice about it but the subtext in her expression is ‘hurry up’. I’m beginning to think the half a muffin and milkshake haven’t really hit the sides so I shove another muffin at her from my bag and she takes it and runs towards the doors. I chuck everything into the trolley tap my card and shout to her to come back. The muffin seems to be working and she is breathing more steadily. Whilst the muffin continues to distract I pack everything away in super-quick time. She follows me to the car and with the promise of a pound coin she helps to park the trolley albeit very slowly and in a very measured and precise fashion. Once in the car she asks for my phone and starts to watch ‘Miraculous’ singing along to the theme tune. And breathe…
That evening I realise MISTAKE THREE and FOUR. I hadn’t factored in the quick packing system and the busyness of going after school. I always feel defeated after trying to go out and it turning into a disaster but each encounter definitely hones the process and over time hopefully there will be more chance of it being successful. Next time we do this activity. I will go to Tesco. Stick to the list. Take quick pack bags such as jutes and see if we can go at a slightly quieter time maybe 4-5pm before the work rush starts.
Trial and error. Always.
Pick-up 2 – The Leisure Park lovely
L has a love hate relationship with ‘Soft play’. She loves it when it’s quiet and hates it when it’s busy. I can see the appeal. I enjoyed getting my sweat on back in the day before air conditioning existed en masse. It’s a win win. Kids love it and parents love it as they can sit back whilst their charges go crazy burning off excess energy. There is a murky underworld of ‘Soft play’ which I will explore in more depth in another post but for now it was Ls post school activity choice.
Like the previous day, pick-up seemed to go relatively smoothly. L came out the door and said ‘Soft Play!’ excitedly a few times. Learning from yesterday’s mistake I had factored in a ‘wee and food pit-stop’ at our house on the way to Soft play and gently reminded her of this as we climbed into the car. She was quite chilled out and settled down to some tablet and snack time when we got in on her own accord. I let this play out and as the mood was quite calm managed to do a few chores in the kitchen. Some days she is content to ‘just be’ after school with no interaction, some days she needs me to do everything with her and bark orders at me, some days she is furious with me and will try to initiate arguments left right and centre. However today was my favourite type of after school L so I let it play out.
It got to 4.40pm and I started to worry that if we didn’t get going soon soft play would shut at 6pm. I casually mentioned that if we still wanted to go we needed to think about it. L agreed she still wanted to go so we leisurely got ready and got back in the car.
The soft-play is in a leisure park and once parked up you need to walk past the cinema and restaurants to reach it. L is very intrigued by the cinema. We attempted Cars 3 last summer and stayed for a whole 5 minutes before it became too much but since then she has asked to go and have a look each time we go past. She loves the glittery black and red tiles on the floor and will jump, hopscotch and skid across them in delight. As it got to 5pm I started to think that soft play was forgotten again but knew she really wanted to go so at the risk of ruining her cinema jumping and issuing a demand on her I started to walk towards the door to convey ‘were done here’. L got the message and followed me. We got inside soft-play with a bit of opening and shutting of the automatic gate and then found a corner to put our shoes in.
There was lots of potential pitfalls in the midst, the racing cars had stopped running and L loves to go on these, there was a party group who were being quite boisterous, ‘big boys’ were hogging the football pitch, a toddler ‘stole’ her mini trolley in the role play area, I let her choose one item only at the café not two or three as she usually tries, oh and she had a broken arm but somehow everything just flowed nicely. We even had smiles and giggling in the (empty) under 2s area, jumping into the ball pit and her ‘pushing’ me in, but in a good natured jokey-way. The only thing that threatened to dull her mood was the relatively short time we had left however when the tannoy announced that they were closing the demand came from a higher authority than me and like an obedient puppy she climbed straight out of the ball pit and put her shoes on.
A success!
We did have a breakdown in the car park on the way home over throwing her slush puppy drink away. She couldn’t find a bin and wanted to throw it in the one back by the soft-play but I asked her to keep hold of it and so she tipped the remaining drink over the floor and threw the cup into the road in the way of an oncoming car but we moved on from it.
Good experiences buoy your confidence and make you feel like you can do things again whereas bad experiences threaten to undo all your hard work as disappointment and failure set in and you stop trying.
However every day is different.
Every hour.
Every second.
God loves a trier apparently, so I will keep trying.
PDA bubble 