Success In Our Failure…

Earlier in the week Alan's school had a field trip to the movie theatre. Alley has never been, ever. I've always thought about how many things can wrong, which immediately happens when we are going to embark on a new adventure. That's just where my mind goes, I've seen way too much. The movies were no different.

I signed up to be a chaperone as I always do for his school events. I do this not only for his sake and seeing his Mom support him at every single event he is a part of, but also to give his staff a break from him. Again, he's not the easiest. Prior to the field trip on Monday, we had a fiasco on Sunday. His brothers had their floor hockey and basketball awards ceremony at a local church we are always at. Alan was awake for the day at 2:00am so we knew this event later in the evening was going to be terribly hard to navigate, and our intuitions were spot on. He fell asleep on the way to the church, like deep deep sleep, snoring while sitting up. We had to wake him up and bring him into a loud, bright, colorful, exciting, kid filled event, and it was awful. He started crying as soon as he left the car, made it into the vestibule and literally lost his mind. My husband was a coach so he had to go back with the players. Here I am in the floor of the front doors with my very big child who is crying very loudly trying to get him up. Just to move out of the way of everyone walking in. At this moment, looking back on it, I should have been absolutely mortified. But again, I wasn't. I was just worried about him and I could care less about who was staring from a far. There was one woman who was feeling extra ballsy, though. She walked right up to me and with a condescending tone and look on her face asked, "is he okay?" No lady! He's absolutely not okay! Do you not see him thrashing himself to ground while crying?!? Oooohhhh did it take everything in me to not unleash my mama bear wrath on her. I replied, "No, no he is not okay. He has autism and is melting down." At the point I turned my back to her, in a sense blanketing Alan so her stares would go to my body instead of his. Mind your business and move on, Ms. Ugh. Anyway I'll shorten this part, we got him in the actual ceremony. He was a little all over the place but we survived, just kept going, and enjoyed a nice family dinner after.

So needless to say leading into Monday, I had no idea what to expect. I think I had a little hope that we wouldn't have a repeat of Sunday, but deep down knew the movie theatre wasn't going to be his favorite place. I drove separately and met his school there. He was with his favorite aide (who is heaven sent) when he walked in, and I knew it wasn't going to be a great experience in the first ten seconds of him being there. He tried taking myself and his aide and moving us to the door to leave. The next ten minutes was spent trying to ignore him bringing us to the doors. I just thought (or hoped actually, I hope a lot) if I got him to the actual theatre, sitting down with popcorn we can make it through. It was a battle though, he did not make it easy. He would take off any time I wasn't holding his hand to the doors. He would put the brakes on when I would try and walk with him in the directions of the theatres. When he finally complied he would dash off into every theatre leading up to his. We finally got situated in the actual theatre where Trolls was playing, and he did anything but sit. He did not want the popcorn. He didn't want the ice that he usually chews. All Alan wanted to do was leave. So I kept making deals with him "first movie, then school", "five minutes in movie, then lobby". This kept going on and on and on. He would grab his AAC device and type "let's go school" or "go go go". Which in my heart I was happy to see because was advocating for himself and communicating what he needed in the moment.

At some point we ended back in the lobby, then back in the theatre, then back in the lobby... you see the pattern here? Finally he sat, and it dawned on me that he was actually frightened by the large screen, the creepy characters and loud sounds. He would squint his eyes so tightly when creepy characters came on the screen. At that point, he gathered his backpack, his thermos, put his coat and back pack actually on and looked at me, like Mom let's go now. I honored his request. I didn't fight it anymore. He physically communicated to me appropriately that he was done and needed to leave. In comparison to the actions the day before, I wanted to show him that when he does communicate appropriately, without thrashing and crying, we are able to accommodate his wants.

I grabbed my stuff and we went out in the lobby together. We sat in the chairs, checked out some of the arcade games, ate some snacks and just calmly hung out. There was no running away, panicking or anything like that. I wanted to end the movie theatre outing on a calmer note than how we started. I wanted Alan to feel comfortable at a place like that, instead of feeling how he did when he started. After about a half hour of hanging out there, we went home. That was a big lesson for both of us that day. I've never been one to force Alan to do things. We have tried it in the past and it always ends brutally with tears streaming down everyone's faces, his and mine. But as much as most people would chalk that event up as a failure, it's somewhat of a success too. The way he advocated for himself, calmly, appropriately and in a way that someone who doesn't know him at all, could pick up on what he needed, is SUCH a win for him and us. So yes, I would have liked him to stay longer like some of the other children, but again just wasn't in the cards for us that day.

Give me Alan communicating like that again, and I'll take that any day. Some failures lead to successes....

With grace,

This Autism Mama