I have a kiddo with (very likely genetically and behaviourally, but not yet diagnosed by a psych) adhd. He runs us ragged. Love the bugger to death but he is a handful.
We had him at a McDonalds playground the other day, and a nonverbal autistic kid came in escorted by a parent. He immediately got overstimulated and screamed. And ran out.
He started doing laps of the McDonalds. Every time he would pass the play area, his parents would gently guide him towards it, then he would bugger off out the front door again.
He did like 12 laps with his father, 12 laps with his grandfather, then 12 laps with his mother, and eventually he came back to the playground and goofed off a bit with his father again. I could clearly see they were drilled on this behaviour and used to take turns minding him.
They very clearly love their son. But they really don't deserve to have a kid more than 1000 times more difficult than I can even imagine. Like even shifting that kids range a bit so that he could tolerate more play time, and do less laps of the building would help everyone involved. He wouldn't be losing some valuable element of his identity for that to happen.
Whereas my kid might have trouble paying attention to the boring bits in school and want to run around a lot. I am not pining for a cure. We might medicate if it becomes an issue. Its hardly worth talking about in comparison.
We had him at a McDonalds playground the other day, and a nonverbal autistic kid came in escorted by a parent. He immediately got overstimulated and screamed. And ran out.
He started doing laps of the McDonalds. Every time he would pass the play area, his parents would gently guide him towards it, then he would bugger off out the front door again.
He did like 12 laps with his father, 12 laps with his grandfather, then 12 laps with his mother, and eventually he came back to the playground and goofed off a bit with his father again. I could clearly see they were drilled on this behaviour and used to take turns minding him.
They very clearly love their son. But they really don't deserve to have a kid more than 1000 times more difficult than I can even imagine. Like even shifting that kids range a bit so that he could tolerate more play time, and do less laps of the building would help everyone involved. He wouldn't be losing some valuable element of his identity for that to happen.
Whereas my kid might have trouble paying attention to the boring bits in school and want to run around a lot. I am not pining for a cure. We might medicate if it becomes an issue. Its hardly worth talking about in comparison.