Noticing A Change

About ten months ago, I wrote about my son’s reaction to being asked to switch seats in his cab to school. He had always sat in the same seat and the sudden change raised his anxiety and he strongly resisted.

Since then, he has been back in his usual seat in the cab.

Until this week.

Kai’s usual taxi driver is off for a few days.

On Monday, we waited for the cab to pick him up to take him to school. It was late.

Usually, when the cab is even a couple minutes late, Kai starts to get upset. It makes for a rough start to the day as it is difficult for him to wait and then he is in an anxious state when the taxi arrives. And sometimes that can carry over to his performance at school.

But on this morning, he stayed calm. In fact, as the time passed, I was the one to get anxious, not Kai. I worried that the new driver had forgotten to pick Kai up, or that the driver had gotten lost. I was concerned that Kai would be late for school.

Fifteen minutes after the time that our usual driver arrives, I could not take it anymore. I told Kai that I would take him to school.

He remained calm in the car as I drove. And he was happy when he got to school.

The next morning, the taxi arrived at our house on time. But the substitute driver had the kids she picked up first in different seats than usual. That meant that Kai would have to sit in a different spot also.

Uh oh. I was sure that would set Kai off.

But, it did not.

He accepted his new seat without protest.

The next morning, the driver had him sit in another different seat. Again, he was okay with the change.

It seems like such a small thing. But, showing flexibility where there wasn’t any before is quite a nice step in his progress.

Amidst some recent challenges, it is important that we notice the positive changes Kai is making as well.

And so this increased flexibility is duly noted.

Disruption In The School Routine

After staying home two days because he was sick, our son returned to school this morning.

Disruption with the usual routine is frequently difficult for kids on the spectrum. That is no different with Kai. He had been doing pretty well at school the past two weeks, but today seemed to have more anxiety about going back. It will only be a half day of school today, so we are hoping that he will have a good, stress-free day to get back into the school routine.

Unfortunately, toward this, we hit a little speed bump this morning.

Kai takes a taxi to school. To those of you who are unfamiliar, it may sound odd for a young child to take a cab to school. I know it sounded strange to me at first. But, when you think of it, it is not that much different than taking a school bus; it is just smaller, makes fewer stops, and picks up less kids. Kai has been sharing his cab with three or four other kids.

For as long as he has been taking a cab to school, he always sits in the same seat: second row, passenger side. Today, the driver asked that he sit in the back row.

He was not happy.

Apparently, the school or cab company or someone has issued a new rule that says boys and girls cannot sit next to each other in the cab. So, in this cab, boys will have to be in the back row and girls in the second row. I’m not sure of the need for the switch, or the importance, but that was the reason given.

Typical kids can find out about such change and easily roll with the punches. For kids like Kai, it is more like a real punch, at least in terms of his anxiety. He really resisted. And, as the driver was stressing out about being late, she relented and let Kai have his usual seat. And that will probably just make it even harder to get him to change the next time.

It sounds strange to those who are not familiar with the characteristics of kids with autism, but even a seemingly minor change like this requires a lot of proactive planning. Ideally, the school would have notified Kai, and us, ahead of time that he would need to switch seats. We, at home, would also have spoken with him and prepared him. Perhaps a social story could have been created so that he could more easily understand and visualize how things would be different.

But, those things were not done.

So, the boy who was anxious about returning to school just became a bit more anxious. And, that makes Grouchy Dad stay grouchy for a while longer.