One of the ongoing problems we’ve had here that we’ve felt most depressed about has been our J-Man’s fear and loathing of most stores and many public places in general. This began about a year ago when he had a full-blown panic attack at Target, a place we’d been to countless times previously. We tried for months to figure out whether there was something about that specific trip that bothered him or just something in his development, and we couldn’t come up with anything. We tried going back a couple more times not long after that particular ‘adventure’, and each trip resulted in the same panic.
We had no idea what to do. He typically would consent to being carried in my arms, but we can’t shop like that. That’s doubly not an option when you have two kids. I did actually carry him into the mall several months ago in order to go to Stride Rite to find him some shoes. He desperately needed shoes (and he needs the wide shoes we can only find at Stride Rite), and I couldn’t think of any other way to get through it. I felt terrible for him, but we had to physically go this time because he’s an oddball width, and we needed to try specific shoes to see what would fit him. Let’s just say it was so difficult that I pulled several muscles in my back and prayed we’d never have to go again. (To Stride Rite’s credit, they were very patient and understanding with him.)
We went through some rough phases last year in general, and this could have played a large part in all the anxiety around public outings. But these misadventures made us very reluctant to try again both because it was clearly such an awful experience for him and we didn’t know what to try to help get us all through it. So we ended up doing most of our errand-running while he was at school, but we never stopped being depressed about all this.
We got to the point where we knew we had to figure this out. We needed some outside help. Cue our developmental therapist and savior.
Recently, we finally progressed far enough along in our county disability services to receive 10 hours of in-home developmental therapy (DT) each week. We worked out a set of goals with our DT, case manager, etc. – some ambitious ones at that – and got started. Not surprisingly, between school all day and DT some afternoons and weekends, this makes for a full calendar for the J-Man. However, he’s handled it well and really thrived with our DT. She rocks!
One of our big goals was helping him be more comfortable in public, particularly in stores and malls. We can go to certain public places if there’s something he likes to do (e.g., go to a park) and there’s not a ton of people or too many wide-open spaces. Otherwise, the potential for disaster is constant.
The reality by this point was that we hadn’t gone to the store as a family in about a year. This has been a real source of sadness for us. We don’t want to put him through things that make him that upset, but we do want to do things together obviously, and he does need to learn how to be in public. So, we set overcoming some of these challenges as one of our major DT goals.
We brainstormed with our DT for probably a couple of weeks about how we were going to try to take him to Target. We decided to go on a weekday when he wasn’t in school and earlier in the day when hardly anyone was in the store. We also chose to set a very modest goal for the first time. We’d structure the trip as much as possible and try to be in and out in less than five minutes. Our realistic goal was just to get in the front door. If we had to turn around and leave at that point, that would be OK with us. We’d try to get further next time. We decided that pretty much anything beyond that would be gravy.
But we structured it as if we were going to do a complete, yet miniature, shopping trip. The J-Man, the DT, Dale Jr., and I all would go to Target, find two things in the store that the J-Man recognizes and likes in some way, put them in our basket, buy them, and leave. We decided to create a little picture schedule on my iPod in hopes he’d understand each step we would take while there. It was a simple list: Go to Target (picture of a Target store), Get cookies (with picture of Chips Ahoy, which he doesn’t eat but likes to hold), Get chicken nuggets (picture of the box of Tyson Breast Nuggets, one of the only foods he’ll eat), Buy them, then Go home. Each time we finished one, we could check it off the list.
We went over all this with him verbally and with pictures before we left home and again in the car before we got out at the store. I had no clear sense whether he understood what I was telling him, and particularly whether he was agreeing to participate, but he had no adverse reaction up to that point. The proof would be when I got him out of the car and tried to put him in a shopping cart. We knew there’d be no way on earth he’d walk on his own in the store at this point.
I carried him from the car to the front door. (Thank God for handicapped parking placards!) We went through the door to where the carts are. So far, so good. I listened – by sound and touch – to his various body signals. I’ve developed a pretty keen sense of when we’re close to him panicking. I felt an increase in his tension, but he seemed like he was hanging in there. So far, still OK.
We tried to put him in the larger kids cart that has a double seat, where presumably he could ride next to Dale Jr. in a seat large enough to accommodate him. No dice, but he didn’t react strongly to it. He offered enough resistance to get his point across but didn’t fight or loudly protest or anything. So we passed on that idea. I then tried putting him in the main part of a shopping basket. Same kind of resistance – enough to get his point across, but no panic yet.
So I tried putting him in the ‘toddler basket’ part of the shopping cart. This is where he used to ride long ago, but he’s outgrown it by quite a bit now. But he was agreeable to this. Instead of riding sitting up with feet through the basket holes like you’re technically supposed to, he rode mostly sideways scrunched up in that part of the cart. He’s probably 15 pounds over the design limit there, and all I could hope for is that they built in some redundancy. We’d gotten this far. We were plowing ahead.
I took out the schedule and we checked off the Go to Target step. Score! Next we went and got the cookies. He took them from me and clutched the bag like he was in a desert and this was the last water on earth, but that was OK. We took out the schedule, checked off the cookies, and I told him it was time to get the nuggets now. Two for two! We went to the freezer section, got the nuggets, I took out the schedule, and checked that off the list. Holy cow, I thought. We’re going to pull this off.
His eyes were darting around some, and I could feel his body tension fluctuating – a sign he’s uneasy but trying and otherwise finding enough to hold his interest to get through this. We went to the checkout line. I went to the lane with the guy I recognized, who we’ll call Redheaded Checkout Dude. I swear you could walk through his lane in a spandex wrestler’s costume screaming out random phrases and he’d be cool with the whole thing. This is a useful attribute to look for in your local store employees. The only minor issue we had was that the J-Man refused to hand over the cookies for the price scanner, so Redheaded Checkout Dude nonchalantly took out his wand scanner with the super long cord and scanned the barcode on the cookies through the J-Man’s protective fingers. Done. I swiped my card, got my receipt, and I took out the picture schedule and said, “All done! Great job! Time to go home!”
I could sense him relaxing a bit. Extracting him from the cart was a bit of a challenge because of how he was wedged in there (which in and of itself likely helped him sensory-wise), but as long as he got to hold on to the bag of Chips Ahoy, he was OK. He kept his death grip on the cookie bag until we got home. I didn’t care what he did with them at that point.
This trip to the store went beyond my wildest dreams. We were speechless. I’m honestly not sure whether the schedule helped a lot, a little, or not really at all. Maybe it was that, maybe it was the passage of time since we last went, maybe he’d grown comfortable enough in his own skin and in the world to be ready. I don’t know. But we did it, and I was thrilled to the point of tears.
That afternoon, I got really ambitious. Dale Jr. was home taking a nap while Mary worked in our home office. So the J-Man and I went by ourselves to Lowe’s to get a couple of random supplies I needed. No schedule this time. If we needed to leave early or not even really go in at all, so be it. I was feeling brave and riding the high from the morning’s success. I was feeling how much I wanted to get back this part of our life together.
Maybe it’s a father-son ritual we’ve somewhat missed out on that’s made me sad for a long time now. But we cruised the store for a while, and he seemed content to look around and take it all in. Again he rode in the shopping cart sideways in the toddler basket. We got the couple of things I needed, paid for them, and left. I felt like I’d won the Super Bowl. Being able to go to the store together – just the J-Man and me – has been really special. We went almost a year without being able to really go out and do much together. Sometimes with the J-Man, one good experience is enough to get him over whatever barriers led him to avoid something before.
When we finally went as a family – all four of us – on our first public shopping adventure in eons, it was a memorable experience. It made us happy to do ‘normal’ family activities, just the basics of life like getting groceries. No big deal to most people, but a very big deal to us.
Next trick is the mall. No real cart for him to ride in there. He might still fit in the jogging stroller – though I doubt it – but there’s no guarantee he’ll even get near that stroller anyway. We’ll attempt to plan something quick and simple there that hopefully will appeal to him in some way and then try the picture schedule again. We’ll let you know how it goes.
Every child is different, but for what they are worth, here are my suggestions for what to try if you are having trouble going anywhere in public and want to take steps toward improving this.
- Plan in detail a very simple and quick trip to one place (e.g., the grocery store). Keep your goals realistic. As I said above, we picked two – and only two – very familiar grocery items and created a visual schedule of what we planned to do and stuck to it. If you’ve used social stories with your child in the past, this is a great time to use one. If we were able to do everything, the trip would take less than five minutes. You want to create the conditions for success as best you can, and short and simple is the easiest way to do that.
- Go at a time when the place you’re going to isn’t as crowded. Mid-morning on a weekday if you can work that out seems like the least busy time around here.
- Have some calming techniques ready if your child does become very anxious. For us, there are certain songs I can hum or sing that will lower his anxiety levels some. These may only buy us a little time, but sometimes that’s all you need. Don’t be afraid to resort to bribery on these initial attempts. It’s better to employ these as you start noticing your child becoming anxious rather than waiting until full panic sets in. At that point, it’s often too late.
- Have an extra adult with you in case you need backup or reinforcements to help with your child if he/she panics.
- Build in some reinforcers. We bought items he is familiar with or is strongly attached to. I believe this helped a lot.
- If your child’s anxiety levels get very high, be OK with leaving and trying again another day. I don’t think just getting through it come hell or high water simply for the sake of doing so helps anybody. Remain as calm as you can. Even though calm doesn’t necessarily beget calm, it certainly is more likely that becoming outwardly frustrated and upset will only increase your child’s anxiety. You want to give your child the best experience you can given the circumstances. A positive, or even tolerable, experience provides reinforcement and hopefully gives you something to build on next time. If your child only remembers it as an awful experience, it only makes it that much harder next time.
- Don’t give a flip about what other shoppers think. This isn’t about them. I know that’s hard sometimes, but focus as much positive attention on your child as you can. I do think our kids can sense our stress about others around us in public places.
- Learn from the experience. Whether it went perfectly or just sucked for everybody, make notes about what you tried and what happened. I recommend this for anything you’re struggling with. You can look for patterns and either try to find ways to improve things next time or, by noting what worked, see what techniques you can build on for next time.
- Don’t give up. Our latest experiment with trips to the store went beyond our wildest dreams. I am not as hopeful about going to the mall given that it’s harder to structure and control. But I am determined to find a way to make it work and for it to become an experience our son is at least OK with. Being in public is an important skill to learn, and we have to find strategies to help our kids with that.
- Ask for help both in your local community and online. Other parents have been through this, and there are plenty of professionals who can help you look at the situation with fresh eyes and come up with ideas.
Good luck to us all!
Thanks again to Danette Schott at Help! S-O-S for Parents for including this post as part of her May “Best of the Best” feature on anxiety and stress as they relate to invisible special needs, which will be published on May 15, 2011. She’s collected numerous posts from some top-notch bloggers, so make sure you check it out. And while you’re there, make sure you take a look at the previous editions of “Best of the Best”!
