Throughout our life we all create safe places where we can go and get ourselves reorganized when our world is shaken or turned upside down. Sometimes these places are imaginary (what we call a “happy place”) and sometimes they are physical places such as our bedroom or any other place that has certain characteristics (quiet or loud, dark or bright, small or big – whatever works for each and every one of us). Through years of experiences and practicing trial and error strategies we have learned to find or create these places and to recognize the signs that let us know that we need to go to our safe place. We mostly need our safe place when we deal with situations that create strong emotions such as fear, anger or disappointment. Thorough lots of years of practice we have also learned to appropriately “hide” from people (“Honey, I have a bad head ache. Do you mind closing the door behind you?”); or ask not to be bothered when we feel that we need that minute or hour to go to our safe place and get reorganized before we can get back to whatever it is that we need to get back to (“I have a lot to do. Please don’t interrupt me for anything. I will come out when I’m done”).
For so many reasons children with autism face so many obstacles when it comes to finding, creating and communicating about their need to go to their safe place. When facing situations that create strong feelings, our children have a hard time analyzing and processing them so, most of the time this situations end with a meltdown. Meltdowns are hard to manage in a classroom, therefore the child is removed and the parents are called in to pick up the child. The child goes home, calms down and goes back to school the next day. The next time a similar situation occurs the same strategy is used. I often hear parents say: “I understand that he can’t disrupt the entire class but how is he going to learn that going home is not going to be ok all the time. And, he is perfectly fine once he is home.” Why is that? Because home is the only safe place for the child! Is that ok? Definitely not!! We have to teach our children to find a safe place in the environment that they are in at that time. This is such a hard concept to relay to educators and until recently I thought it would be impossible to address it in a school setting. I was proved wrong by the wonderful staff from a great school in the area. I have to say I have never been so happy to be proved wrong!!
A few days ago, one of my children, Sam, (Note: I do refer to the children who I work with as being MY children) was trying out a new school (a 3 day trial for all new students is required by this school – so cool!) and during math class he got one problem wrong. When the teacher pointed out to him that the answer was wrong Sam had a complete meltdown as he hates disappointing other people. After few unsuccessful attempts to calm him down the teacher took him to the principal’s office (she calls herself the Director of Curriculum because she does not want the kids to feel like they are in trouble when they go to her office – as you would if you are sent to the principal’s office – This is only one of the many cool things this wonderful person does) and the parents were called. Question comes in to me: “What should we do? He is screaming he wants to go home” As I could postpone the activity I was engaged at that time, I offered to go to school accompanied by Sam’s dad to address the issue, emphasizing that he is not going to go home until the end of the day. While driving to school, based on my previous experiences, I created a mental picture of the situation that I was going to step in: Sam sitting in a chair or under the desk with the other people staring at him and trying to tell him how wrong he was and how we do not behave like that in school (like it is ok to do that at home!) while making a plan regarding how to address the issue with Sam and his teacher.
Here is what I found once I got in the school:
- Sam is in Mrs.’ W. (Director of Curriculum = principal) office
- Light is off
- She is working at her desk, not questioning Sam or telling him how wrong he was
- Sam is on the floor, under a blanket and a pillow
I go in the office and start talking to Sam not about what happened but about what he wanted to happen next. He wanted to go home and that option was not available.
After about 30 minutes of talking, restating the rules and negotiating Sam came out of the office and went back to the classroom.
After Sam went back to his class, Mrs. W. and I started talking about the incident. Among other things, she mentioned that she wanted Sam to feel safe in her office and that is why she created that environment for him. I was SO impressed!!! She knew how important that was and she knew how to help Sam create that safe place needed for him to process those emotions, to reorganize himself in order to be able to go back to his classroom and continue his school day.
I was so happy to be proven wrong! This issue can be addressed in schools and educators can make it happen!!
Now, it is our job as professionals and parents to show the educators what our children need, show them how to help them meet those needs and provide them with the support they need to make it happen.
We are one step closer to helping others understand our children!
The day was a great success after all.