I’m sorry your child has autism, and I understand that it must be frustrating not be able go on outings with him like you would a non-autistic child, but that doesn’t mean that all the rest of us should just put up and shut up when he’s yelling/moaning for 15 minutes straight during the Avengers movie. I agree that your paying for his ticket means that he has just as much right to enjoy the movie you as the rest of us, but that doesn’t mean he can ruin the movie for the rest of us. Perhaps in the future you might consider an activity for him that is less likely to overstimulate. Or leaving him with a sitter when you take the rest of your children to the movie, or accept the fact that you may have to take him out of the theater and miss part of the movie if he starts acting up. Simply telling those around you who complain that he is autistic is not sufficient.
Further the fact that the the manager of the theater nicely but firmly told you that they would give you your money back but that you needed to leave doesn’t mean that he is racist or that this is a “white” theater. There were a varied collection of ethnicities in the audience who appeared to be unmolested by the staff, (and who were glad to see you and your child escorted out). I also skeptical that you will be able to find a “black” theater where such behavior is welcomed despite your comments to the contrary.
…but I do agree that the mom should have pulled him out the theater if the behavior was ongoing…a few seconds, no big deal…a few minutes, then that’s as bad as cellphone jabberers and talkers who ruin movies.
I had to do this a few times with my son who is autistic…but if you shoot me a look within 5 seconds without giving me a valid attempt to resolve the situation…I’m gonna shoot back…
Heh…I never heard of that great saying…and I doubt the kid was being an asshole in the first place…he gets a pass. The parent in the OP, on the other hand, tried to justify their ongoing presence with the kid’s autism…she does not a get a free pass.
And there is no tough titties here for me to suck on.
Agreed. Parents like that make the rest of us who DO try to keep our kiddos under control (special needs or not) look bad.
We rarely take Slim to the movies because we know it’s hard for him to control himself because he gets SO freaking excited. Most of the time, we opt for waiting until the movie he’d like to see comes on DVD/cable so that we don’t have to disturb anybody.
Granted…we have made two exceptions: Toy Story 3 and Cars 2, but in both of those cases we took him in the evening when he was a little more tired and thus less likely to act up.
Sorry for the word choice, I spent some time trying to think about how to summarize the episode in 10 words or less and that is the word that I came up with.
I wouldn’t have had a problem if she managed to quiet him down or took him out at the first sign of trouble, and she would probably get my sympathy for doing so, but she basically ignored it and expected us to do likewise. Also it was much worse than cell phone jabberers who at least usually attempt (and fail) to keep it down. He was full on yelling and drowning out the dialogue with 20 second pauses just long enough to think he had calmed down only to start again. I’m going to have to get Avengers on DVD so I can figure out the parts I missed.
I had sympathy for the kid who just seemed to be freaked out by the whole affair, but the mother really needs an attitude adjustment.
I actually said that to someone once, more or less. We had a customer who has, what I assume is, Torette’s. She would come in and would be all twitchy and weird, but even between the twitches she was just, strange and kind of a dick. If you were looking in her general direction she would yell at you and tell you how rude it was to stare. A few months ago she was asking one of my employees something but he didn’t hear her so she went off on him (with all kinds of swearing) about how horrible of a person he was for ignoring her. Later she snuck up behind him while he was using a slicer and tried to scare him and said “I hope you cut your fucking arm off” That, for me, was the last draw. I knew, from the first time I met her that at some point I’d have to get rid of her, she was very difficult to deal with, she came in every week and swore at the employees, yelled at the customers, but it was clear she had a disability and we did our best to deal with it. After that, we were done.
I went up to her and told her, nicely, that she couldn’t shop here any more because of that last incident and then she started yelling at me in German “sprechen sie deutsch” over and over to which I replied “No, I don’t speak German” sprechen sie deutsch sprechen sie deutsch sprechen sie deutsch" “Look, you have to speak in English, I don’t speak German” this got rather heated and loud "You need to speak in English (I don’t think she knew any more German then that, but I think she had just gotten back from Europe “YOU need to travel more” (WTF) “Look, I’m sorry to have to be like this, but I can’t have you in here any more and if you’re not going to leave I’m going to call the police” then she said the most random thing I heard “Well, I’m going to call the Military on your arrogance” which is when I finally said “Look, I’m sorry you have a disability, but I can’t have you treating my employees and customers like assholes every time you’re here, you accuse them of doing things they haven’t done, they/I help you find things and you swear at them, you tried to get John to cut himself on the slicer, I need you to leave” and I walked away.
Wow, I got a little wound up just reliving that. I’m glad she hasn’t been back since.
If you look here, I called her “not very nice”. I want to say it’s the Tourettes doing this. It could be a life of people staring at her that have made her an ass, but I don’t know. Either way, all I know is that when she first start shopping at my store I treated her like any other customer (as did my other employees) and she was just a piece of shit. I’m willing to bet I’m not the first store to fire her as a customer.
I’m with Yeticus, the kid gets a pass but the parent was out of line. As a parent of 3, one of which is on the autism spectrum, I can fully empathize. IMHO you don’t get a free pass - at least not at something like the movies which is optional.
We try a lot of stuff with my daughter. And more often than not whatever we’re trying to do as a family ends up being my daughter and I leaving for something else. It’s a better experience for my daughter, for me, the family and those around us. I wish it weren’t that way, but shit happens. If we’re on a plane, we will do the best we can but there you have to suck it up.
It may have been that she had Tourette’s with paranoid schizophrenia or just schizophrenia alone–a disease associated with its own motor abnormalities. Tourette’s would not explain that kind of behavior.
She also could have had Tourette’s and been an asshole.
My guess is that she either had Tourette’s and was a jerk or over the years of having it sorta became a jerk. Maybe there was a big of paranoia mixed in there. Not necessarily schizophrenia or narcissism, but maybe just thinks a bit highly of herself.
My first confrontation with her was when I was just looking in her general direction, not at her and she wasn’t twitching or doing anything odd at the moment (but she was earlier) and she came running up to me and said “What’s your problem?” “Huh, what me?” “Yeah, you’re a jerk, you shouldn’t stare at people that’s really rude” “Buh, what I wasn’t—” and she went on her way. It was in a really, really nasty tone of voice, I honestly didn’t even know she was talking to me at first. I mean, it would have been so much easier to say “I have ____ sometimes it makes me twitch or [whatever] so you’ll have to excuse me, I’m not trying to offend anyone it just happens on it’s own sometimes and there’s not much I can do about it right now.”
Hell, we would have gone out of our way to help. We already knew from experience to be really careful not to box her into a corner. There was an employee in a narrow aisle, she came down the aisle then a customer came down behind her, she started swearing at everyone. After that we went out of our way to make sure that when that situation arised the employee knows to pick up their stuff and get out of the way ASAP because she won’t wait for someone to backout or act like a normal person and turn sideways and sort of shimmy her way out…she’ll just start swearing at everyone and act like they did it on purpose. We went out of our way to not let that happen again and if she gave us the chance we would have gone out of our way to do anything else we could..but we didn’t we got rid of her. You should see how we help some of our other customers. You’d be friggen amazed at some of the things we do for our customers at our little family business. Just a few weeks ago I picked one of them up from an endoscopy because she couldn’t get a ride home. I made one customer cry (tears of joy) because I told her that next time it was icy out I wanted her to call me from the car and tell me what she needs and I’d run it out to her so she wouldn’t have to risk slipping it was clear that her legs were getting worse (looks like polio, not saying it is, but that’s what the limp looks like).
Tourette’s lady was a jerk, she can go shop at the jerk store.
Good on you Joey P for going above and beyond in the “trying to help” the unhelpable (the jerky lady) department. But as you note sometimes that negative impact on others becomes so great you just gotta cut your moral losses so to speak. Again, congrats for trying.
Uh Tourette’s could definitely cause all that. The entire disorder is that you can’t stop yourself from saying things that are inappropriate, and the harder you try, the more stuff you say.
It has nothing to do with being a jerk, it has to do with having no filter.
I was dating someone with 3 autistic children. The older ones (teenagers) could be pretty ‘normal’ in situations like that, the younger one (age 6) did have trouble and got somewhat overstimulated. She would take the younger one out of the theater area to comfort him then they returned in a while. Yes there was some disruption when he had a overstim outburst, and yes we all knew it was possible even likely (though we tried to chose a movie to minimize this). The child still needs to have a life, though in raising such children, or any child for that matter, there are sacrifices one makes. I do believe she had the right balance between minimizing disruptions and having her child experience life. And I do miss her and her children.
Yeticus, what is wrong with “control”? It’s incumbent upon any parent to establish boundaries and solicit compliance. I’ve got no problem expecting parents to control their children.
Some movie theaters try to help families affected by autism by holding a special screening once a month during which the volume of the movie is lowered, the theater is not darkened, and loud noises (and even moving around) are permitted. You don’t have to have autism (or be with someone who does) to attend these showings, and the theaters carefully make clear what’s going to happen so that people who wouldn’t want to attend under these conditions can go another time. I hope more theaters do this. It could help many families.
