John Lewis tantrum toddler: Mother and child asked to leave : Was store right?

[Conniff]

When this was reported on the BBC I took a look at the 132 comments left by readers and not one of them backed her.

 

One of the comments said it was her throwing the tantrum and running to the press, what does she want, money?

[citizenB]

When this was reported on the BBC I took a look at the 132 comments left by readers and not one of them backed her.

 

One of the comments said it was her throwing the tantrum and running to the press, what does she want, money?

 

 

This was the point of my first post, I couldnt understand why if she thought they were implying she was a rubbish Mum, why, she would want to then let the world know..? My first stop would have been a complaint to the Manager of the store.

[citizenB]

Short of store providing a place for parents to go when their child is acting up, I don't see there are too many choices other than the Parent to remove their child from the scene eg, leave the store.

[hightail]

I have since found out this is exactly what the store staff offered - a quiet room. How very dare they!

[Nystagmite]

What's wrong with that? Because sometimes, that's what the child needs.

[Fedupandfightingback]

I have since found out this is exactly what the store staff offered - a quiet room. How very dare they!

 

 

 

 

I would have been so grateful for that offer, I can think of nothing more embarrassing than a child throwing a tantrum, no matter what the reason.

[king12345]

Gone are the days that the first hint of misbehaviour was immediately followed by a slap.

As a child I never dreamed of throwing a tantrum, otherwise my mum/dad would have made that pass very quickly (and painfully).

One thing that bothers me a lot is that almost every I hear, justifies bad behaviour with spectrum of autism /Asperger /learning disability.

And it bothers me even more the fact that doctors are happily diagnosing these syndromes on a first appointment.

I recently had to train a group of new employees and 10 out of 12 said that they had some degree of disability (autism, Asperger, learning, bipolarism)

So anything wrong they did had to be justified by these conditions: I'm playing candy crash because if I don't I'm gonna have a meltdown.

I'm going for a walk in the middle of the lesson otherwise I'm gonna have a tantrum.

I don't feel like listening to you, so I'm gonna listen to music instead.

 

I walked out of the training at day three, went to my boss and reported all that had happened.

I confirmed that most of the dirty dozen wouldn't be able to concentrate for more than 10 minutes and couldn't do the job.

He agreed with me but sadly the head office had to fulfil the equality target.

I can guarantee you that none of these people had anything wrong with them apart from playing the disability card.

I know people with autism and been around them for most of my life.

Anyone pretending to have one of these syndromes to play the system (and there are lots of them) are only insulting the others who really have autism/Asperger etc.

Shame on you!

Moan over

[Nystagmite]

Can I suggest you educate yourself on what things like Autism are? GPs aren't qualified to diagnose things like that. They may decide there's enough evidence for a referral to get a diagnosis or they may decide it's just a personality thing. In my case, I had 3 serious issues of depression (including the one in which the police were called) and at least one episode of OCD before eventually getting diagnosed at the age of 23.

 

I have never tried to justify my behaviour by saying I have Autism. I have explained that I have Autism which means I have issues with certain things. Last year, we went away and I spent the best part of 4 days trying to hiding how frusrated I was becoming (I have this habit of hiding how I really feel) over the lack of routine. My friend had eventually worked this out (he'd promised me we'd do something and we didn't) and he'd explained to his friends what my problem is. Unfortuantely for me (there was also another reason which has nothing to do with that) it then to an OCD trigger.

 

And yes, I have been known to just walk out. It's either that or stay and end up with sensory overload, which is scary. It means, amogst other things, I am physically unable to talk. It can also lead to migraine. So, yeah, I've really got no choice but to just walk out. I once explained to someone it's not like when you need the toilet where you can just wait 5 minutes and then excuse yourself.

[king12345]

Can I suggest you educate yourself on what things like Autism are? GPs aren't qualified to diagnose things like that. They may decide there's enough evidence for a referral to get a diagnosis or they may decide it's just a personality thing. In my case, I had 3 serious issues of depression (including the one in which the police were called) and at least one episode of OCD before eventually getting diagnosed at the age of 23.

 

I have never tried to justify my behaviour by saying I have Autism. I have explained that I have Autism which means I have issues with certain things. Last year, we went away and I spent the best part of 4 days trying to hiding how frusrated I was becoming (I have this habit of hiding how I really feel) over the lack of routine. My friend had eventually worked this out (he'd promised me we'd do something and we didn't) and he'd explained to his friends what my problem is. Unfortuantely for me (there was also another reason which has nothing to do with that) it then to an OCD trigger.

 

And yes, I have been known to just walk out. It's either that or stay and end up with sensory overload, which is scary. It means, amogst other things, I am physically unable to talk. It can also lead to migraine. So, yeah, I've really got no choice but to just walk out. I once explained to someone it's not like when you need the toilet where you can just wait 5 minutes and then excuse yourself.

 

Your situation is a complete different matter from what I described

[Nystagmite]

Your situation is a complete different matter from what I described

 

No it's not. And if you really knew anything about Autism, you'd know it was a spectrum. Meaning that just because you've been around people with Autism all your life, doesn't mean you know that the rest are playing the disability card. You can't just look at someone and know whether they have something like Autism. Although, I do know (because I overheard) that someone was discussing with his friend (it was a group I used to attend) whether I was indeed Autistic. One problem for me, for different reasons is that I can't do eye contact.

[king12345]

No it's not. And if you really knew anything about Autism, you'd know it was a spectrum. Meaning that just because you've been around people with Autism all your life, doesn't mean you know that the rest are playing the disability card. You can't just look at someone and know whether they have something like Autism. Although, I do know (because I overheard) that someone was discussing with his friend (it was a group I used to attend) whether I was indeed Autistic. One problem for me, for different reasons is that I can't do eye contact.

 

I agree with you that I don't know anything about autism, after all I only spent 30 years with people affected by it.

I have a couple of questions for you: In the past 10-15 years a very large percentage of the population in UK started considering themselves disabled because affected in different grades by the aforementioned syndromes.

Why this steep increase?

Is our species on the brink of a mass mutation?

Is our brain developing skills via autism etc?

Why is this happening mainly in uk/USA?

Does the fact that by claiming disability doors are open wider and bad behaviour /performance is excused in a minuscule percentage of cases?

[Nystagmite]

They were probably misdiagnosed or chucked into hospitals instead. I have a friend who is in his late 60s who told me when he was a child, he had a friend who had Autism. His friend didn't talk and had behaviour problems.

 

You have to remember there's no scan or blood test for it. We know far more about autism than we did some 30 years ago.

 

I have friends n their 40s who were diagnosed with mental health problems at first. And so was I.

[Fedupandfightingback]

Having reread the original post, this was about a child throwing a tantrum in a major store. It was about the fact that instead of making a complaint to the store itself the Mother rushed off to the Newspaper to claim she was being made to feel like she was a rubbish Mother.

 

 

It is quite interesting that there was a rush to defend her and the child by scores of parents who have autistic children.

 

 

Now, if this had been me or any of those with autistic children, would you not have then let the press know about this very important fact and the reason why your child was not throwing a tantrum in the sense of the word.. but having an autistic episode ? This would not only have made John Lewis feel thoroughly ashamed but have brought some kind of tolerance to those future children who had one of these in public and a whole heap of awareness about the problem?

 

 

She didn't, therefore one can pretty much assume that this was just a self interest issue for the Mother with a child who was thoroughly fed up with her Mum dragging her round stores and absolutely nothing to do with having an autistic child !

[Fedupandfightingback]

As for Ford's query re the apparent increase in Autism. There are 2 schools of thought on this.

 

 

1. that there is an increased awareness and more thorough diagnostic systems available.

http://autism.about.com/od/causesofautism/p/ontherise.htm

 

 

and

 

 

2 that there has been a significant increase in autism since the increase in the number of vaccines given routinely to children since the 1990's

 

 

https://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/the-increase-in-autism-diagnoses-two-hypotheses/

[Fedupandfightingback]

oops.. apologies, it wasn't Ford.. it was King

[king12345]

Don't want to hijack the poll, but at this point I have to ask:

Do you think that a large majority of people, especially intelligent adults are "milking" the system by claiming autism, Asperger or very simply and hard to dispute learning disability?

[hightail]

This would not only have made John Lewis feel thoroughly ashamed

You believe a store should feel thoroughly ashamed at offering a mum a quiet room for her obviously distressed child? Why?

[hightail]

Do you think that a large majority of people, especially intelligent adults are "milking" the system

I think modern society loves labels. The reality in this particular situation is that it makes no difference, a distressed toddler could benefit from a bit of quiet space and the shop staff recognised that. In return they are castigated in the press by the mother and should apparently feel 'thoroughly ashamed'. I wonder if they'll be as quick to try and help next time. I wouldn't blame them if they aren't.

[Nystagmite]

Don't want to hijack the poll, but at this point I have to ask:

Do you think that a large majority of people, especially intelligent adults are "milking" the system by claiming autism, Asperger or very simply and hard to dispute learning disability?

 

Obviously, some do. And I have been in the situation where I have been told it's "ok" to harass someone (that someone being me, more than once) on the basis of Autism / mental illness. Thankfully the first time it happened, the group I attended, realised his behaviour really was not ok and kicked him out. The second time, they (the group I attended) weren't interested and told me it was my fault. They then wondered why my response to that was leave. He left just before I did, which was apparently my fault. He was lucky the police didn't get involved. Only because I knew from previous expierence, they wouldn't be interested.

 

Sounds as though you have issues with those of us with Autism having to use it as a reason why we really can't do things. You remind me of my former "support worker" who thought it was ok to constantly take me somewhere noisy, despite having sensitive hearing. Too much noise (noise you can tolerate - for me, it just goes into one loud horrible sound / I can't even have things like an analogue clock in my flat because they're too loud) hurts.

 

And yes, I've had to use it as a reason why I really struggle with things. My friends response to that? I know that. He'd worked out at some point that I have problems with language.

[citizenB]

This would not only have made John Lewis feel thoroughly ashamed

You believe a store should feel thoroughly ashamed at offering a mum a quiet room for her obviously distressed child? Why?

 

 

No, not at all. I probably didn't explain myself properly.

 

 

It is my understanding that the Mother was offered a quiet space - which if the article is to be believed, she then assumed that this was a way of making her feel like a bad Mother. The point I am trying to put forward is - had the child suffered with autism and she had advised the store of this, or even if she had said this in her interview, then that might have bought shame down on JL - with tons of complaints from outraged parents who have children who suffer from this. But she didn't, so her rush to the newspaper was IMHO simply trying to make an issue out of a genuine offer.

 

 

Probably still not getting that over right !!

[citizenB]

Don't want to hijack the poll, but at this point I have to ask:

Do you think that a large majority of people, especially intelligent adults are "milking" the system by claiming autism, Asperger or very simply and hard to dispute learning disability?

 

 

I stumbled over a forum yesterday that was deep in argument about this very suggestion.

 

 

There was a high percentage of contributors saying that whilst there are many genuine cases - a very high percentage are also those wishing to either excuse bad parenting or simply jumping on the bandwagon.

 

 

Is autism a mental illness ?

[king12345]

Obviously, some do. And I have been in the situation where I have been told it's "ok" to harass someone (that someone being me, more than once) on the basis of Autism / mental illness. Thankfully the first time it happened, the group I attended, realised his behaviour really was not ok and kicked him out. The second time, they (the group I attended) weren't interested and told me it was my fault. They then wondered why my response to that was leave. He left just before I did, which was apparently my fault. He was lucky the police didn't get involved. Only because I knew from previous expierence, they wouldn't be interested.

 

Sounds as though you have issues with those of us with Autism having to use it as a reason why we really can't do things. You remind me of my former "support worker" who thought it was ok to constantly take me somewhere noisy, despite having sensitive hearing. Too much noise (noise you can tolerate - for me, it just goes into one loud horrible sound / I can't even have things like an analogue clock in my flat because they're too loud) hurts.

 

And yes, I've had to use it as a reason why I really struggle with things. My friends response to that? I know that. He'd worked out at some point that I have problems with language.

 

Maybe you missed the bit where I reported the excuses of trainees employed in a safety critical job.

Here they are again:

I'm playing candy crash because if I don't I'm gonna have a meltdown.

I'm going for a walk in the middle of the lesson otherwise I'm gonna have a tantrum.

I don't feel like listening to you, so I'm gonna listen to music instead.

 

Some more for you:

Trainee answers the phone during lesson. Told him that phones had to be off as agreed at the beginning of the course. His response: You're not saying anything important. Got to organise the weekend, we're doing a pub crawl after Chelsea game.

(was explaining how to turn off an escalator from control room in emergency, safety critical procedure)

 

"have you got an iPad charger? I want to watch the football and I have a flat battery"

Me:"We're in the middle of a lesson, you can't watch the football now"

Him:"you're victimising me because I am disabled"

 

This last one was the last drop that made me abandon the course.

 

IMO none of them had any sort of conditions, they just played the disability card.

[Nystagmite]

I stumbled over a forum yesterday that was deep in argument about this very suggestion.

 

 

There was a high percentage of contributors saying that whilst there are many genuine cases - a very high percentage are also those wishing to either excuse bad parenting or simply jumping on the bandwagon.

 

 

Is autism a mental illness ?

 

No. It's a developmental disorder.

[AndyOrch]

Thread now closed..as we are veering off topic of the initial thread.

 

regards

 

Andy