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In our ward, we have a few families who each have more than one mentally-challenged child. Two youth are severe enough that sometimes physical restraint is necessary (one child eats everything in sight: shoes, paper, chairs, etc.). The others are on a spectrum and tend to wander all over the building on Sundays (in and out of classrooms, etc). For the most part, the ward helps the youth feel welcome in whichever class they wander into, while also trying to minimize the disruption.
We are struggling with how to help these parents enjoy their own class time while also finding a safe and constructive (as much as possible) environment for the children.
Recently, however, one of these children/youth became aggressive with a small child and ended up really hurting the child.
Ideas are needed!
Has anyone else experienced this? If so, what solutions did you come up with?
We have a new member of this board who is therapist for autistic kids. You might want to PM her. bdavis is her name. With my son, I was lucky that he gravitated to a couple of older YM. They would take him to class, etc. My son is more highly functioning. That helps.
Good luck.
Is there any hope of any kind of therapy for the one who hurt the other child? Is there any chance of a degree of self-control? I hate to suggest this and wouldn’t do so if we weren’t discussing someone who lacks all self-control, but is a wheelchair with simple restraints a possibility?
This is a safety issue, and if the child has essentially no self-control, is dangerous, and already has hurt someone who was essentially defenseless, unrestrained attendance anywhere should not be an option.
I would suggest professional input from a doctor or therapist. Liability for the parents and perhaps even people who are trying to help is a real issue.
Oddly enough I heard a story about this recently. One child was allowed to have a tent set up within the chapel. While this sounds like a strange solution, it apparently worked. We have almost exactly the same problem in our ward. To make things more difficult, the child (12 or 13 y.o.) is a girl. There have been a lot of discussions revloving around what to do, and how to avoid the legal ramifications of one brethren taking her out in the hall or into a classroom, when she’s screaming up on the stand. We still haven’t figured out a perfect solution. I have thought about this for a few days. I have seen situations like this be “handled” by requiring a parent to be with their child (perhaps with a calling in their classroom). That is the best that I came up with.
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