Mum’s plea for understanding over autism
PEOPLE CHILD HAS SHOULD A MELTDOWN NOT JUDGE IN PUBLIC WHEN - A IT MIGHT NOT JUST BE A TANTRUM, SAYS MOTHER OF EIGHT-YEAR-OLD BOY WITH CONDITION, CLAIMING THAT THE NUMBER OF YOUNG PEOPLE WITH MENTAL HEALTH ISSUES ‘IS ROCKETING’
THE mother of an autistic boy has appealed for people not to be judgmental if he has a public “meltdown”.
Lyon Dolman, 8, was diagnosed with autism when he was two years old.
Mum Zennya, 26, a full-time carer to her son, took him to a professional barber’s over the weekend after cutting his hair herself up to that point.
She said: “Now that he’s getting older he’s more aware of what his peers are doing, he wants to be one of the boys, he wants to try new things.
“Thankfully, the lady was really lovely and he wasn’t too anxious.”
Zennya, from Swadlincote, said that because of his condition, Lyon struggles with ‘sensory overloads.’
She said the buzzing of a barber’s razor, or someone’s fingers in his hair, can cause him to become overwhelmed as all his senses become uncontrollably heightened.
This can lead to a ‘meltdown,’ where the experience becomes so unbearable for Lyon that he has to release it by screaming and flailing his limbs in what people who are not used to such episodes might call a ‘tantrum.’
LYON’S STORY
Zennya said: “He suffers really badly with sensory issues.
“When he was younger, it took me and my mum to wash his hair together because he couldn’t stand the water on his head.
“Swimming classes were also hard because he wanted to go in the older group but he hated the water going over his head. So the tutor told us to put him in the shower to get him used to it.
“But having the water go over his head like that would have been intolerable for him. It could frighten him to death.”
The sensory overloads are not the only symptoms of Lyon’s complex condition, because he also struggles with his social skills.
Zennya said: “He’ll go up to a group of 15-year-olds and put his arm round them and laugh with them while they’re in midconversation.
“Obviously, they don’t want him there but he doesn’t understand the social situation.”
Zennya said Lyon also has a great amount of difficulty sleeping and that her lack of sleep from looking after him during the night has made her physically sick in the past.
She said: “Clothing wise, Lyon will only wear tracksuit bottoms and, until this year, he had to wear them for school as he’d be screaming in pain.
“When he’s feeling particularly sensory he has to be naked in his room or he can’t cope.”
Zennya said her son’s autism also renders him incapable of eating certain foods.
She said: “Lyon, like many other autistic children, would only eat an extremely limited variety of food due to the sensory issues.
“At one point every day he would have to have chips and nuggets.
“People say they would not offer anything else other than their normal dinner, and if it wasn’t eaten then they could be hungry. But they don’t realise he’d possibly starve first.
“An educational psychologist once explained it to me that ‘it’s as bizarre to a child with autism being asked to eat an unsafe food as it is if someone asked us to eat a chair leg.’”
Zennya said these problems are only made worse by a general lack of understanding about
Lyon’s condition among members of the public.
She said: “The number of comments people make is disgusting.
“He’s there having a meltdown, lying on the floor, and people are watching and making comments.
“I hate to say it but, before I had Lyon, I probably would have thought, ‘Oh, that kid’s just naughty’ too.
“We need more awareness, and it needs to start from the bottom up.
“The number of young people seeking help with mental health problems has rocketed “At schools, they tend to not make it obvious about disabilities, but Lyon has always known about his autism and he will tell people, ‘I have autism and I find it hard.’
“At school once he was in the dinner hall. It was very noisy and he covered his ears and he was crying. The other kids, who are really good with him, were asking if he was OK. He just said, ‘I have autism and it hurts my ears.’
“It’s about giving them that power to say they have autism and know that he’s different.”
He’s there having a meltdown, lying on the floor, and people are watching and making comments.
Mum Zennya
SHANNON’S STORY
Zennya also has a sister who has autism. Her name is Shannon Parkinson, 23.
The sisters’ mother, Lisa Par-
FAMILY WANT TO RAISE AWARENESS OF THE CONDITION SO THAT PEOPLE CAN BETTER UNDERSTAND WHY A CHILD MAY BE HAVING MORE THAN JUST A ‘TANTRUM’ IN PUBLIC
kinson, 44, is a special needs assistant who deals with people with additional needs such as autism, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD).
Lisa said Shannon was not diagnosed as autistic until she was 21, despite struggling with the condition throughout her childhood.
She has also been diagnosed with OCD.
Lisa said: “It was only once I’d done my training that I recognised that this is how Shannon was as a child.
“It went undetected throughout school and she had a lot of problems.
“She used to find it very difficult if a teacher used to change, or if there was a teacher with an accent, or if there was any temporary relief staff.
“She just found it exceedingly difficult to accept.”
Shannon’s need for routine caused her problems after school too. After struggling with the transition between school and work, Shannon asked her employers for four weeks extra unpaid holiday to align more closely with the routine of school holidays.
But, after they refused to make the adjustments, she was forced to become unemployed.
Lisa said: “There’s almost an expectation of, ‘If you can move your arms and you can move your legs, just get on with it.’
“She might have got 98% in most of her assignments at school, but that doesn’t help with the social skills needed to try to go to work.”
Like Lyon, Shannon also struggles to interpret social situations and her mother said she can sometimes come across as rude.
She said: “If she’s in a shop looking at something and a staff member asks if she’s OK, she’ll just dismissively say, ‘yeah’ because she doesn’t realise what she’s actually saying.
“She doesn’t hear that as, ‘Can I help you with something?’
“If she and her partner have a situation, she’ll ask if she should feel offended or not.
“She’s uncertain about when she should feel certain emotions.”