"A mother's real story about taking her autistic son to theme parks. Why Sea World's disability discount matters—and why more venues should follow their lead."
Summertime….. At first I was dreading it. Missing out on the four hours of school my ASD child would be missing out on meant that I too would be missing out on about the only “me” time I ever get- and it’s not even REALLY “me” time being that I have a 19 month old baby that stays home, but I do enjoy how school allows me to stay on my strictest routines and make time for each of my 3 children individually. When school was coming to an end I felt as though I should put up a countdown until the first day of school. Especially because this particular summer was going to be very much out of the “norm” for my family.
Summer started with my Sister in-law coming to stay, we haven’t had much contact with her in eight years, she is now 17 and vastly becoming an adult and has had to weather a lot of misfortunes as far as her immediate family is concerned. Knowing she would be staying with us for the summer, I was worried, how would P (my ASD child) react to having another person here all summer? Invading his space, setting forth some new rules and on top of all that? Being completely out of routine.
Amazingly it has gone extremely well, P is loving having his Auntie here and I think Auntie is learning A LOT about Autism! That is always a plus!!!
After a few weeks of my sister in law being here I was expecting some more guests for a weekend, my best friend, her husband and their 8 year old son (who is almost 2 months to the day younger than my oldest son A). I hadn’t seen them in four years, and it is amazing how much life can change in what seems to have been a very short period! The last time she had visited P was 9 months old, albeit a very BIG “baby” but still very young. I knew something was “off” then but the doctors had assured me it wasn’t Autism. Anyhow since her visit, I had another child, and P was diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder.
All these people in my very small living quarters, kids and fun happening, how would P react? I was extremely nervous- in the back of my mind I couldn’t help but keep thinking about all the friends I lost when P was first diagnosed, from the people who just couldn’t understand, the people who weren’t willing to try and then those who just felt sorry for me so it was easier not to have anything to do with me. Would this reunion turn out with me being frustrated due to a lack of understanding? Would my best friend’s family understand? It’s one thing to expect one person close to you to have understanding, but adding a family into the mix? What were my odds that something would happen that would frustrate me? What were the odds that I would end up upset because it’s so hard for people to understand? As we all know even our best of family members tend to pull away due to the unknown nature of Autism, so, how would all of it go?
AMAZING! P was AMAZING! My Best Friend was AMAZING, and her family was absolutely AMAZING. Not once during their stay did I feel judged, or misunderstood, their son who doesn’t know much about Autism interacted fairly well with P, and overall P showed major improvement in his social skills!
Usually P takes a long time to “warm up” to someone. However, it didn’t take very long for my Best Friend to find a way into his heart. I have never seen him show so much emotion towards someone over such a short period of time. I am sure the mini trampoline she bought him for his room to help with occupational therapy helped a little!! He was so excited by his new toy and he KNEW his “Auntie Sara” bought it for him. When “Auntie Sara” left, P looked so sad, I asked him what was wrong, “What about Auntie Sara?” he said.
They were only here two days and in that time we had a pool party the first day and then the next was off to Sea World, another event that had me shaking in my boots so to speak. As anyone who has a child on the spectrum understands, large crowds, long waits and the unknown are great ways to set a child on the spectrum off! Many times when we want to do something that I consider “BIG” fun I tend to try to find a way to leave P with someone. But, being that I don’t have a lot of “someone's” to leave P with, and because this trip was all about our families reconnecting after four years I was gung-ho to take him.
Upon arriving at Sea World P’s first reaction was to ask to go to Morgan’s Wonderland instead, surprised? Not at all but I told him this would be fun, of course he was sitting in the stroller (he will be 5 in September) and being that he is almost as big as his 8 year old brother I was well aware of how “goofy” he looked riding the way he was but- to this day that still makes him feel safe in environments that may tend to set him off. AND even though I knew he would prefer to spend most of his time in that stroller I still made a shirt for him that had my phone number, his name and the words, “I have Autism” on it. You can never be too safe.
Something I would really like everyone to be aware of is that Sea World offers a wonderful deal to disabled children, if you fill out the paperwork, and allow 2 weeks for processing, and buy your child a season pass? You will get in for FREE! The whole year. If you just want to go a day you can do that as well and get in free for the day, either way you will be listed as an escort to your child and get a free ticket- or annual pass whichever you may prefer. If you are interested in more information regarding this you can call Guest Correspondence Services for Sea World at (210)523-3123. Be sure to have official diagnosis paperwork handy! After finding out that Sea World offered this discount I took it upon myself to call Six Flags, Schlitterbahn, Splash Town, Natural Bridge Caverns and a few other places. I was saddened to hear NONE OF Them offer any similar discounts! Thanks Sea World for allowing Parents like me to feel more at ease when having to purchase tickets for something that may result in us not being able to fully enjoy all that your park has to offer
As far as our day in the park? It was overall amazing but as always there seems to always be one instance where you run into people who have no understanding.
As we approached the “Azul” show some park personnel were standing at the entrance and asked me to leave the stroller out. The stroller is a double seater, the baby was in the back, P was in the front. I asked them if I could park the stroller in the designated handicap area because my child had Autism Spectrum disorder. My husband was with me and I wanted to take the “Big kids” to the splash zone while he stayed with the baby and P. The park employees then hesitated and told me I could park the stroller in the handicap area but had to take the baby out. What? Why? Take the baby out if the stroller was there can’t they both just sit in it? My husband was not going to be able to hold a squirming baby who would want to “go go go” all while doing what he could to soothe P. I became slightly upset, the whole matter made no sense to me whatsoever- I kind of caused a stink. Maybe it’s because I am so used to having to be a Mama Grizzly Bear when it comes to “protecting” my special needs child, maybe it’s because the idea of the whole matter made absolutely NO sense. In the end though I caused a big enough stink they let us into the show.
P for some reason feels that the “Big Fishies” need to stay in the water, when they jump out he was TERRIFIED. I was already dreading the Shamu show, we wanted to see the special “Summer Nights-Shamu ROCKS!” show and I knew being that there was only ONE show that it would be packed. What if at the next show the park employees reacted the same way?
Before we headed to the next show we went to the new “Sesame Street Bay of Play” here they had a tiny water park for little kids. Apparently you have to be 3 or younger to play there. A woman approached us and asked P’s age, I told her he was 4. She said he couldn’t play there. I tried to explain he has ASD and the bigger part of the child’s water park was full of many people and that his development socially was that of a 2 year old rather than 4. Doesn’t matter, she said, as she kicked us all out of the area. I wasn’t AS upset about this, I can’t expect special rules to be in place for my son ALWAYS but is it too much to ask that maybe JUST ONCE when I say “My son has Autism” people could respond with KNOWLEDGE instead of a disgruntled face? Or complete lack of awareness? For something that is vastly becoming more “common” you would think more people would have at least a minimal understanding, however they don’t.
The rest of the day was so much fun, P had figured out that he could put the stroller’s canopy down around him making it easy for him to “hide”. It may not seem like much but if I think back two years ago- he would have just started screaming, clearly he is learning to live with his Autism just as much as we are.
I asked him periodically throughout the day if he was ready to see the “Big Whale” he responded every time with “Nope”. Oh no, this is not good. What is going to happen! I always fear that P’s inability to be in certain situations may prohibit my other two “Neuro-Typical” children from enjoying various activities. As it neared time for “Shamu Rocks” P had finally tried to negotiate, “Not big whale Mommy, Little whale??” Ummm, hmmmm, well, there might be a “little” whale? But even the smallest baby Killer Whale would still seem mighty big to my son, not to mention for some reason P doesn’t much care for certain forms of Music. The loudness, the pitch, the tune, all combined was sure to set him off.
We headed to the show 45 minutes in advance and there was already a line. My husband and I started wondering, take him out of the stroller? Try that? It didn’t sound like it was in ANYONE’S best interest to try that to me, but there was no one at the entrance to ask, when someone finally showed up, I thought, well I’ll try to see if we can take in the stroller. The woman I asked was amazing. I think she could hear the hesitation in my voice, so I asked her, “You have handicap seating in Shamu Stadium right?” She responded with “Yes, Of Course!” I explained once again that my son had Autism Spectrum Disorder and asked if it would be okay to take in the stroller, her response? “Absolutely!! Don’t worry about it, hon!!” In the words of P, “WHEW! That was close!” And it’s a good thing she said yes! Over all the cheers for Shamu as the show started, I could STILL hear P SCREAMING for me at the top of the stadium with his dad, they lasted all of 10 minutes in the show until my husband had to take him out. Upon leaving the stadium apparently P told his dad, “Whew that was really really REALLY close! Dad! You SAVED me!”
The ride home I was thinking of the day and I couldn’t help but think that it would be great for Sea World to work with an organization to create a day for kiddos like ours where they could tour the park and meet the animals in a more “autism friendly” atmosphere. If my husband hadn’t been there (which he often isn’t due to his job) I would have had to take all my kids out of the show and I know my 8 year old would have been heart broken. Maybe if P could kind of meet these gentle giants in another way he wouldn’t be so afraid of them when they are performing, apparently, according to my husband any time they came out of the water he was not having it!
Overall I think there needs to be more events that are offered for people within the “Autism Community”. So many people don’t understand that Autism affects every child differently, and you never know how they will react, if more places offered discounts, or even small events at their places where our kids could get out and enjoy things they same way *typical* children do? I think we would all be more willing to at least try, but for my family? Just to get in the door, even with a discount was $302! Not something that many of us are willing to spend having the off chance our child will be set off and we will need to leave!
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