HELP, WHAT would you have done??

[CC]

K, I am not sure what I should have done or should do if this happens again

Colin and I are truly at a total disagreement on this one

K, Kodi Lee was in a show tonight to benefit the Make a Wish Foundation and we all went. K, we go and get third row seats and the boys go off to the mens room, K, I am fine with that, LOL hey when you got to go you got to On the way back to our seats Chris meets up with a Pal from his school and he was sooo happy. K, they all walk back to our seats and the boy sits one seat in front of us, so Chris decides to sit with him, which I thought was kind of cool K, thats when the problem arose, least I thought was a problem Christopher's Pal reaches out and holds Christopher's hand Hmmmmm I said to Colin check this out and Hmmmm this is not appropriate, I mean they are 12 year old boys and noooo 12 year old boys hold hands Hmmmm. Colin says to me, what is the problem here, Chris is happy to see his pal from school, its not like they are Gay OMG I never thought that they were and as much as I love my hubby was ticked he said that But its not appropriate I said and Colin says to me then you deal with it cause he gets tired of always worrying bout making Chris appropriate, Colin says Geeez let the kid be happy and enjoy, Hmmmmm

K, guys in all honesty I didn't do anything but keep a close eye on them as I didn't honestly know what to do I mean they were soooo well behaved, truly the best behavior just they were holding hands Hmmmm ALL I can tell you is Chris has never done that before and this Pal of his grabbed his hand and so Chris held it Hmmmmm That is the way Chris is, he just loves and is happy with people.

Now one thing here PLEASE NOTE, Chris is not one that if you tell him, or talk to him and say Chris bla bla bla he will understand, KWIM He just doesn't understand lots that many kids will and I am NOT, not giving him credit here, HONEST I know my boy. So what would you have done???

Truly I feel as if I am always correcting Chris and trying to make him who he is not, Does anyone KWIM??

This is really a very hard one for me Should I have done something?? You would have to really know Chris to know and although Chris is 12, he noooo way looks or acts 12

Man this stuff is hard somedays

CC ~

[Chester]

Just curious, did the other boy have a disability?

I think if you would have brought attention to it, you may have caused a scene. Sounds like they were both very well behaved. It just sounds like holding hands was a friendly, calming connection between the two.

I can understand your struggle. I think it is so sad that we as a society have all of these labels of what is appropriate and not appropriate and we have to worry about what others think. Holding hands didn't hurt anyone, if anything, a couple of people may have said "did you see those two boys holding hands whisper, whisper, whisper". So that part of me says, good for you Chris, I wish the rest of the world was more like you and was more emotionally intouch with each other.

The Mom part of me says, we've got enough issues where we already "stand out" lets not add anymore.....and I'm going to watch you like a hawk to make sure it doesn't happen.

I think in the end, you've got to pick your battles. In my opinion this was one that okay to let go.

[momofrussell]

That is my first question too. Did the other child have a disability too? If so, and cognitively they aren't "12", then I don't know if they'd understand appropriateness anyway. But if the other child was NOT cognitively impaired or disabled, then that child should have known better? Maybe....

I totally understand your need for appropriateness. I am one for things like that around here. But it has to be taking case by case in this instance I think. I think it was harmless and don't see how you could really approach Chris from what you tell us about him... KWIM?

A.

[Jessie]

Hmmm, CC, that is a TOUGHY!!! I can see both sides of this one. I think that if that would have been us, we probably would have went with the "let's be appropriate" way of thinking. Actually, I KNOW Brian would have, he probably would have been freaking out on the inside, but would have been calm about it on the outside.

Yes, I agree that you have to pick your battles and we probably all feel like we are correcting our kids all of the time. However, they need to learn certain things from us and I guess that might be one of them. I think the point of teaching them that stems from just wanting THEM to be aware of the fact that someone is taking their hand - what if it was a stranger and Chris didn't seem to mind? On the one hand, you guys were right there and could keep an eye on things and it sounds like it was perfectly harmless. But, what if next time you guys have your back turned for a second and someone else grabs his hand that you don't know? That's the worry wort part of me I guess! Brian is the same way, especially because Jason can't verbalize, we have to show him through his behavior what is appropriate and what is not.

Just my little ol' opinion.

Jessie

[rickismom]

Since you saw nothing else, I would let ity go. If this boy was "out to get" your son, he wouldn't have done it in front of you.

[PaigesMom]

Oh boy, I'll probably start a ruckus here - not my intention. I agree that you can look at this from many different perspectives, BUT in MY OPINION, it comes back to what 'appropriate touching' is. Whether they meant any harm or not, to me is irrelevent - 12 year old boys dont hold hands (and this has nothing to do with being gay). If he was 8 or 9 or *maybe* 10, then I would say ok, but no older than that. There are various reasons I feel this way, but mostly:

A. I would wonder if he understood (and if he didn't, a first step in teaching could be this situation) who was allowed to touch him - there is a program called Circle of Friends for our kids if you're interested - so that he doesn't allow it from everyone.

B. AND, sadly, our kids already have enough to overcome, putting himself in that position, again, in my opinion, only leads people to think differently of our kids (even though Chris would not understand that now)

So, AT THE TIME, I probably would have done nothing, OR, after a few minutes I might have asked him to come back and sit with me, maybe. But after the program was over and the friend was gone, if it was Paige, I definately would sit her down and talk to her about appropriate touching, and maybe find a teaching tool to use together - a social story, this program Circle of Friends (which you can actually make yourself).

Debbie

[MB]

Did the other child have a disability? Makes all the difference for my opinion.

MB

[CC]

Yup guys the other little boy also has disabilities, he goes to Christopher's school and his school is only for kids with Exceptional needs.

Yes we very much talk to and have talked to Chris bout Good touch/Bad touch BUT holding hands Hmmm have to say the idea of what happened never came up before. I mean to me holding hands is not a bad touch KWIM

Colin and I our still at odds with this one as Colin feels due to Christopher's lack of speech he shows his feeling thru physical things sometimes. I don't know, Honestly I am not sure how to explain to Chris you just don't hold hands with another boy unless they are a certain younger age, you know, like if he was holding a baby's hand that would be OK. I am not sure Chris will get the concept as to what the heck I am trying to say

I have to say even Kodi piped in and said "Mom, whats the biggy here" she says "girls in here school go around hugging each other all day and its no biggy". She said "Chris loves people" and it was just holding hands Hmmmm I guess the problem is with me, and in all honesty YES I do feel Chris just having DS is enough against him and I am trying to protect him from people making fun BUT if he is OK with it what am I really doing?? Man all I can say is this is something that I never thought would come up

THANKS for letting me vent and share and how exactly would any of you guys say to him, so that he would get it, you can't hold hands with another boy???

Would love some input

CC ~

[Emilysmom]

Christie~
I'm sure from what you explained that NEITHER boy meant any harm whatsoever....they probably both were just thrilled to be at this performance with a friend, and holding hands just seemed like a "natural" way to respond. But, I do think....for whatever reason......that society seeems to make a difference between teenage GIRLS holding hands or hugging or walking with their arms around each other......and adolescent boys doing the same thing. I worry that sometimes I go a bit overboard with this, but I watch for anything Emily might do that will bring any negative attention to her. So, with that being said....I guess I'm not sure I would have said anything to Chris or the other boy at the time, but later might have just explained to him that it's good to shake hands (or give a high five maybe?) with our friends and not to hold hands. I think you've done a great job of teaching Chris to avoid hugging everyone.......so he had to understand the way you taught him. There is always something to be concerned about!!!

Susan

[Jessie]

An additional 2 cents:

I was thinking about this after I posted and someone else mentioned it about girls, even in high school, showing physical affection towards each other. Personally, I never did that - I was toooo cool!!! LMAO For whatever reason that seems to be acceptable, I guess because women are looked at as being more affectionate than men in general.

Anyway, CC, you never really did say WHY it bothered YOU. Was it because you were worried about other people's reaction, worried about 'touching' in the big picture, or did it just simply look odd to you to see boys that age holding hands? For me, it probably would have been all of those things combined.

Yes, it would be nice if as a society we could have more friendly people, we hugged more, we held hands more, whatever. However, we DON'T live in a society like that and if we want our kids to be mainstreamed, included, accepted, then I feel like it's our responsibility to make sure they understand things as sensitive as this.

One of my first thoughts was also whether this other child had a disability or not. However, after thinking through that one, it really doesn't matter because I would think you want CHRIS to know the difference - not be reliant on other people to make the right decision for him whether they are disabled or not.

I'm really glad you shared this story with us because it got me thinking and I may be better prepared if/when this ever happens with Jason.

Another side note. Jason's teacher has told Brian she doesn't feel it's appropriate that Jason jumps into his arms when he sees him - that he is simply to old to be doing that and it looks odd. Course, I guess it could be because Jason is almost as tall as Brian - LOL. She would probably flip out if she saw two boys holding hands. And, yes, she has a son who is disabled and she's been teaching special education for 30+ years . . . plus her sister has Ds and she still feels this way about it showing that much affection in public.

Jessie

[Claire]

Just to say my imput.... I think since the other child also had disabilities either one meant anything more then friends holding hands. Just my opinion. I do agree though that we need to teach our children as early as possible about Good and Bad touching. We had that problem with Adam though he is only 7. He loves to hug, so as soon as he would meet people in the hall way at school he would run and give them a big hug. Everyone thought it was so cute. I know that cognitively Adam is at about a 3 year old level on lots of things including emotions so it was hard for us to decide whether to let him or not. We sat down with the EA and teacher and decided together that we would teach him to give the hand shake and say Hi. It worked wonderful and now he actually makes people wait and does the give me 5 , on the side, ect..... ;D which with Adam can go on and on. ;D ;D He attends a small school and all the teachers have told the other kids to do the same, and they have all been wonerful about it.
We hug him all the time and I know he doesn't understand yet the difference with a hug from us or a stranger but I'm sure he eventually will. When he approaches someone at school to hug they simply pull back a bit and put their hand out, he automatically shakes the hand.

[Kristen]

I really don't think there was ulterior motive here. That being said, if I hear one more person talk about how loving people iwth disabilities are (esp. DS) andhow they hug everyone all the time...I said from the get go that there is no way in heck that my child will become a random person hugger and he will learn socially acceptable limits because it is not cute to me whatsoever. If I were in your shoes, I would take this as an opportunity to reinforce appropriate vs. inappropriate displays of affection and leave it at that.

[MB]

Doesn't bother me at all. I can't imagine how scary the world is for our kids with developmental disabilities.

I have read that some research for Alzheimers is focused on the 21st chromosone. I went to visit a friend who had been diagnosed. She was in the beginning stages and had just been moved to a facility. She was a very proper, socially prominent woman. When I arrived, she was holding hands with her new best friend - another woman in the early stages of Alzheimers. They were both impeccably groomed and very proper. But, they held hands the entire time I was there. It was actually very comforting to know they had each other.

MB

[CC]

MB, THANKS for sharing that and YES girl as you said "I can't imagine how scary the world is for our kids with developmental disabilities" I couldn't AGREE More

CC ~