The Thing We Feared

Above you will see a picture of Harry Houdini, a Hungarian magician known for his daring escape attempts that few can replicate to this day.  He is often referred to as an "escape artist", and many illusionists strive to follow in his footsteps by wrapping themselves in chains, being buried alive, or exposing themselves to any number of life-threatening situations.

I've put his picture up because many autistic children are often referred to as "escape artists".  For some parents, keeping their autistic child safe can be a feat of nightmarish proportions.  Many of these children wander off, leaving the house or mom or dad's side suddenly.  One boy ran away from his mother in a grocery store.  She frantically spent over and hour looking for him, involving other shoppers and store personnel in the search.  They found him wedged behind some packages of toilet paper on a lower shelf, hiding.  Another child was not so lucky.  She left her backyard and wandered out into some land owned by her family.  She drowned in a stock pond.

It's frightening and no one wants to think about it.  But if you have such a child, you must  think about it.  Over the past several weeks I have noticed a disturbing trend in my own son...not listening as well, or seeming to not hear me at all.  A few days ago he climbed over the back fence.  Today he went into the front yard and ran down the road.

It seems we have a budding escape artist on our hands.  It's not something I had thought to deal with again.  In his younger years, he would do the same things...then he seemed to develop an inhibition about being too far from home.  Now it seems, as he is getting older, that that inhibition is slowly developing into a desire for freedom.

What can a parent do, who has a child like this?  We still have special locks on all of our windows.  We can buy door chimes from a home improvement store that ring when a door is opened or closed.  We can attach a GPS locator to our son's clothing, or have him wear an ID bracelet.  None of this foolproof.  If my son decides to take off his clothes, or take off his bracelet, what then?

The only other thing we can do is educate him, over and over and over and over again, about the dangers of straying away from home.  Beyond that, worry will lead to excessive stress.  Eventually, you learn to deal with each new challenge as it comes and stop anticipating the ones that may never arrive.