Bryce, and a lot of children with autism, are almost oblivious to dangerous situations. Bryce has some knowledge of things that are dangerous. Sometimes he will know something is hot from steam coming from it, like soup and he’ll say “That’s hot, blow blow” knowing that to cool down the soup he has to blow on it, which is great! He is very aware that the oven and stove is hot too just from feeling the heat from it. A lot of the elements that I can control and make safe around my child, I try to make safe, but it’s not always in my control and that's the scary part.

I am a very firm believer of holding hands. We have hands and they were designed to be able to be put into another persons hands safely and securely, so every opportunity we get, we are holding hands. I’m personally not a fan of using those backpack leashes and things of that nature. What works for some doesn’t work for others. With that said, Bryce has been famously known to take off lately. At school he’s run out of the gated areas and into the street a couple of times and has even run out of the classroom and out the doors to run outside. We’ve implemented child proof door knobs in his classroom and stop signs on the inside of doors (this is very helpful when your child knows what a stop sign means).

Getting out of the car the other day Bryce decided to dash down the underground parking lot to the entrance gate laughing and making it a ‘chase me’ game almost. He runs ahead of you and turns around and looks at you like he’s asking for permission, or sometimes it’s to see what your reaction is, almost like he’s testing you or your patience. He will be completely unaware of any danger from running in the middle of the parking lot, or a street, until it’s too late.

Spring is finally setting foot here in Vancouver, and we actually had sun for the whole day! I’m not a huge fan of sunny weather because it gives a lot of opportunity for Bryce to be outside (since it’s not raining) and run off into so many unknown dangers. As a mother, it really just sucks that I can’t control everything and protect him all the time.

Thanks for reading,
Tanaya