Sir, – Every week, my seven-year-old disabled son becomes overjoyed by the weekly grocery shop. He is autistic, has an intellectual disability and is non-speaking. For years, our shopping trip has followed the same routine. He stands in the rear section of the trolley while I pack the groceries in front of him. As the automatic doors slide open, he begins to verbally stim with excitement.
Halfway around the shop, we stop at the rice cakes. He carefully chooses whether today is a pink-pack day or a green-pack day. He waits patiently in the checkout queue and beams with pride as he helps lift each item on to the conveyor belt. And if we’re lucky, we’ll be served by one of the staff who greets him with a huge smile and an enthusiastic high five.
Recently, a well-intentioned member of staff told me my son could no longer travel in the trolley because of the potential safety risk. I understood that safety matters.
However, what wasn’t recognised was that this removed his access to the supermarket altogether because it overlooked a number of equally real, but fewer visible risks. These include the distress of disrupting a routine he has relied on for years, his significant flight risk, and the reality that he cannot safely follow instructions such as staying beside me or moving from aisle to aisle throughout a 45-minute shop.
RM Block
What struck me most was not the safety concern, but that no one asked the obvious follow-up question: What alternative would make his participation possible?
My son already leaves his community every day to access education. None of the hundreds of children who live in our estate know him. He can’t attend any of the summer camps because they have not been designed with all children in mind. And now one of the few ordinary experiences that brought him joy and connected him to his community has been taken away.
Inclusion doesn’t fail when a disabled child can’t adapt. It fails when we stop at “no” instead of asking “how can we make this possible?” – Yours, etc.,
LUCINDA MURRIHY,
Dundrum,
Dublin 16.
