Special Mom’s blog

My special one is not a TV person. He is an auditory kid and visual processing is very poor. Lot of money was spent on vision therapy and sensory integration to help him. Why am I talking about him when the blog is about me. He is anyway an integral part so had to give this detail.

Part of my work with my son is community integration and that involves going to the movies. All last summer I spent every Wednesday or Thursday going to the free movie offered by our local theater. It really gave an opportunity to make him sit for movies. These were attended by kids and other special needs people and wasn’t more than 90 minutes in length. This paved the way for my son to watch movies like Toy story and Frozen 2. By the time we saw Frozen 2 I started noticing he was starring at the scene more and I was feeling a bit of self accomplishment.

As Christmas time rolled I had to take a break from movies since I was engaged in so many other things. 2020 came and we hadn’t gone to the movies for a while. I was getting nervous and worried if we had lost touch of the process.

So yesterday I browsed for movies and decided to go to Jumanji. I was hoping for a theater with less audience so even if I have a tantrum I could manage. We reached the movie theater and the person handing out tickets said the entire theater is now luxury. Wow , this could be good or bad. Luxury seats are great but could also mean people sitting next to us wouldn’t want a special need person disturbing them. I took that risk. Bought our popcorn bucket (refills are cheap) and a cup of soda (free refills). As we entered the theater my son was a bit surprised and his eyes lit a bit. Sitting on the seat he became a completely different person. (luxury seating needs to be experienced 😊)I was nervous for the first 10 minutes and as the movie began I eased into the movie. I was so concentrated and relaxed I forgot about my son. Hour and half into the movie I saw my son enjoying his popcorn and there wasn’t a peep. It was just 15 minutes before the end that he started asking me to go home and I said you have to wait. As the movie ended I was surprised to see him pick up the trash and went to dispose them off at the nearest receptacle.

We both came out smiling hoping to return back again for another luxury movie theater experience.