Special Mom’s blog

We have couple of entrances to our local mall. The mall is not huge, just two levels yet they do have a lot of parking and entrances.

I strategically plan my emtrance and parking in such a way that my young man has less food options. But lately I found out his anxiety was high when he entered and exited through one of the big box stores. The foot traffic has been huge near the entrance with a lot of carts and a very busy Starbucks added to the chaos. Then the multiple checkout and self checkout lines were not helping us anymore. This parking lot and entrance are more crowded than the food court entrance.

Yesterday, I changed my strategy and decided to take the long route to get into the mall. The less crowded lot, entrance and the 700 steps walk to the food court did help not only my young man regulate himself it gave me some breather too.

They do have a self checkout open store that sells all his favorite candies and chips but that is something I can handle.

Only late into my son’s autism diagnosis I learnt about sensory processing disorder. My son is a sensory seeker and it felt he was fine with sensory overload. Yet over the years we have understood that it is not so. Anyway we all have some kind of sensory issues and we just tackle in our own way. With my young man it is up to me to decipher this code. Yesterday was a success and a smooth one. Today is another day. Jusr have to see what is in store for him/us? 😀