Parking Lot

I just returned from Wil’s bike camp. And I’m really, really fortunate, you know? Because Wil can go to bike camp.

Bike camp is outside in a big, nondescript asphalt parking lot. The parking lot is in the middle of a neighborhood, so there are ample dog walkers, stroller-pushers, and an errant horn honk or construction noise.

That’s all very basic — except if you have a child who is sensitive to these things.

Depending on the child’s disability, a bark, a cry, or a loud noise puts their brains in immediate flight or fight mode. When their brains go in flight or fight mode, there is not the option to reason out of it. That mode sticks for a period of time. Their natural response is with behaviors that could endanger themselves and others. Even walking into such an open space without any other outside stimulus could be enough to trigger the flight or fight response.

Wil used to stay clear of dogs and babies because of their propensity for unpredictable bursts of noise. If we went to the grocery store and I forgot his noise-cancelling headphones, just the sight of a baby would send him running straight out of the store into the parking lot.

He doesn’t do that anymore. He’ll give dogs and babies the side-eye, but he can cope. Even when he went to summer camp the other week, a toddler was in our vicinity and she was fond of shrieking. Wil gave her nervous side-glances, muttered to himself, but continued with the camp check-in process. In the past, one shriek would have sent him running to the car never to return. Now, however, his desire to go to camp won over his fears.

His educators and I have worked very hard on this progression. To see him make it through experiences with outside stimulus that used to send him running gives me deep internal cheers each and every time. This knowledge of where we were to where we are now takes me to a higher plane of living. And yet, it also keeps me grounded because I know many parents who work tirelessly to find ways to navigate flight or fight responses. And no matter how herculean their efforts, standing in that parking lot is a freedom they and their child are not able to experience.

So friends, no matter where you stand, be grateful and be mindful. The nondescript space you take for granted could be a symbol of progression or a symbol of unaccessibility to another.