Sunday, 07 February 2010
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Children with Special Needs - Placing an Order at a Restaurant.
I shall be diplomatic now because this isn’t my story to tell.My son, the birthday boy and host is busy, occupied, as we order our drinks in the restaurant. His friend makes two strenuous attempts to request a beverage from the server. His voice is as clear as a bell and quite as piercing, but the message has failed to penetrate. I intervene:- “yes he’d like half Pepsi and half Sprite please?”
The server is perplexed and distracted as he mines for information. From a distance we look like any other party of 12. Close up, it’s different. It takes a different format in each child. Collectively it can be disconcerting. It’s as if we each have three heads, fluent in Swahili.
“Er?”
“Can you do that? Mix Pepsi and Sprite in the same glass please?”
“Er….well…..um?” Throughout our exchange, our young friend repeats his request in a loop of ever increasing frustration, since my translation appears equally as useless.
“Do you think that would be ok.?” I ask as I try to arrest the server’s attention.
“Is he er…..does he…….is he…….does he have…..special needs?”
“Yes Sprite and Pepsi, mixed in the same glass please, special order.”
“Right.” He disappears without a murmur, to return shortly afterwards. We go round the table for the food order, until we reach our same young friend, “chicken nuggets please and no fries.”
“Would you like fries with that?”
“No fries.”
“It comes with fries. Would you like fries or one of these other choices, see at the bottom of the page?” Persists the server.
“No fries.”
“Would you like something else?”
“No, no fries.”
“You don’t want fries?”
Our young friend turns to me for full on eye contact, the faulty conduit, gives up on the server, to explain what should not need any further explanation. With an electrically charged tone of voice that carries over 10 tables in the noisy restaurant, “don’t give me fries, don’t give me anything with potato products or I’ll vomit.”
The server flinches, stabs himself in nose with his pen – a gasp and a laugh of relief as he skuttles off to the kitchen with mirth. My daughter watches him leave without initial comment, until she is quite certain he is out of ear-shot, “I never thought you need good listening skills to be a server.”
“It a much more highly skilled job than most people realize, at least if you want to do it well.”
“I wouldna believed it if I hadna heard it for myself.”
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About the Author
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- From: whittereronautism
- About Me: Ex-pat from the UK. Middle aged, bifocaled and technically challenged. My Significant Other and I currently enjoy fragile custody of 3 minors and a major, two girls, two boys, two with blue eyes, two with brown eyes, two with autism, two without.
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Comments (16)
Doesn't sound like a special needs child, just one who is overly picky.
@black_lie@xanga - Being OCD is just as much a symptom of a special needs child as hand flapping, repetition of sounds, phrases, etc. Autistic kids aren't just like other kids, who will "eat when they're hungry". Autistic kids (in general, from my own observation and experience) tend to only eat things that they like. So one week, they might love everything as long as it's dipped in ketchup. The next week.... they might find it so disgusting to eat those foods that they will literally throw up. And it's not a preference, per se, it's more of a physiological response to what's going on in their heads. That's almost like telling someone who has celiac disease or someone who is lactose intolerant that they're just being picky. No.... these things CAN and will make them physically ill.
@black_lie@xanga - Why is it overly picky to not want fries or to want to mix sprite and pepsi? I like cherries in my water instead of lemons. I don't like lemons and strait water at most places in Florida tastes awful. Most servers are happy to oblidge... the only one's I've ever had trouble with have been at Bob Evan's Restaurant... I know they have cherries... they just don't want to put them in my water. I also can't drink milk, so when I go out for breakfast, I bring my soy milk with me in my travel mug since almost no where (Starbucks doesn't count) offers it.
@Morningstarrising@xanga - There are textures that will make me gag... and I'm an adult. If there isn't something around that I want to eat... I won't.
@keystspf@xanga - Oh, I agree with you. I'm not saying it's exclusive to children. :) I'm just saying that while people will say "send her to bed hungry - she'll eat eventually", that's not true for my daughter because of her autism. She will only eat certain things, and as much as I wish she would eat a wider variety of items, at least most of them are relatively healthy. :)
@Morningstarrising@xanga - Well, you can't really tell whether the kid is autistic or OCD from the post. The only clue I get is the fact that it's posted on this site.
@keystspf@xanga - I guess it's different in different cultures. In Eastern cultures, kids are raised to eat whatever their parents put in front of them, no questions asked. In Japan when you eat out, it's most polite for everyone to order the exact same dish, even! So according to the way I was raised, this kid is being very picky. Unless, of course, he's actually allergic to potatoes.
The server was an idiot. How hard is it to mix drinks or not serve french fires? I understand the child's frustration. At some point I would have yelled at the server myself. Sometimes things really aren't the special needs person's fault.
I had to laugh at this. My son had similar food preferences. When he was very young we travelled a lot but could only go to places that served fish fingers or chicken nuggets which isn't as easy as you think in Europe and the Far East. I always asked for whatever I thought he might eat with salad and fries on two separate plates, diet coke and sprite in two glasses and please bring a third glass with just ice in it. If the server did it nicely they got a good tip, if they didn't they got nada. To misquote Alfred, Lord Tennyson, "Theirs not to reason why, Theirs but to listen and serve"
This happened to my 36 year old son all the time he was growing up, and it still happens even today. My son has great difficulty in choosing what he wants to eat. Recently, I decided that when I pick my son up to take him out to eat we are going to talk about what he is going to order in the car. By the time we reach the restaurant he knows what he wants. If the server doesn't understand what he wants I will speak up in a kind way and help my son out. He is doing the best he can and if I can help him I do so always being respectful of his feelings. Eating out has been much more enjoyable for both of us. Our kids have enough to deal with so when we can help them and others who are interacting with them it is important to do so, without taking away our children's dignity or their independence.
@Morningstarrising@xanga - Eventually autistic children grow up to be adults...LOL of course it's not exclusive. :) I said that more for the benefit of the other commenter. If I am in an unfamiliar place, chances are, I won't eat. Yesterday I spent the day at my friend Christina's house. I happily ate the granola bar I brought with me, turned down scrambled eggs with ham and cheese because 1) I don't eat ham. 2) I was not hungry at that time. She did get me to try a prune... and laughed at my face because I was thoroughly disgusted by the texture... There was no hiding it. I have been curious about them, and this was the first opportunity to try one without having to buy a whole container of them... I had a feeling just looking at them that I wouldn't like them... giant raisins... erg... no, but I tried one. It was as bad as I thought, but in little pieces inside something else they may not be terrible.
@black_lie@xanga - There are a lot of Americans who would consider it picky too... but texture / flavor sensitivities are a real issue with people on the Autistic spectrum. It isn't an allergy, but it is a severe enough aversion to actually cause a physical reaction. Depending on the level of control the person has over their reactions, it could be quite terrible... such as the kid actually throwing up at the sight of french fries touching his food. Personally, I've got a bit more control than that... but that has taken lots of practice.
Very interesting thread of comments - thank you.
And just for the record, one of my autistic sons, the youngest one, only ate three foods for years = Goldfish Crackers, Cheerios and milk [I counted milk as a food] There's picky and there's 'neophobic' which basically means 'fear of the new.' If you only eat three things then everything is new and therefore scary.
I sympathize with the view that maybe I indulged him and permitted him to be picky, but if you're autistic and can't [are not allowed] to eat those three things, you basically stop eating - it's not a battle a parent can win.
That said, 7 years later, he's eats a full diet [although not particularly willingly] How? An intensive de-sensitization programme, every day, for every meal and snack, for 7 very long years. Yes, it's taken forever, but it was completely worth it.
I think that a lot of servers in today's world are just there for their pay cheques, and aren't really wanting to go out of their way for anyone that they are serving. It's just a plain truth seeing as I have worked in many situations where there were horrible people trying to be servers. Some people shouldn't work with the general public, nevermind people that may have 'special needs'.
There's nothing wrong with wanting your order the way you want. That's what you should expect when you go out, and no matter the servers job, they should be respectful of that, especially if they know it's making someone aggitated. If not, then don't have the friggen job!. Seems simple.
In the house that I work with I'm with 4 low functioning autistic men who are non-verbal. When we go out to eat, it's not their request that cause the trouble, it's more often then not, common characteristics of autism that bother the servers. It's almost like they're silently saying that we are an inconvienence to them.
what a horrific server. that's just plain ... wow. i don't even know what to say about that. hope he didn't get a tip
i've NEVER been treated like that, and if i or one of the people eating with me did get that treatment from a server, you better believe the manager would hear about it. clearly this guy chose the wrong profession.
@drunkdevotchkababy@xanga - that's just terrible. a "special needs" customer is still a customer! a server wouldn't comment on a patron's weight or other obvious issue so tactlessly...really. i'm just shocked at this.
....adorable anecdote...fits in my world...
The minute the server asked if he was special needs, I would have asked him what relevence it had to him doing his job as a server. I am willing to bet that he has certain ways that he likes his food/drink when he goes out, too.
As for @black_lie@xanga - , Doesn't matter what "culture" you come from. Autism doesn't discern that and neither do the symptoms that go with it. What you said was foolish and lacking of even the most basic knowledge of what Autism really is. All I can offer you is the quote that knowledge is power.