The Caregivers Corner: Grocery Shopping with Your Special Needs Child

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by Merely Me
Monday, January 04, 2010

Hey everybody! I am going to be starting a new weekly feature here on Friends of Quinn just for parents and caregivers who have a child or children with learning disabilities and/or special needs. And the title of this feature as you can see is The Caregivers Corner. I have been parenting my son who has autism and learning disabilities for over thirteen years now so I have lots of stories and experience to share. We would love to hear from other parents out there so please don't hesitate to reach out and tell your story, ask a question, or lend support to other caregivers.

I am going to begin this weekly feature by talking about a chore that we all have to do on some routine basis, and that is grocery shopping. And if you are like me you will undoubtedly have to do this at times, with the kids in tow. My son Max has always had a love/hate relationship with the supermarket. It is a wonderfully bright and engaging place full of colors, textures, and smells. It even has balloons, candy, and mist like rain falling onto the vegetables. But it has also been a place where my son has experienced emotional meltdowns due to sensory overload. The long grocery aisles beckon him to run and the waiting in lines can create frustration. In a short amount of time my local supermarket and its inhabitants knew both me and my son and more about autism than they ever probably wished to know.

If you have a child who has learning disabilities or special needs, he or she may not "get" the whole supermarket experience. I have found in my experience that teaching your child about this special place including its rules and purpose, can make your time there a much more pleasant experience.

One of the things which has helped Max to learn more about community outings and what is expected is the use of a social story. Social stories were invented by a lady named Carol Gray who had worked with people having special needs and learning disabilities for much of her career. Basically social stories are visual drawings or photos which depict the "story" of some social circumstance whether it be grocery shopping or asking a friend to play.

In order to create a grocery shopping social story you would create images of all the steps involved with this particular task. For example your story can begin with a photo or image of how to enter the store. The first caption under the image can read: "(Your child's name) walks into the store and picks up a basket" or whatever your particular ritual might be. The focus is on the positive and what you want and expect your child to do instead of a list of don'ts. Think about where your child may have difficulties and focus on that part with more information. For example, if waiting at the check-out line is hard for your child you may want to provide more explanation of why such things happen and what to do. You can have an image of a long line at the check-out with the caption, "Sometimes there is a long line and we have to wait. We have to stay in the line because there are people ahead of us who have been waiting longer than we have. If we get out of line we will lose our place and have to wait longer." Be sure to write the story captions at the level of your child's understanding and comprehension.