Summer holidays are grim.
My daughter’s Autistic, and as such has pretty severe sensory processing issues, among which she really struggles with noise sensitivity. This pretty much rules out most stuff for us, like soft play, after school groups etc, but we have found a few places that are accommodating for her.
One of these is a soft play centre located on the grounds of a primary school that’s specifically for children with special needs, but considering it’s purpose, they have a really bizarre policy that they allow people to bring siblings without sensory issues along with their SEN kids during school holidays, sort of defeating the whole point of the place.
We’ve just been and their were gangs of kids, clearly without sensory issues running around screaming, while there was a group of mum’s just stood at the entrance to the play area, totally absorbed in conversation, oblivious to their kids running amok. We lasted a few minutes, with my daughter having her hands clamped over her nearly ears the whole time, becoming more and more visibly distressed by the noise, nearly getting trampled and I could see she was rapidly building up to a meltdown, so I decided enough was enough, scooped her up and took her out. There was another little fella with the same issue, his hands clamped over his ears the whole time we were there, just looking more and more visibly upset.
There are rules that state that children need to be supervised at all times, and most parents follow their child and stay within a few feet of them, but the staff for the most part seem to be teenagers doing it as a weekend or summer job, and none of them seem assertive at all about enforcing the rules. But, that’s a secondary issue, as it seems to me that for a lot of parents, there’s a golden threshold you cross when you enter somewhere like a soft play centre, where all of a sudden, you don’t have to give a **** anymore, your kids are somebody else’s problem.
