My son will run away!!!

My son is labeled a flight risk at school. They keep a close eye on him during class and on the playground, but we also have to keep a close eye on him at home or he may just leave, and not come back.

I remember the first time I took him to the park. We got there and he went in to the playground area and just kind of walked around, he wasn't too sure about any of the stuff he was looking at. Then he wanted to walk down the hill, away from all the playground stuff. Nothing was over there really, just a few trees and a walking path, but nothing to play on. He just wanted to walk, and he did.

It really was kind of comical. A two and a half year old tootling down a hill just walking away, all by himself like he knew exactly where he was going. The problem was he didn't want to come back. He also didn't want to stop. I'm sure if I'd have let him he would have walked to Antarctica, but mom was cooking dinner, so we had to cut his stroll a bit short.

We have always had to deal with stuff like that. Once he was able to walk and get around we had to toddler proof the house like normal parents, but we had to go one step further and make sure he couldn't get out of the house. We still have to make sure he doesn't get out of the house.

At first we just used the door locks and dead bolts because his lack of fine motor control wouldn't let him undo a lock or even turn the handle, but he's gotten better at opening doors over the years, so we have to do a bit more now.

People who come over for the first time must find it almost comical (or scary) to hear the sound of all these locks opening when we open the door and I bet it freaks them out when we lock the door right behind them. Because we have barrel locks on all the doors and we always have to make sure they are set, or he will just leave. He's a crafty little bugger, he will move a chair over to the door, climb up the chair, and undo the barrel locks. To make sure he can't do that all the barrel locks are at the top of the doors.  Eventually he will grow up, and we will have to figure something else out.

We've put these locks on the front and back door, the stock room door, and the laundry room door. Not only do we have to make sure he doesn't leave, we have to make sure he won't get into anything he shouldn't, and most of the chemicals are in the laundry room and stock room.

Sometimes it is exhausting trying to keep him in the house. Especially if it’s raining or snowing outside, because that's when it's most fun right? So he will try to open the door and go where he wants. It's so hard to explain to him that it's time for dinner and he can't go out and play in the rain, and he gets so mad about that, but he can't get that door open, so he throws a fit.

We don't have to worry about this stuff with his little brother, but we have to keep an eye one him all the time. We still put him inside the cart in the store, and if we go to a restaurant we have to make sure we hold his hand, sit in a booth, and sit him next to the wall. Mom and I will have to mesh our legs together under the table to make sure he won't crawl out. If we are at a store that doesn't have carts (which we avoid) one of us will always have hold of his hand, and sometimes he will do everything he can just to let go and run.

I know kids will be kids, and they just want to get up and go, see everything, do everything, and play with everything, but it's different with an autistic child, we have to be hyper vigilant.

As I'm reading over this post it sounds as if we are horrible parents and our oldest son wants to just run away from us because we are so "mean" to him, but that's really not the case at all. Yes we have to lock him in the house, yes we make sure he cannot just run away when we go out, but aside from our extremes, isn't that what "normal" parents do with their kids anyway?