Bolting!! !

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Hi everyone,

Just wondering if any of your kids bolted when they were young? When did they outgrow this? If they didn't outgrow it, how did you manage keeping them safe? My daughter's 3 1/2 and I have to keep a real close eye on her or she'll run and won't look back.

Thanks

2 of my 3 boys have been runners.
my NT middle son, started when he was 2, stopped when he was 3. key for him was giving him time to run in a safe place. he is an extremely physically active boy and loves to run.
my asd son, still does it at 4 1/2. for him its not so much the running as the finding new and interesting things to look at or touch. not seeing dangers is a definite issue for him.

we have combated it in a couple ways. at the grocery store and places like that, we utilize the child seat in the shopping cart, and as he gets older he likes to stand on the front of it (i know, retailers hate that, ive worked retail mgmt myself, but they hate a child running and touching everything more heh). my SO carries the little guy on his shoulders very frequently. we have a flip lock (like at hotels) on our front exterior door up high where he cant reach and it remains engaged unless someone is outside. our back door remains locked a lot since that room is not usually within eye/ear range.

the child harness/leash setup has never worked for him, he hates being restrained and would always fight it and cant walk with it on. we gave up on strollers when he was 2 for the same reason. holding hands also is difficult, and growing more so the older he gets, because he doesnt like his fingers restrained (manipulating his fingers and touching things is a stim for him), so we will give him two fingers and he holds on to us.

we have a treadmill, sometimes he likes to run on it, but it requires too structured of a run to really meet his sensory needs. we are going to get one of those small exercise trampolines too because he loves to bounce and is seriously beating up my brand new couch.

the most effective tools have been developing an acute sense of hearing and hyper vigilance. i can hear the door opening from half a mile away it seems. i can tell without looking where he is and what he is doing by sound. my SO isnt able to do this due to his own autism, so he relies more on the locks and physical restraints.

I was a bolter as a kid. I can feel like an energy feild from everyone and it's painful to expirence. My mom insisted I stay close, litteraly close to her and I kept feeing her feild. My mom eventually let me stay a litttle farther aheard of her as long as she could see me. For instance if we were in a store, I could go anywhere but I had to stay in the same isle as my mom. Bolting was usualy because I wanted to get away from the people's energy feild or becuase there was something I wanted to see buy my mom was too slow and I wanted to see it NOW! When my mom chased after me, I thought it was a game or I just wanted to avoid her energy feild. My mom wishes they had those backpack child leashes when I was a kid. The kind that goes around a child's wrist was avaliabe but they closed via velcro and I would get it off as soon as my mom put it on. Seriously, whoever made those must think kids are stupid. I was quite the litte Houdini and was was always escaping out of devices meant to contain me. I escaped from my stroller, my carseat (old school childseats were painful and more of a midevil toruture device than a saftey one), and just about anything I was put into. Even if those wrist leashes weren't so simple, I would probably be able to wriggle my way out of it. Even if it was no so easy, I would have gotten nursmaid's wrist or even broke it. These new kid leashes with a stuffed animal backpack to friendly them up aren't escape proof either, who thought it was a good idea to put the clip in the front? I hope they fired the one who thought that up. Some kids like me could probably figure out how to unclip it in the back but it would be a bit more tricky. What really helped my mom with me was explaning that if I didn't stay close, we would go right home, no treat or toy or anything. A treat or new toy as a reward for staying close helped as well.

PunkyKat, I find your energy fields description really interesting. Thanks for sharing that.

My AS son was a bolter, but not the perfect houdini kind. He just seemed to think it was fun to run as far and as fast as he could. Solutions varied by time and person.

When he was with my parents, they made him wear a harness: simple choice, we all stay in the house, or we go out and you wear this. No option C. He was OK with it because, well, it was grandma and grandpa. My mom just didn't feel she had any hope of catching up with him if he was running into something dangerous, and she did explain that to him, as well.

When he had a nanny, she had him perfectly trained to keep one hand on the stroller (younger sister) at all times. She had that way of authority that made him believe if his hand ever left that stroller, it would get bad, very bad. (This was chronologically after the incident below, however).

Me, well ... from me, he liked to bolt. And I'd chase him down, give a lecture, and blah blah blah. When he was 3 1/2 and I was pregnant, however, I had had enough. I told him that the next time he did it the consequences would be severe (leave our location, go home, straight to an extended time out), and also explained why this was so very very important to me - things were changing, and he could no longer count on me catching him. He tested it, I could not keep up and catch him, played cat and mouse for it seemed like forever, and followed through with the threatened consequence. Many tears. After the time out I repeated the danger he had been in, and why I was so serious about it, emphasizing that I was no longer able to catch him.

We talked about it again pretty much every time we headed out of the house for a while, but he never bolted again.

Now, remember, I had a child old enough and astute enough to absorb that information. It is going to depend on the reasons they run, I think, how much it can be handled as a discipline matter. As far as I can tell, ALL toddler boys run, not just the AS ones, so there are many potential reasons that may or may not be unique to the AS. PunkyKat's rational sounds unique to AS; my son's reasons were probably more "just what boys do."

Last edited by DW_a_mom on 23 Aug 2010, 2:54 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Punkykat, what do you mean an energy field? Literally?

My son is 5 now, and he has calmed down a little. He will now stay closer to me. My son didn't walk until he was almost 2, but once he got up to speed, he wanted to take off and go too. I just avoided taking him to the grocery store unless he was in a shopping cart. Thank goodness he was pretty content with that as long as he had a cookie or a lollipop. Now that he is bigger, he will still fit in some of those carts that have little cars on the front of them. I really try to just take him to the grocery store when I only have a few things to get. When I have a lot to get, I let him stay at home with my husband, or I shop while he is at school. I have started taking him in smaller stores like drug stores to "practice" staying near me. That way if he gets away, it won't be too hard to find him.

He is getting a little better at understanding not to get too far from me, but I just watch him like a hawk. I try to take him places that are enclosed such as a park or a play gym or our back yard to give him chances to run. So far we have been lucky and he has never tried to escape the house!

For my son, the more verbal he has become, the more I can try to exlpain things like if you run too far, then mommy will lose you and mommy doesn't want to lose you." Or "if you run in front of a moving car, then you could get hurt"

Just keep working at it, and giving the opportunity for "safe running" whenever possible.

Energy feild is just what I call it becuase I have no other way to explain it. Whenever I get close to people, I can feel a dense, static sensation. This is the best I can explain without getting into the paranormal and new age mumbo jumbo.

Hmm.. Also appreciate the energy field mention because though I never named it that, I do know what you are talking about. I have also had trouble describing it without going all hocus pocus and confusing people. Best thing I've called it is 'magnetic buzz'.

(sorry to get off topic - but really, the pregnant story gave the right solution)

Think of the 'field' as palpable kinetic energy. People as a general rule are "busy" - they put off vibrations in the air when they move, breathe, talk, make shushing sounds with their pantlegs, etc etc... to some people this list of "output" from people has almost a texture or repulsive 'push' (not repulsive as in vomit, but repulsive as in trampoline fabric).

My son, now 10, is a bolter, but just at times of intense stress for him. If he gets really upset and can't handle a situation, he will run to escape that situation. He has run away from school a few times, and other times he'll run away from the class, but hide in the school. He has also run away from home (at night, in the rain, in his PJs), but he came back (after about 30 minutes) once he calmed down.
Now that he is getting older and we've worked with him a lot on coping skills, things are improving. Now he'll storm out of a room (or group) to be escape and be alone when he is upset, but he doesn't go too far with it.
Joanne

How did you work on his coping skills? I have a son who tends to build things up until he boils over... well, a couple of kids who do that... Okay, me, too. Anyway, I would rather my son especially learn to deal than carry on this way. He's in a program for kids with issues because he kept bolting from his teacher at the start of 2nd grade, and they restrain him physically if he gets physical first. I'd pull him out but I haven't yet found the answer myself. I intend to have a couple of my kids assessed for nonverbal learning disorder, I'm sure executive function issues are plaguing them as they always have me, but for now I need to help him deal with his anger and frustration. Is that what you did? My daughter, too... she has the same problem I do. We get so upset we can't even speak to ask for help. I do so less, of course, but she's only 12. I hate to think of her going through the humiliations I did, crying because I let myself get my hopes wrapped up entirely in something that didn't turn out as planned and couldn't figure out how to handle the anticlimax, or because she gets confused or embarrassed but hates to admit that she can't handle the same things as everyone else (that's one I've seen her do a lot). She's tried in the past to step out and take a few minutes to calm down but it angers me to see how many adults don't accept a kid's right to do something like that. That's being mature, for crying out loud! But I digress. Do you have any books or programs or therapies that helped you, something in print or online that I could peruse at my convenience (I'm buried right now)?

I think autistic people are just so sensetive, they can pick up on things normal people cannot even begin to fathom. My parents have some AS traits, and my family could communite with the dead for generations.