This sounds typical within a day of my life...My son body drops and will refuse to get up in various environments.I have done exactly what you have and achieved the same results.I have had success with motivating him such as swimming when we return home...favorite lunch...treat or movie....Much success has been achieved with this.As, with social interaction at park play grounds I have found children wanting to include him but with his unusual behavior alot of them simply walk away...some refuse to walk away and will go out of their way instructing him, questioning.. Why would he do this or that??...Come on,play with us...Sometimes it is a joy beyond words seeing him play tag with a group of children or another game although this is not an everyday occurance.My son is very aggressive and outgoing-Overkill!!! Often I have many problems with him following parents who have included him in play or conversation about...Often unexpectingly I find him running across a playground and wrapping his arms around another mother or father proclaiming "He loves them!!!".(HE is six years old but, the size of a typical nine year old.)Even with redirection or threats that if he does not stop exhibiting the behavior that we will leave the park environment.. often it continues...I have more difficulties accepting the adults reaction to his behavior than how many of the children do...
For us it is typical too. Mason is 6 and still wants to be carried sometimes! In all honesty I think it could have been totally unrelated to the park...it might have been some sensory thing kicking in and maybe being near you calmed that? I think with Mason he just likes the touch...so when he was younger I would just naturally pick him up...now that he is older I tell him he can walk next to me and hold my hand, and a lot of times he totally latches on to my leg or arm, but it's a lot better than me trying to carry him, lol.
We too still have a stroller in our car...we get looks sometimes by pushing a 6 yr old in a stroller, but if it works, who cares what others think! And there are times when he still wants to be carried when we have the stroller, but it' so much easier to push a crying kid than to carry one!!
Even NT kids like to be carried, but I think they tend to follow you if you walk away. I could never use that tactic with my son. The worst was when he'd "go limp" in the middle of a crosswalk at an intersection.
One aspect could be having trouble with the transition. If he had something to look forward to doing or eating when he gets home, he'd maybe be more motivated to walk.
Another possibility was that it seemed overwhelmingly far to walk home. A trick I used was pretending the street lights were train stations, and we'd just walk to the next station, and then the next, and before we knew it we were home.
Another thing that has helped us is simply taking the time to get down on his level and try to help him find words for how he's feeling. Sometimes a kid can put up with more if he just feels understood.
Better luck next time!
It really bugs me when I read posts like these, no offense to anyone. It's just, give your kid a break!!! There are so many demands on them, and when an NT child can't walk home, it was that they were tired. But when the autistic kid doesn't walk home, it's because he is on the spectrum. He's only three.
All kids do what comes naturally, and unfortunately some parents don't handle it very well, like the mom at the park. She probably took the boys there for a break, and the boys didn't want to include your son. Perfectly normal.
Everything sounds like a regular day at the park to me!
Sarah loves the park and mall but she doesnt have a lot of stamina or muscle strength to keep up with us or do long periods.. but you will have to figure out if either it is a behavioral thing in which he knows you will carry him if he screams, whines or protests or the if he is indeed tired and unable to walk that far home..we part right in front of park that way she has to walk to car tired or having a behavioral issue:P ...we are walking distance too but I know her too well to walk there..she would do exactly as your son:: Driving there will would be less frustating on all.
Good luck!
we took my 3yr old and his bro to the park today. he walked all the way to the park like a good boy. we didn't have any problems getting him to leave the park, but... he wanted to be carried all the way home. our house is several blocks from the park. i tried to make him walk but he wouldn't so then i started to carry him. eventually i got tired so i put him down and left him and proceeded to walk up the block. i thought once i was out of his view, he'd get scared and chase me... but... no. maybe i didn't wait long enough but i didn't want to lose him. i walked back to the place where he was lying on the sidewalk, by that time he was standing up, but did not budge one inch from his location. another mom on a walk asked me if there was a lesson here, and i said, "no, i don't think so, i thought he'd get scared and follow me, but he didn't" then she asked how old he was, i said "3" and that was it. she lives about a block behind us. i decided that if i had to carry him home, it would be upside down. so we went home that way. i stopped a few times and tried to get him to walk, but he just laid on the sidewalk without talking. does this sound like typical autism?
*btw, he kind of forced us to walk him to the park, because by the time we caught up to him, it was too late to go back for the stroller*
also, while at the park, the other boys there were kind of playing a war game with guns. they kept looking at him and whenever he came by they said "he's coming" and they would go away. my son kept saying "help" and making a grabbing motion with his hand, meaning, let me play with your toy gun. their mom kept going up to them and telling them things like, "if you are not going to invite him to play then don't treat him like an enemy" she was trying to teach them to be nice, but it was annoying to me. is this how it is going to be, all the kids will ignore him because he can't talk or talks differently?
I have the same questions that you have
I wish other kids were kinder though
((hugs)) My dd used to want to be carried everywhere and just couldn't do it. I'd take her screaming into the YMCA, screams echoing down the hallway. One time there was a group of seniors there watching us struggle. I said" SHe wants me to carry her everywhere and its not going to happen" They smiled and told me to stick it out, I'm sure they'd all been there at one point or another. I used to keep a small umbrella type stroller in the car for situations where she might struggle and it just made it easier all the way around to push her instead of fight. Eventually she grew out of it, I think going to school helped alot. For awhile she did want me to carry her across the parking lot to the car but I refused she'd tantrum but I held firm.thanks for the help. i don't think it is the fact that he doesn't want to walk home, its the fact that he will lay in the sidewalk and stare up at the sky, and not respond to anything that you say to him. i understand that all kids get tired, but they normally don't freeze to a block of concrete like that.
the other issues at the park, seems like i will have to get used to the parents comments...
and i will buy a wagon.