'Things Are So Bad At Home Right Now': Cranberry Mother Struggles Having Her Son With Autism Home For The Rest Of The School Year
PITTSBURGH (KDKA) - The announcement that schools in Pennsylvania would be closed for the rest of this academic year hit families like a ton of bricks. The last month has not been easy, especially for those with a special needs child.
No parent wants to admit they can't handle their own child, but that is what brought Casey Foreaker to Oakland yesterday with her 12-year-old son Dalton.
Dalton has autism, and on a good day he's like many preteens. But the good days have been few since the schools closed.
When KDKA's John Shumway ran into Dalton and Casey, they were in their car just around the corner from Western Psychiatric Hospital.
Trying to hold back tears, Casey told John Shumway, "I drove down here today to put him in Western Psych because I don't know how much more I can handle with him at home."
Dalton is a student at Pressley Ridge -- which like all the other schools in Pennsylvania is closed until further notice.
"It's so hard at home. Things are so bad at home right now," she said with a tear trickling down her cheek.
"I am sitting in my car right now with my son, his bags packed, contemplating for the last half an hour if I need to admit him to Western Psych because I and my family cannot handle him right now with his behaviors and out of school."
At the family's home in Cranberry, most of the doors have holes in them. Dalton's kicking has crushed kitchen cabinets and riddled walls. It is almost indescribable.
An admission to the hospital would mean Dalton would be there until the hospital considers him safe enough to go home and Casey worries about how long that might be.
"That's such a hard decision for us parents and there are probably so many other parents out there that are going through the same exact thing that I'm going through," she said.
Counselor David Morris understands: "Kids with autism have a much more intense reaction to everything."
Morris works with families through New Directions Counseling and he understands the Foreaker's dilemma, like so many other families dealing with an unknown future.
"Worrying about what's going to happen, how it is not going to go well, that's going to bring fear to anybody," said Morris.
Morris says the best advice is to set up a new normal, a routine, a schedule the kids can count on, just like they do in school: "Instead of a written-out sheet, I think seeing something visual so when it's meal time, when it's school time and when it's fun time."
And he adds keep the class time short, take a break and then come back to it again.
Casey says Dalton has a lesson plan from Pressley Ridge and they are doing the work but often, he's just overwhelming. "It's horrible, it's horrible for the entire family, it really is."
Morris says if families truly find themselves desperate they should read out to the Resolve Crisis Center at 1-888-796-8226.
Casey Foreaker, about an hour after KDKA's John Shumway talked to her outside Western Psych, posted on Facebook over a purple background: "Just drove Dalton down to Western Psych, couldn't bring him in!" The outpouring of responses has been overwhelming.
Many are offering prayers, which is what Casey hopes everyone will do: offer up a prayer for all parents with special needs children during this time of Covid isolation.
