There are many autistic children who are considered non-verbal, because they don’t speak, or they communicate infrequently and inconsistently. While Ryan certainly communicates with us most of the time, there are many instances where we’ll call his name or ask him a question and get no response. And when it comes to complete strangers, nine times out of ten he won’t respond at all. We’re planning on going to the beach this summer, and have already made reservations for three nights at the end of June. I’ve been thinking about how to best handle Ryan for our vacation, and a big concern of mine is safety.
Last year we were at the beach, but safety wasn’t too much of an issue, because he was under the watchful eyes of myself, my husband, my husband’s aunt and uncle, and his aunt’s sister and her husband. But this year it’s just going to be us and my mother, who we’re having come along to help with the kids.
Besides watching out for the obvious things: darting into the street, being unsupervised on the beach and sunburn, I’m also having a lot of “What if” scenarios go through my mind about Ryan getting away from us. He is a roamer and a runner, and with the many distractions that the beach and boardwalk have to offer, I could easily see him getting away from us and getting out of sight.
But as I said, he is somewhat non-verbal, and especially so with strangers. I’ve been thinking up of ways to attach our names and cell phone numbers to him, but so far everything I’m thinking of — stickers, tags — could be removed by him. So I hit the internet. As it turns out, there are a LOT of child safety ID products out there, and many of them are designed specifically for autistic children. There are stickers, iron-on clothing labels (I’d use these, except that Ryan likes to take his clothes off, so unless he was found near his discarded clothing, the labels would be useless), shoe tags and those metal dog tags that can be attached to key chains, belt loops and necklaces. But by far, the best solution I found are these travel wristbands:
They’re just like the ones that are used at carnivals and amusement parks, so they’re waterproof, and you basically can’t get them off unless you use scissors (however, I’ll put one on Ryan’s wrist and on his leg just to be sure!). You use a permanent marker to put in the relevant contact information on the inside of each wristband.
These things are genius, and I can’t wait to order them next week!
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My name is Jenn, and I'm 27 years old. I'm happily married to my best friend and soulmate, Daniel. Together we have a six year old daughter named 
Name: Alyssa
Name: Ryan
