In this moving episode, Mike Carr shares the deeply personal challenges of safeguarding children with profound autism, offering a window into the constant vigilance required to protect those we love most. He recounts a heart-stopping moment when a miscommunication at school led to a child running dangerously close to a busy street—proving that even the most trusted spaces can pose unexpected risks. At home, Mike has turned his love into action, creating five layers of security to shield his son, from smart locks to cameras, crafting a haven in an often unpredictable world. But he also opens up about how even well-meaning institutions can fall short, recalling a fire drill when school doors were mistakenly left unlocked, exposing vulnerabilities in the system. Mike’s heartfelt message resonates deeply: safety isn’t just about precautions; it’s about constant vigilance, clear communication, and proactive preparation. “You can never be too safe,” he reminds us—a simple but powerful truth for families navigating these challenges. This episode is a comforting, hope-filled reminder that every effort to ensure safety matters—and that love is the driving force behind it all.
The Importance of Multi-Layered Autism Safety Products: A Story of Vigilance and Preparedness
If you’re a parent of a child with profound autism, you know. You’re always on high alert. Every single day is a balancing act of routines, unexpected detours, anticipating what might happen, and making split-second decisions that are all about keeping your kid safe. And when your child doesn’t really understand danger? The stakes are just…higher. There’s no room for mistakes. This is my story, a story about a morning that started out perfectly normal and ended up being a huge wake-up call. It’s about how even when you think you’ve got everything covered, life can throw you a curveball. It’s a story about being a parent, about that gut feeling that you’d do anything to keep your child safe, no matter what.
A Morning That Seemed Too Good to Be True
Okay, so, this morning started out amazing. Like, one of those unicorn mornings where everything just…works. Mike, whose son has profound autism, was actually having a good day. His son woke up happy, no meltdowns, even got dressed himself – red shirt, the whole shebang. Breakfast was easy, they got to school on time, no drama. Mike was feeling that rare, blissful relief – finally, a good morning! He went about his day, feeling pretty good.
Then, driving past the school, he saw something. A flash of red. A familiar red. You know, that red that every parent of an autistic kid just knows. His heart did a little flip. He looked again, and his stomach dropped. It wasn’t his son, thank God. It was another kid, running away from the school, straight towards the road. That slow-motion feeling, that icy dread every special needs parent lives with? It hit him hard. His brain went straight to his son. Was he okay? Was this happening to him too?
Mike slammed on the brakes, spun into the school parking lot, heart hammering. He saw it wasn’t his son. It was his son’s classmate. The kid’s mom, thank goodness, was nearby and grabbed him just before he ran into traffic. Huge relief.
But then, the mom went inside to tell the school what happened, and she saw something that made her blood run cold. There, in the hallway, was Mike’s son. Just…wandering. Alone. Not in immediate danger, thank goodness, but totally unsupervised. How?! How could a school that’s supposed to keep these kids safe let that happen? Seriously. How?!
The Consequences of Miscommunication
So, what happened at the school that day? Basically, miscommunication. The teacher and the aide both thought the other one was watching the kids. And for a few seconds, just a few seconds, nobody was. And that was all it took. Mike’s son slipped away. But it wasn’t just that. Turns out, the front door of the school didn’t even have a lock. No alarm, nothing. Just…open.
How could this happen? In a place that’s supposed to be a safe haven for kids? It was a huge wake-up call for Mike. A reminder that even places you trust completely can fail you if they don’t have the right safety measures in place. That day, the school’s security flaws were glaringly obvious. But this isn’t just about that one school. It’s a reminder for all of us parents of autistic kids: we have to be proactive. We have to be our kids’ advocates. We have to make sure our homes, our schools, everywhere they go is as safe as it can be. Because nobody else is going to do it for us.
The Need for Multiple Layers of Safety
This whole school thing really shook Mike up. He realized that relying on just one thing – the school’s security, the teachers, even their best intentions – wasn’t enough. You can’t just hope everything will be okay. You need backups. You need layers of safety.
At home, Mike and his wife already knew their son, like a lot of kids with profound autism, didn’t really get danger. So, they’d already taken steps to make their home as safe as possible. They had a whole system in place.
First, they put a smart lock on his bedroom door. That way, they could lock it if they needed to, so he couldn’t just wander off. But that wasn’t enough. They also added a chain lock above the smart lock. Two layers. Just in case the smart lock malfunctioned or something.
Then, they put a Ring sensor on the door. So, every time the door opened, they’d get an alert on their phones. Even with the smart lock, they wanted to know immediately if he was trying to get out.
And finally, they set up cameras in his room. So, Mike could check on him from anywhere in the house. Just to be sure.
Five layers of security. It might sound like a lot, but for Mike and his wife, it was about peace of mind. They knew with a child who didn’t understand danger, they couldn’t take any chances. They had to do everything they could.
The Importance of Vigilance in Schools
Mike knew keeping his home safe wasn’t the whole picture. Schools needed to be on the ball, too. But what went down at his son’s school that day? Ugh, talk about a perfect storm of bad luck.
See, there was a plumbing emergency, so they had to leave the front door unlocked. And the alarm was off while the plumbers were working. It probably seemed like NBD, but yeah, it left the school wide open. And then, because the universe hates us all, they had a fire drill that same day. Chaos. Teachers ran around like chickens with their heads cut off, trying to get all the kids out, and in all the commotion, a few kids got left behind in the hallway. For some kids, no biggie. But for kids like Mike’s son? Disaster waiting to happen.
It wasn’t just the unlocked door, or the alarm being off. It was everything happening at once. It wasn’t that the school was being negligent, it was just…a series of unfortunate events. But it really showed how important it is to be on your toes. All the time. Because seriously, you just never know what might happen.
What Can Parents and Schools Do to Prevent These Scenarios?
The bottom line for us parents? Layers, layers, layers. At home, at school, everywhere. We have to make sure our kids are safe, no matter what crazy stuff happens.
At home, that means using tech – smart locks, sensors, cameras, alarms – the whole nine yards. But it also means being present, checking on your kid, and thinking ahead. Don’t wait for something bad to happen before you take action.
Schools need to get this, too. They need clear rules for keeping kids safe. Teachers and aides need to know what to do in an emergency, and they need to make sure every kid is accounted for. Things like locked doors and alarms? Non-negotiable. And the school needs a backup plan, especially when things get crazy, like during a fire drill or if the plumber’s gotta come fix a leak.
The Final Word
Seriously, we can’t take safety for granted, especially when it comes to our autistic kids. What happened to my son? Scary, right? It just shows that no place is 100% safe. But we can do everything we can to protect our kids. How? Layers of safety. Being aware. Making sure everyone knows what’s up.
We have to be on our toes, ready for anything. Check in, step in, make sure our kids are okay. It’s not about being paranoid, it’s about being prepared. Because being prepared can literally save the day.
So, take a look around. Is your home as safe as it can be? What about school? Anywhere your kid spends time, don’t just assume it’s all good. Check it out. Ask questions. Because when it comes to our kids, we can never be too careful. Never.
Transcript
Mike Carr (00:03):
Welcome back to Autism Labs. This week we’re going to talk about multiple layers of safety. So here’s the scenario. You get up, the kids all get up at the same time, and they’re happy, unbelievable. No screaming, no yelling, no pinching. Your profoundly autistic son, even sort of dresses himself, puts on his favorite red shirt, pants, shoes with just minimal help. Breakfast goes well. You get him all into the car, you get him to school on time, things are going really well. Midmorning, you decide to go to the grocery store and you drive right by your son’s school. And so on the way, driving by the school, out of the corner of your eye, you notice a flash of light and maybe a speck of red. And you’re thinking, what in the world could that mean? And so you turn and you notice that there’s a child running by himself out in front of the school building, and your heart stops.
(01:04):
It’s your son, it’s your profoundly autistic son by himself running out in front of the school, very close to a busy street with lots of traffic, and he does not understand danger. So you slam on the brakes. You don’t care that you may cause a car accident. You have got to save your son’s life. Now, this is a true story. It was not our son, it was actually a classmate of his. And the mom was able to turn into the school parking lot without causing an accident. Thank God, getting out of the car, taking her son before he wandered into the street and getting him back into school. And sure enough, when he came into school, she saw our son by himself in the hallway wandering around. He was safe. He wasn’t going to get in any trouble, but he was by himself in the hallway.
(01:58):
How could this have happened? Well, the teacher and the teacher’s, they miscommunicated and they both thought the other one was going to be watching the kids. And so the kids were left alone for a couple minutes, but there was no lock on the front door. There was no alarm on the front door. And sure enough, one of ’em got out. So why would this ever happen and what should you do in your own home? So in our home, we have a smart lock on the door, the door of our son’s area. We have a chain above the smart lock. We have a ring sensor on the very top of the door. So if the door ever opens and closes, we have an audible alarm upstairs where we are so we can hear it. We have an app on our iPhones, since it’s a smart lock that will tell us if someone leaves or enters.
(02:54):
And the fifth layers of security or safety is we have a camera in this room where we can also see what’s going on. So we have five layers. Now you may think that’s excessive, that’s ridiculous. And you may think, Hey, my profoundly autistic son or daughter right now goes to a school that I trust without question the teacher and the TA love them just like our teacher and TA 11. But our school has locked doors. It’s school policy. Those doors will be locked and it’s school policy that there’s an alarm on those doors that that will be activated. And if for any reason those doors are ever left unattended, someone will man those doors. So we’re covered, right? Here’s a scenario. One morning, middle of the week, toilet starts to overflow. In the restroom it’s going to flood. Everything Plumbers are called. Plumbers show up.
(03:51):
They run in. Well, they need to get some equipment in to fix the toilet before it just causes an absolute disaster. So you leave the front door unlocked, turn off the alarm to the front door. That’s okay. However, on that same day, your son’s teacher is sick. So there’s a substitute in the classroom with the teacher’s assistant. Maybe that’s still okay. Unbeknownst to you, a week earlier, a fire drill had been scheduled for that morning. Fire drill goes off, lots of commotion. The substitute teacher, the teacher’s assistant, are trying to corral all the kids and move them out the back of the building, which is what the protocol is for the fire drill. In all the commotion, a couple of kiddos are left unattended by themselves in that hallway. And sure enough, because the plumbers are there, front door is open, the alarm is turned off.
(04:56):
So it is possible. Now, you can never be perfect. We understand that mistakes are going to be made. We understand that too. What we have learned and what you probably are aware of too, just let you know, make sure everyone is aware of the situation, right? Make sure that hey, we’ve got some kiddos that just don’t understand danger. If that door’s ever left unattended, somebody’s got to be there. Even on a day where there’s a fire drill and there’s a plumbing mess. And if it’s nobody else’s available, it’s the principal of school should be parked out there by the front of that door. That just is sort the bare minimum. And then every now and then we sort of pop in and maybe you pop in too and you just sort look around, Hey, how’s everything going? Can I help out? But you’re sort checking everything out.
(05:37):
Is everybody happy? Do we have the teacher there, the teacher’s assistant in the classroom? And of course, on your way out, you go up to that front door and you make sure it is locked. And you take a look up there in that upper right hand corner, and you look for that red glow, which indicates the fire alarm or the door alarm. The lock is armed and active, so the front door is locked. And if anybody were to open that door, that alarm would sound because you can never be too safe when it comes to the safety of your child. Talk to you again next week. See you.
