For the most part my children have made it through childhood without major incident. This is not counting the asthma, breathing problems, and various viruses. To date my children have never broken a bone or had any major physical harm. That is until J sliced his foot open.
I will freely admit to being an over protective mother. I also will declare it is this overprotectiveness that has kept my children from serious harm. When you have a son who has multiple times nearly walked in front of a car you become skilled at 1) stopping him before he takes the last fatal step and 2) taking preventative methods so that it will not happen. My son held my hand in parking lots a lot longer then other children.
It is a constant balancing act of when to protect your child and when to let them learn from their own mistakes. It is even more challenging when you know those mistakes could mean death or sever physical harm. As J has stepped into the teenage years I have tried to loosen the reigns. Even then everyone thinks I am too over protective.
J slicing his foot home has been an experience for everyone. However, the only take home message that my son had was to wear shoes when he is outside. Beyond the fact that he has already forgotten this message, the experience did not generalize to anything beyond cutting his foot open. Even with multiple talks he does not understand how this experience relates to me asking him to calm down and think through his actions. He is just as impulsive as ever.
The balancing act will continue.
This experience has let me to wonder if there was any research on children with ADHD and/or ASD in relation to injury. What I found was fascinating.
A research study by Lee, Harrington, Chang, and Connors (2008) grouped children into various diagnosis categories. One group had children with Autism (they included comorbid conditions), the second group was children with ADHD (plus any comorbid condition besides ASD), A group of children with behavior concerns (but did not have ASD or ADHD), then various health concerns, and a control group of children without any diagnosis. Children with ADHD had a 26.5% chance of having an injury, while children with ASD had a 24.2% chance. This is greater then both children with behavioral concerns (a 20.5% chance) or without any diagnosis, which only had a 12% chance. Which shows that there is a reason that parents with special needs children do need to be a bit more overprotective of their child with ASD or ADHD.
Cavalari and Romanczyk (2012) broke down the risk of injury a step further. They found that children with ASD who engaged in more risky behaviors were more likely to get injured. While children with ASD were more likely to engage in risky behaviors, it was this, and not specifically an ASD diagnosis that seems to lead to injury. Which means that they found it was the increased likelihood of children with ASD to engage in risky behaviors, and not specifically motor or cognitive impairment, that lead to injury. They also found that children who were lower functioning were more likely to engage in risky behaviors, and subsequently be more at risk for injury.
Yes, I am an overprotective parent. However, my own experience and the research supports the need for me to be constantly on guard. While my children may be considered higher functioning cognitively J is impacted by having both ADHD and ASD. As well L has a history of extreme risky behaviors. While I worry about J walking in front of a car, I worry about L jumping off a building. The work of a special needs mother is never done. As I have found, the teenage years leads to more worry. Now there is a research study that needs to be done.
References
Cavalari, R. N., & Romanczyk, R. G. (2012). Caregiver perspectives on unintentional injury risk in children with an autism spectrum disorder. Journal of Pediatric Nursing, 27, 632-641.
Lee, L., Harrington, R. A., Chang, J. J., & Connors, S. L. (2008). Increased risk of injury in children with developmental disabilities. Research in Developmental Disabilities, 29, 247-255.
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