The Grocery Store Was Never The Problem

For nearly two years, Pete and I simply stopped taking Khai into the grocery store.

It wasn't a decision we made overnight. It happened slowly, one failed trip after another, until we realized we were spending more energy preparing for the grocery store than we were actually shopping.

We became experts at packing for what should have been a twenty-minute errand.

Before we ever left the driveway, we'd fill a bag with snacks, analog toys, headphones, an iPad, chargers, and whatever else we thought might buy us just a few extra minutes. The backseat looked less like we were running to Publix and more like we were leaving for a weekend trip.

Sometimes we'd make it through the produce section before things began to unravel.

Other times it started the moment Khai spotted a shopping cart.

He wasn't interested in what was inside it. He wanted the wheels. He would crouch beside them, completely captivated by the way they spun and turned against the floor. If another cart rolled past, his eyes followed it. Then another. Then the floor scrubber. Then someone pushing a stroller. The entire world was moving.

It took me a long time to realize that he wasn't chasing the shopping carts because he loved shopping carts. His brain was trying to keep pace with a world that never stopped moving.

The grocery store asks an extraordinary amount of every nervous system, but most of us have learned to filter it without realizing we're doing it. We tune out fluorescent lights, announcements over the loudspeaker, refrigerators humming, carts rattling, children crying, conversations passing us in every direction.

Khai couldn't.

He experienced all of it.

Eventually his body would reach its limit. He'd bolt.

Not because he was defiant.

Not because he wanted to make our lives difficult.

His nervous system had simply reached a point where movement felt like the only answer.

Pete almost always caught him first. Then came the part that still hurts to remember.

Pete would carry him sideways through the store while Khai screamed with everything he had. People stopped pushing their carts. Some stared openly. Others looked away. Every now and then we'd hear someone mutter something about discipline just loud enough for us to know they wanted us to hear it.

In those moments, I wasn't embarrassed. I was heartbroken.

Not because my son was screaming, but because I knew almost everyone watching us believed they understood what they were seeing.

They didn't.

The remarkable part always came a few minutes later. As soon as Pete buckled Khai into the car and closed the door, the screaming would stop almost as quickly as it had begun. His breathing slowed. His body relaxed. It was as if someone had finally turned the volume of the world back down to a level he could bear.

Years before we had children, I raised pigs. If you've never heard a frightened pig squeal, it's almost impossible to describe. It sounds violent. Urgent. Like something terrible is happening. The first time I heard it, I panicked.

Over time I learned something important. The sound wasn't telling me they were in danger. The sound was telling me they believed they were. That distinction changed everything. Instead of reacting to the noise itself, I learned to look for what had frightened them. I think about that often when I remember those grocery store trips.

So much of parenting has been learning to look past the behavior that captures everyone else's attention and quietly ask a different question.

Not,

"How do I stop this?"

But,

"What is this behavior trying to protect?"

That single question changed the way I saw my son.

It changed the way I parent.

It even changed the way I teach.

Because once you realize behavior is often the visible expression of an invisible experience, it becomes much harder to judge another person so quickly.

The grocery store was never the problem.

The problem was believing everyone experienced the grocery store the same way.