Autism, Family, Special Needs 
7 Comments Worker at Sea Life Treats Adrian Badly, Sea Life’s Response? Silence.
Update- I have received a response from Sea Life. There is a comment on this post from Sea Life. They have apologized and talked with the lady who treated Adrian in this way. I will write more later but wanted to write a quick update about this situation. Thank you so much to those of you who supported me in this. It resulted in a quick response thanks to all of you and you have my gratitude.
On September 16th Glen and I took the kids to a Sea Life Aquarium. We were looking forward to it and so were the kids. Unfortunately the day didn’t go as planned. We walked through a couple rooms, the first had fish that were under a black light, the next room had various fish on a tank close to the floor so the kids could easily see them. Shortly after we got there we came upon the touch tank, an exhibit I was looking forward to the kids checking out.
If you don’t know what a touch tank is, it’s just a tank that the kids can stick their hands in and touch the starfish. Of course this has to be done gently so as not to hurt the animals.
When we approached the tank there were many many other families standing around the tank. In fact we had to wait a bit to get close enough to the tank for our children to be able to touch the animals. It was as to be expected being that it was a Saturday and Sea Life was very busy.
As we got to the tank with the 50 or so other people gathered around a lady behind the display started explaining to the children how to touch the starfish. She explained that you must use a “two finger touch” so you don’t hurt the animals. Glen had our boys and they were well under control quietly looking into the tank. We were well aware, and had already talked about, the fact that our boys would need help to touch the animals gently and that we would use hand over hand to help them touch the animals. This worker made eye contact with Adrian and says “Are you listening?” Adrian says nothing of course because his verbal communication is so limited and he rarely answers questions. I figured she’d move on when he didn’t answer but no, she then says “HELLO!!” and waves her hand in front of his face. You’d think that would be enough humiliation for my little guy. But no she then gets this exasperated look on her face, rolls her eyes dramatically, “Ok anyway!” and goes on with her demonstration.
When this happened I was kind of in shock. I said nothing but the second we walked away from the exhibit I felt a lump in my throat and tears coming to my eyes. I gave Glen a look and he knew what I was upset about and said “She didn’t know.” I was not wanting this incident to ruin our whole day so I just forgot about it for the moment but of course not for long.
I stewed about it all night long. I told my mom about it and she couldn’t believe how badly Adrian was treated. I decided I needed to write an email to the company who owns Sea Life, the company is called Merlin Entertainments and they also own Lego Land among other children’s entertainment parks/places. I wrote them a brief email about what happened,stated that I would appreciate it if someone could talk to this woman about how she treats the children, and that I would like a response back from them. After I sent the email I got an automatic response saying that a ticket had been opened and I would receive a response from them within 10 days. I have yet to receive a response and it’s been 17 days.
(Note: This email address was the only thing listed on their “contact us” page other than a physical address to send them a snail mail letter)
In a second attempt to receive a response from Sea Life I wrote this on their facebook page on September 24, 2012:
My son who has autism was treated badly at your establishment by one of the workers. I emailed your head office at Merlin Entertainments and have not received a response. Maybe there is someone else you can direct me to as far as getting this issue resolved? I was going to share about the incident on my blog and see if I could get some help from the autism community on getting a response but figured I would try this avenue first. Thanks so much for your time.
In response to this note on their public facebook page the representative from Sea Life said:
We sincerely apologize for the treatment of your son. We are going to pass your message along to our management team here at SEA LIFE Kansas City. If you could, please call or e-mail us so we can respond to you directly. Our email address is sealifekansascity@sealifeus.com or call 816-471-4386. We will make sure to watch for your name and contact you as soon as we can.
This communication is the only response I have received from anyone at Sea Life. While I appreciate the promptness and politeness of this response it far from resolved my issue and I was definitely under the impression that I would then get a response from their management.
I have yet to receive a response after I sent a follow up email to the new email address I received. I sent it minutes after my communication on their facebook page on September 24, 2012.
After I sent that email I reached out a fourth and final time on their facebook page on September 28, 2012:
I haven’t received a response from your management. It’s shocking to me that they are ignoring this issue. I will give them until Thursday of next week and then I will pursue this as far as humanly possible. I will not have my son treated badly by adults who should know better because he has a disability and anything I can do to prevent this from happening at your establishment again I will do. My email address is joyATjoysautismblogDOTcom in case some nonsense is said about not getting my email.
There was no response from either their social media person or their management to this fourth attempt at communication.
You would think with 1 in 88 children having autism these days that companies that cater to children would have some kind of sensitivity training on autism and other special needs.
While Adrian does have autism, even if he didn’t, was the way this lady treated him a way to treat any child? I don’t think so.
So then I thought, what would be the purpose of even writing about this? What do I even want out of this? Well, what I would like to see happen with this company who deals with thousands and thousands of children annually and no doubt hundreds and probably thousands of children with special needs annually is to have them start some sensitivity training for their workers about autism and other special needs.
They may ignore my attempts to inform them about this issue but can you help me make this issue unavoidable to them? I can’t make them listen by myself (they have made that painfully obvious with not even a generic apology coming my way), I’ll need some help. You can help by sending them an email at sealifekansascity@sealifeus.com (the second email address that ignored my complaint) or make a statement on their facebook page and sharing it with your friends and family or on your blogs, facebook, and twitter so that other people can try to get these companies to do the right thing. Help me let them know that we expect our children who have special needs to be treated with dignity and respect when we come into their establishments and spend our hard earned money.
Unbelievable Joy! I’m sad to hear about your son being treated poorly but then the lack of the company’s response about your situation shows a lack of respect to you as well!!
I don’t comment much, but I do enjoy your blog and read it often. I am appalled at the way they handled this situation. I’m sending them an email as we speak. My son has autism and if he were treated that way I would be torn up as well.
We sincerely apologize for what appears to be a lack of response on our end.
An email response was sent to Mrs. Smith, but in looking at it more closely, the email address was off by one letter.
A human error that is truly unfortunate and regrettable.
We here at Kansas City SEA LIFE Aquarium are taking the due diligence to not only educate but also retrain our staff regarding the needs of all of our guests.
We sincerely apologize for the experience Mrs. Smith and her family had at our attraction.
It is through education and better understanding that we will be able to provide the utmost experience for all of our guests, regardless of their personal situations.
We owe this to all of our guests.
I have to side with your husband. I can understand why you would get upset. You shouldn’t have taken it personally. As a parent of a child with autism, I know that people are not aware of what we are so keenly tuned into. I think this was clearly a naive mistake with an immature expression on the workers part.
With your headline I was expecting something with more substance. We can’t beat a drum every time we don’t like how someone reacts to our children. We as parents of special needs kids can’t expect those who are ignorant to our situation to know how to act/react.
Defensiveness will not educate. IMHO, you should have approached the worker after the fact and explained what you perceived as an offense to your son. Or, dropped a note or spoken to the management with her letting them know that not all kids are communicative, rambunctious and attentive. I can only assume she is unaware of your hurt feelings and blind to this “mountain out of a mole hill” situation.
We deal with so much fear and anger because of the diagnosis. Don’t let that drive or shape you to go after those who are still in the dark about life with an autistic child. Christ taught, be slow to anger and forgive easily. No point wasting your “mama bear” on something like this. It needs to be saved for a deliberate act of malice.
My 2 cents as a KC parent of a child with autism who has experienced “deck the guy” anger many times.
Actually my husband definitely understood my position after we discussed it and I’m not sure you and he are in agreement. I prayed and sought council on this matter over the weeks since it happened. This was definitely not a knee jerk reaction on my part. It was carefully considered before I decided to take this step.
“dropped a note or spoken to the management”
This is exactly what I did and received zero response. Not only did a try to drop a note once, twice, but three and four times.
The point of all this wasn’t to vent anger or anything like that. The point of it was to make sure establishments are teaching their workers that there are people with different abilities and to be sensitive that. Hopefully because of this post and the support I have received this particular establishment and that particular worker will be much more sensitive in the future.
I think when we stand up in situations like this we can make real changes and I believe that this one was worth standing up for. You may not see it that way but this is the first comment I’ve received out of many, via email, blog, facebook, and a private forum that hasn’t agreed with my stance on this situation.
There is enough mama bear left in me for the bigger situations and this one, which was big to me and apparently big enough for everyone who was kind enough to make comments to Sea Life with me today.
Joy, You were right to make a mountain of the incident. That’s a rude way for anyone to be treated. A worker who talks that way to any visitor should be reassigned or retrained. That could have happened just with a shy child, and a shy child should not be mocked by an employee of a children’s exhibit, nor should ANY child be mocked. Then to throw a disability into it just adds further insult. My daughter’s friend is blind and people often don’t notice. Can you imagine if the worker had said, “Hello???” and waved her had in front of our blind friends face? The issue is obviously a matter of personal ignorance and thoughtlessness on the part of the worker, and shows that up until this incident, that company doesn’t provide the right training to their employees. And now since you said something, that will hopefully change.
I hate to admit I once got very irritated with a boy and even spoke harshly to him. I felt so bad a few weeks later when I found out he had autism. I was so focused on myself that I didn’t even consider his circumstances. I won’t make that mistake again. I’m sorry you had to experience that with your son.