How to react when an autistic child is the victim of a sudden crisis? How to react when you do not know that, like hundreds of thousands of people, the child is a victim of this neurodevelopmental disorder? This is the story of a good reflex: that of Mags Lunn, a cashier, faced with the crisis of an autistic child. In early 2022, 3-year-old Hudson collapsed screaming on the tiled floor just meters from his checkout at a supermarket in Darlington, northern England. Mags Lunn, 60, squatted on the ground and got to her level. She suggested that he come and sit in her place, behind the cash register, and look at things from another point of view. The little boy stopped crying and hugged her, before actually going to see how the cash register works.
Hudson’s mother, Bex, told several British media about this scene on Wednesday June 8. Above all, she expressed her relief as, before this meeting, going to the supermarket with her son was a test of strength, a source of anxiety and stress. The story is reported by just about every British media outlet, from the BBC to The Independent passing through theEvening Standard, which describe how, in six months, Mags became Hudson’s best friend, the one he now sees four times a week. It’s a small miracle since shopping was his obsession.
Bex says Mags from Asda Darlington Neasham Road is “incredible” for transforming her son Hudson’s shopping experience. He’s autistic and used to find it overwhelming, but Mags has gone out of her way to look after him – and now he always gives her hugs: https://t.co/BIcbsWh6xH pic.twitter.com/kfycQTxlmU
—Asda (@asda) June 5, 2022
Too many movements, too many people, too much noise: at each exit, he collapsed and howled. “Unfortunatelyexplains his mother, in this kind of situation, when you are struggling to reassure your child, people look down on you. They make comments and think it’s a whim. Mags, she did not pronounce any judgment: she came, she took a few minutes of her time and that changed everything.“
Indeed, today Hudson is no longer afraid of the supermarket. He hasn’t had another attack there for six months. To top it off, Mags and his colleagues gave him a mini shopping cart and a stand to play merchant, a game he loves and never gives up, according to his mother. Mags Lunn, the cashier, has an autistic grandson. This is how she understood that the crisis had nothing to do with a whim and her gesture reminds us how good it is not to judge too quickly, to doubt, to pay attention and reach out. In short, to put yourself at the right height.