MWM, in your case it is always possible the biomom is telling the truth - in my case I keep looking for a cause for the autism in our family, especially in difficult child 3. I was taking codeine during the first trimester, but absolutely no alcohol or any other drugs. Then I was put on high doses of salbutamol from about 14 weeks' gestation. I've been told none of that caused the autism or ADHD. But how can I be sure?
If I were abio-mom I would have simply said, "I didn't take anything I shouldn't, I didn't do anything I shouldn't, I had nothing without medical supervision."
But is that sufficient protection? If I had been epileptic, I would have been advised to keep taking anti-epileptic medications even though they can cause birth defects etc, I was told. But it is more dangerous to the baby for the mother to not have the epilepsy controlled. So who knows what kind of trade-offs were made by any doctors treating during pregnancy?
Butterfly, to get to your point - these things happen and sometimes we forget how narrow a tightrope our kids are constantly walking. It's like your child is a leaky jug hanging on a wire, and water is constantly dripping into the jug. Normal people have a very leaky jug; difficult child's jugs don't leak much at all and the leak rate varies. medications can increase the leak rate. But always for everyone, there is water dripping in. For difficult children, more water drips in than for "normal" people. Younger kids have a faster drip rate too. When the jug gets heavy enough, the wire gets pulled hard enough and a switch is triggered causing "diuerse alarums" as Shakespeare might have said.
To some extent your child, as he grows and learns, knows how fast the tap is dripping and when to take himself off somewhere quiet to slow the rate of drip down. But he's still veryyoung, this takes time to perfect. And being out in public, especially with noise or other conflicting stimuli, makes the drip rate much faster. Little things we might hardly notice increase the flow rate. Sometimes there's a torrent, but we can get away with that if the jug is fairly empty.
Taking this analogy to the fast-food place, you were in an environment which although he wanted to be there, it did bring stress factors. Even you felt the pressure from the stares of other diners so YOUR flow rate got increased too. And if parental stress climbs, so does the stress of the children, even if you think they're not generally aware of your moods. At some level, they always are. Even newborn babies will respond to parental stress.
YOu need to learn to ignore public disapproval. You probably were already donig this but you still noticed. It's increasingly important to either switch off your awareness of this, or re-label it. Maybe the people are staring because they are sympathetic to the problems of an impatient 6 year old.
I've noticed that some parents do tend to be hypersensitive to their children making noise or possibly disturbing others, while other people go entirely too far the other direction and allow their horrors to terrotise everybody and intrude onto other people's space.
At our church last night we were all in a very large room, there was a party atmosphere with a lot of noise and conversation. There were only three children there - difficult child 3, a former classmate who is older, and a 4 year old girl (in whose honour the pasrty was, partly). I noticed a few times the mother shushing the little girl because she was getting a bit noisy, calling to difficult child 3 to come play or calling out to some of the adults (who were all happy to talk to her, she is a delightful child). Now, the mother may have been shushing her because it was getting a bit late in the evening and she didn't want the little girl getting too over-excited. Or she may have been concerned that her child not appear too pushy & precocious. I personally saw nothing wrong with what the child was doing.
I've seen this at other times - while shopping yesterday I was waiting in a long queue in a dress shop. They had a 70% off sale so you can imagine what the crowd was like. A toddler in a stroller was getting upset because (to me) he sounded tired, bored and finding it all too much. So I talked to him from my place in the queue and he at first looked horrified - this strange lady was tlaking to him! Then he looked a bit pleased and embarrassed - this strange lady was talking - TO HIM! He his his face, still whining, but began to peep through his fingers. He stopped crying, I kept talking to him. His mother was beside me, she seemed OK with it and was smiling that he was happy. But after a few minutes his aunt moved the stroller away so there was no way the child could continue to make eye contact with me. But did she take the time to talk to the boy? No. She idly looked through clothing racks and ignored the vhcild, who began to cry again.
I'm guessing that they moved the stroller because they didn't want the boy making his entertainment at the expense of strange members of the public. They were concerned that he had made sufficient noise to draw someone's attention. This concern caused them to change their tactics, but not enough to prevent further problems by engaging the child a bit more for the few minutes more it took for the mother to buy her things.
Sometimes we worry too much about what other people think, and this distracts us from "why is my child upset?"
Sometimes the answer with the child is simply andvery immeidate. Somtimes it's not so obvious. But as far as other people's disapproval is concerned - THEY don't live with your child, YOU do. And it is to you that your child looks, to help him. The other people, disapproval and all, can go hang.
Learn to develop some one-liners should any member of the public ever speak to you about your problem child. Keep it polite and friendly, because it does take a certain kind of courage to talk. It also takes a certian kind of gall, and it again needs to be answeredwith humour as well as firmness. YOu need the approach of, "He's MY child, I know what I have to do," but sometimes a friendly member of the public may genuinely want to help and see something you may have missed. Give 'em the benefit of the doubt until you're sure they're being hypercritical and counter-productive.
Some of the things I have said - "We have an opening for a babysitter/nanny. All those who know better, apply here."
"Ah, the joys of parenthood."
Or one you definitely need to prepare earlier - "He's sad because his pet cobra died - he bit it."
We used to go to the Pizza Hut with the kids and find this sort of scenario. When your kids are ADHD andcan't sit still if there's no food in front of them, there is only so long that you can keep them occupied by doing the puzzles on the tray or taking them to the toilet in turns. After that, they're crawlnig on the floor, running around the restaurant, asking other diners for a taste of their pizza - We learned to grow rhinoceros hide. The other thing that used to annoy me - I would gtry to curb the kids only to have some of the other diners say, "Oh no, that's alright, let them run loose, I love kiddies," while the other diners scowl and turn teir backs pointedly. YOu can't have it both ways - chided for not controlling, or chided for beoing over-controlling, in the same crowd.
So you can't please everybody. Instead, carry on as if you are home in your living room. But be aware of those dripping taps and the stress levels on everyone. We all have ourlimits and small children have shorter fuses than most. Especially difficult children.
Marg
. The neurologist and neuropsychologist are actually two totally different animals. It's good you ruled out seizures. Now I'd have him tested for all the rest of the childhood disorders plus possible reactions to drug exposure in utero. Just one drinking binge can affect our babies. 
