Originally Posted by
TSORon
Have you ever provided care for a special needs child? If not then there is no real point in trying to explain the realities of that kind of situation to you. If you have then you are being intentionally obtuse, which I have to admit would go against everything I have come to admire about your posting here (IOW I would have a hard time believing if of you).
Yes, I have and do. A special needs adult with the mind of a child. In many scenarios. we can 'practice' at home. But all h*** breaks loose when there are unexpected deviations from what he considers the 'norm' and it can take forever to resolve the situation.
His physicians certainly have no problem with him travelling. There's no physical reason not to, and we have racked up many airline miles travelling without a problem.
We can practice 'take your shoes off'. We can practice 'I will carry your MP3 until we get through the archway, and then I will give it right back, I promise' (when walking was still an option).
We can't practice for someone suddenly throwing an unanticipated curve like 'take off your belt' or 'take off your vest' or a big drawn out discussion about "can he really not get out of the wheelchair" (um, trust me, if you want to go that route, it will take forever and you will finally realize he is not capable of making it through the WTMD without touching the sides). Heck, he can't walk through a doorway anywhere without grasping the sides. And yelling or talking in an unnecessarily LOUD voice doesn't help. He gets upset and defensive. He's not deaf and the nature of his mental impairment is not such that talking louder facilitates better understanding.
Believe it or not, it can work quite well. But sadly there are the TSOs who don't get what 'special needs' can encompass. It can cover blindness, deafness, mental impairment coupled with apparent physical health. A TSO who rebuffs a pax who approaches ahead of time and explains "we've done this many times. We can satisfy all necessary screening requirements without undue hassle for anyone". Instead we immediately get pushback: "maybe you should drive, maybe he shouldn't fly, we have to follow our procedures, bla bla". It isn't always that simple. Maybe at your checkpoint, but please be honest and admit that you don't know what goes on at other checkpoints and other airports. Not everyone who posts a bad experience is a liar, it isn't always the pax who is wrong, and sometimes video clips do tell enough of the story to make it clear a TSO created a situation or escalated one when it was completely unnecessary.