Family asked to Leave Restaurant due to Son’s ‘Noises’

A family says they are left heartbroken and saddened after they were asked to leave an Outback Steakhouse restaurant in Glen Burnie, Maryland on Saturday night because of their son who has Childhood Apraxia of Speech, a neurological disorder.

Amanda Braun’s son, Killian, was born with Childhood Apraxia of Speech. The disorder affects Killian in many ways especially communication and behavior.

Sometimes when he speaks, his words are unclear.

My son Cooper also has apraxia along with autism. To us this means he wants to communicate, he knows what he wants to say, but the words often come out as sounds all jumbled together. Lots of hums and giggles too.

However, Amanda says she’s never had problems before the incident at Outback occurred and that Killian was not acting out of the ordinary.

“Our son stayed with us in our booth. There weren’t many people around us as we were seated in the very back of the restaurant to accommodate our party size” said Amanda. She admits there was some noise but that it wasn’t constant.

She says moments after dinner arrived, they were approached by a manager and ultimately asked to leave.

“This gentleman said that he received a noise complaint for my child. He said that he was very uncomfortable coming to our table to tell us that but unfortunately we needed to finish our meals and leave,” said Amanda. “I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. I was in total shock.”

“The anger has subsided and I’m left with sadness for my son and his future struggles of being in public” said Amanda Braun, mother of Killian.

Outback Steakhouse said in a statement provided to ABC7 “We’ve been in contact with the family and have personally apologized. We strive to make sure all guests feel comfortable and welcomed in our restaurants and we fell short. We’re learning from what happened and training our team so we can better serve our diverse guest population.”

This stuff happens. We all know that.

But as a society we need to do better. Asking a family to leave because their kid was too loud. Come on.

Have you been to a restaurant, a family restaurant at that?

So many thoughts come to mind reading this.

With one being…this is why we don’t go to restaurants. I don’t want to ever be in this position again. It’s humiliating.

I could come at you with the definition of discrimination. Which happens to be the unjust or prejudicial treatment of different categories of people or things, especially on the grounds of race, age, or sex.

Disability falls under that.

Discrimination against a person for making sounds because of their disability.

But I won’t.

I could say that all children are loud. I could tell you that I have three kids. 8, 6 and 10 months old. All boys. One with severe autism who doesn’t speak and one that never stops talking.

Both are loud. But one is accepted more because his sounds are about fishing and Minecraft. The one talking in jumbled sounds isn’t.

And to be clear, unless we are putting our kids on iphones, 99% are busy, busy in restaurants. Verbal or not.

I could say that people need awareness and training on how to work with the disability community. And another training on tact, empathy and common sense. But that’s a no-brainer too.

What I will say is you will be shocked the first time your child is discriminated against for being different. It will take your breath away. You will know it isn’t right. But you will feel helpless.

You will be motivated to change the world for your child and hide them at the same time.

You will rethink leaving the house ever again.

I’ve been there. A few times.

Let’s all do better. And try harder.

Finding Cooper’s Voice is a safe, humorous, caring and honest place where you can celebrate the unique challenges of parenting a special needs child. Because you’re never alone in the struggles you face. And once you find your people, your allies, your village….all the challenges and struggles will seem just a little bit easier. Welcome to our journey. You can also follow us on Facebook, subscribe for exclusive videos, and subscribe to our newsletter.

Featured image photo credit: WJLA ABC