13 yo aspie flies alone from Florida to CA

Post Reply New Topic

http://www.mercurynews.com/topstories/ci_12263409

Basically, his parents divorced, and Mom moved to Fresno in central California while Dad ended up in Boca Raton, and took the kids with him. The 13 year old boy missed Mom, so he stole his dad's credit card and SUV, drove himself to Fort Lauderdale, bought a ticket to San Jose, and flew by himself. For some reason, all the fancy ID procedures in US airports go out the window for those under 18, so nobody stopped the kid until a TSA guard noticed him at Mineta which is the name of the airport in California, and asked him his name. It took only a short time to determine that he had gone missing in Florida. The article doesn't say that Aspergers made him do it, but that it makes him have little clue about potential danger or how his actions affect others, and also makes him impulsive. The kid is currently staying with relatives in Silicon Valley. I suspect that there will be a lot of legal wrangling going on as to who gets custody of him. He wants to be with mom, but dad is his legal custodian. Uh oh.

I once took my parent's credit card out of my dad's wallet and used it to buy a game off the internet. I was going to give them the money when the game came. I didn't know it was wrong because it was my parents card and I was going to give them the money. It wasn't like I found the card off the ground and tried to use it online. Now that be illegal. I knew that since age 12 and the owner of the card gets billed for using it my mother told me when I found a credit card on the ground. She told me if I tried using it, I can get in serious trouble with the law because when the person gets the credit card bill and sees she didn't buy the stuff with it, she can report it stolen and they will find me and bust me for it.


I'd say this was a kid thing the kid did. How many 13 year olds understand how credit cards work? How many of them know it's wrong to use their parent's card without their permission? They won't know unless told or if they hear about it on TV. But it's something for parents to bust their kids over for when they to use it without their permission and it was a major purchase they did with it.

I personally don't think this has anything to do with the kid having Asperger's. "He had a heart condition and Asperger's" Okay? Was he allergic to peanuts as well?

Aside from the fact that he bought the ticket with someone else's money, there's nothing overly unusual about this. 13-year-olds fly alone all the time, no doubt including ones with AS.

"Officials said it is not against the policies of Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport or Southwest Airlines for a 13-year-old to travel alone, with or without identification, the Sun-Sentinel reported."

^ This.

Yeah, I don't think it has anything to do with him having AS either, quite frankly. "Normal" kids do this kind of thing too.

And I sure hope he isn't allergic to peanuts since they're standard-issue on Southwest.

When I was 13 I told my mother I was staying at Marilyn's house over night and she said she would cover for me if my mom called (she didn't) and I took a bus to Kansas City and went to see the Beatles and came home the next day.

I told my mother in 1995 and I thought she was going to have a heart attack. So did she.
sheesh . . . parents!


Merle

I agree that this had absolutely nothing to do with asperger's... except that we do tend to be more vulnerable and need more protection in general. For them to let an unidentified kid fly alone is one thing.. but a child with autism? They should really feel some shame.

From my anthropology classes, i've been told that any child near the age of 9 is perfectly able to survive on his own. I guess this follows the story of that boy from Australia that rode to Sidney huh? and huh, he rode an SUV? the guy's a damn genius XD i couldn't do that at his age, let alone today. =/