Trina Miller. (submitted photo/Trina Miller)

By battlefordsNOW Staff

Aim to increase inclusion

Family of girl with autism hopes to increase education following upsetting social media post

Jun 6, 2023 | 3:20 PM

The family of a girl believed to be on the autism spectrum are speaking out in response to some comments posted on social media they found hurtful after the child’s visit to a local business.

The owner of the Battlefords business, Judy Dwinnell, initially made a video post on Facebook after the child and her mother came into the establishment with the girl’s class.

The three-year-old was wearing a safety harness, as she is on the autism spectrum and would run away without it.

Dwinnell said in her video post the girl thought she was a cat, was walking around on all fours, and wearing a harness.

“A cat? Being a cat at five years old,” she said.

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Dwinnell appeared to think the girl’s mother was just indulging the child on the school trip.

Dwinnell has since removed the video and uploaded a new video today, saying the previous video was not directed at the child. She didn’t know the child had autism.

“The child just happened to come in and trigger me,” she said. “Did I have a right? No. But it was never [about] the child. The mother knows it wasn’t the child… The situation with ‘the cat’ — my followers know that that is not me.”

Dwinnell said she is receiving threats on her social media site now, and held back tears as she continued to speak in the video.

“I have made amends with the child’s mother,” she added. “She knows it had nothing to do with the child.”

Dwinnell noted “it was a good learning experience” for her, and she hopes it will be a education for her followers also, who may not know the variables of the autism spectrum.

Trina Miller, the girl’s aunt, said her niece did not think she was a cat. She was pretending to be a cat because she is an imaginative person.

Miller hopes the incident can be a learning experience for everyone.

“She has an amazing imagination, and an amazing ability to love and to show up in the world being her authentic self,” she said. “I am so grateful we’re able to have this conversation about different abilities, and exceptionalities that are out there so we can normalize this. Then, [she] doesn’t need to feel isolated and [not] fit in in society because people will understand her. We can remove that barrier.”

The girl’s mom, Terri Miller, said she was so upset after seeing the first video from Dwinnell she was speechless.

She said during the incident there was no interaction between her and the owner, so she was surprised to see something on the social media afterwards.

Terri noted Dwinnell later called her to apologize.

“When you’re mad at the world, you don’t take it out on an innocent child,” Terri added.

While Dwinnell didn’t realize the child was on the autism spectrum, she also didn’t question anything she saw that day before putting up her initial post.

Terri said sometimes her daughter “wants to see the world as a cat,” and there is nothing wrong with that.

“Sometimes she wants to see the world as a dog,” she added. “She’s three [years old]. Normal three-year-olds do that.”

Terri added her daughter needs to be on a safety harness “because she is a runner,” and would not stay in place otherwise.

When reached by battlefordsNOW, Dwinnell apologized for her words.

“I just want to say: ‘I am sorry,'” she said. “The mother and I have talked.”

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Angela.Brown@pattisonmedia.com

On Twitter: @battlefordsnow