About The champion newspaper. (Decatur, GA) 19??-current | View Entire Issue (April 2, 2015)
The Northlake Mall Easter Bunny becomes Caring Bunny for a few hours as he hosts visits with children with special needs. Caring Bunny opens his arms to children with special needs by Kathy Mitchell Among Easter’s joys for many families with small children is tak ing the little ones for a visit with the mall Easter Bunny. Some children with special needs, however, may find such an outing more of a chal lenge than an adventure. “Children with autism, for ex ample, may find the normal sights and sounds at the mall unpleasant and upsetting,” explained Bianca Gibson, director of marketing and business development at Northlake Mall. The website of Autism Speaks, a nonprofit that supports persons with autism and their family members, explained it this way: “Many persons with autism have unusual responses to sensory input. They have difficul ty processing and integrating sen sory information, or stimuli, such as sights, sounds, smells, tastes and/ or movement. They may experience seemingly ordinary stimuli as pain ful, unpleasant or confusing.” The solution at Northlake and some other malls is setting aside time when special needs children can visit the holiday figure in his bright Easter tie and oversized glasses—called Caring Bunny in this context—in a quiet, peaceful envi ronment. “We schedule the Caring Bunny visits at a time when the mall is closed. We shut off all unnecessary light and sounds. We even turn off the fountain,” Gibson explained. “Photos are taken without a flash, so the family still has cherished high- quality pictures of the child with the Easter Bunny without doing any thing that might upset the child.” Caring Bunny visits are by ap pointment only to assure the child doesn’t have to wait in line and isn’t rushed because others are waiting, she added. This year’s Caring Bunny sessions were the morning of March 29, a Sunday, before the mall opened at noon. “We give each family 15 minutes. We have learned that that’s about the right amount of time so they aren’t hurried but don’t stay beyond the time the child is com fortable,” said Gibson, adding that “comfortable” is the key word in set ting up the visits. Sessions with Caring Bunny aren’t just for children with autism, she noted. Children with other de velopmental disabilities may need the extra time and a subdued setting to enjoy their time with the bunny. “Also,” Gibson said, “children with physical disabilities, such as chil dren who use wheelchairs, may be more comfortable when there aren’t crowds of other children.” She said some teens and adults with devel opmental disabilities like to visit the Easter Bunny and they are welcome as well. Gibson said that those who don the Easter Bunny suit are trained in interacting with children and receive additional training to pro mote understanding of special needs children. “The Easter Bunny doesn’t speak when any of the children visit, so there’s no concern that something he says will upset the child,” she ex plained. “The children sit with him, touch him and talk to him in what ever way feels right for them. Some hesitate at first, but he lets them get comfortable with him—hug him if they want to—then settle in to have their picture taken.” Northlake, which has been scheduling Caring Bunny visits for three years, is one of the Simon de velopment companies nationwide to offer the special service for children with special physical, sensory and developmental needs. “I don’t know whether other mall developers offer anything like this,” Gibson said, “but we are really community-oriented, so we are continually looking for ways to meet the community’s needs.” Autism Speaks, based in Atlanta, works with malls providing information on appropriate ways to interact with children with autism. Gibson, who has been with Northlake a short time, said this is her first year working with the mall’s special holiday promotions. “At the end of the year, we will have Caring Santa available to special needs chil dren. Santa, of course, is a huge deal with children so we expect to have about twice as many families sched uling visits.”
