No worries! From the outside, yes, it looks great for her to be able to go to the store, try and pick an item and then pay for it. On the back end, there is so much more and Abbie fails to have those skills and I really don’t think she ever will. It has taken my kids a long time to understand them too and one child still doesn’t always get it.Your post really helped me see the bigger picture. I was looking at it as, hey, she can pay for her snacks like anyone else, where as I should be thinking, what a stupid unattainable goal, why not... Abbie will choose which flavored cookies to buy while shopping in the community! This new outlook will help me at work. Thank you all for keeping it real!!
Reading my post, I sound super sarcastic! I promise, I'm not! LOL
I worked in a huge retail store and every month, the nursing home and group homes would bring in their clients to “shop.” Some were great and had the ability to shop independently or with 1-2 other people. Then we had customers like Abbie. They would go around with an aide or nurse, pick something out of the blue, and just want that item. They didn’t care what it was, they just wanted that, no matter if they had the funds to pay for it. Some clients, if they were still in assessment but seemed to be good, would do this and just throw money at anyone and go to walk out the door. It could be bird seed, a pot, one guy picked out feminine products. The aids and nurses would have so many problems some days with the clients because they were determined to get what they wanted or felt that they deserved, no matter the cost or non-need.
It was a reason I started teaching mine at 5-6 years old, how to make money (picking up toys, helping with clothes, etc.) and they got to track how much money they made and then we went to the stores with those funds, so they could see how much it was. We pushed the value of a dollar and they know how to count money and how to read how much something is. We bought play cash registers and literally did this for years, until they got it.
It is things like this that the Maass family really needed to work on, at home, if they ever expected Abbie to live half way independently but sadly, no. They bark orders at the store, make this or that choice and yell to put things back (because she doesn’t understand she doesn’t that the funds for other items). Then she barely can find the cashier, after being told where to go and kindly throws the money at them.
. He already has a house, whether they admit it or not
) know I live way, way down under where it is a very strange summer atm, because of the Tongan volcano eruption, lots of wind and volcanic dust, with hot days, but I digress 
Two of our local Kmarts have a ‘pocket money’ aisle where everything is under $5.