Knowing you have the support and empathy of just one other person as you desperately try to remedy the situation is sometimes enough to help, so we can only imagine how one mother in the States felt when she realised she not only had the support of a Broadway actor, but over 70,000 other people who liked the post he wrote regarding her and her son.
Taking to Facebook in recent days, Broadway star Kelvin Moon Loh admitted he was astounded by the reaction one member of his audience received when her son began to make noise during a performance of The King and I in Lincoln Centre.
Clearly a little overwhelmed by a particular scene, the little boy, who had been diagnosed with autism, started to yelp and act out - much to the apparent annoyance of fellow theatre goers.
Startled by the lack of empathy shown towards the mother in question, the well-known Broadway star took to social media directly after his performance and encouraged the public to support one another no matter how much a child's behaviour may infringe on their enjoyment of an activity.
"When did we as theater people, performers and audience members become so concerned with our own experience that we lose compassion for others?"asked Kelvin in a post which has been shared on Facebook almost 25,000 times.
Recalling the moment the mother and child found them isolated from the rest of the audience, Kelvin wrote: "The audience started to rally against the mother and her child to be removed. I heard murmurs of "Why would you bring a child like that to the theatre?"
Dubbing the audience's reaction to the situation 'plainly wrong', Kelvin urged people to offer the benefit of the doubt, writing: "Because what you didn't see was a mother desperately trying to do just that. But her son was not compliant."
"What they didn't see was a mother desperately pleading with her child as he gripped the railing refusing- yelping more out of defiance," he continued in a post which has caught the attention of national television stations.
Kelvin acknowledged that while the presence of a disruptive child can be the last thing you want during an afternoon at the theatre, he insisted his sympathy lay with the mother in question and not her fellow theatre-goers.
"She paid the same price to see the show as you did for her family. Her plan, as was yours, was to have an enjoyable afternoon at the theatre and slowly her worst fears came true," he pointed out.
Finishing the heartfelt post on an upbeat note, Kelvin reminded his legions of fans and followers that theatre is about uniting people and bringing families together, insisting;" The King and I on Broadway is just that- FAMILY FRIENDLY- and that means entire families- with disabilities or not."
Dismissing the overriding attitude of his audience with one parting shot, Kelvin wrote: "A night at the theatre is special on any night you get to go."
We couldn't agree more and we can only imagine how grateful one particular mum was after hearing Kelvin's stance on the matter.
