NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WTVF) — There are plenty of options for a quiet escape at the Nashville Public Library, but the children's wing may not always be one of them.
"Maybe a typical child - the noise would not bother them, but for a child with sensory it's too loud, so they need it much lighter," said mother Mary Jackson.
Which is why the main branch is excited to reveal a new room. Watch the player above to see the inside.
"I love the ambiance in there, the lighting, it just has a real calm feeling about it," said Jackson. That feeling is key to this sensory room, a quiet place for children to soothe and self-regulate.
Mary Jackson helped create the room. Her 10-year-old son Carson has Autism, which is why she said places like this allow him to decompress.
"All kids have temper tantrums, or meltdowns if you want to call them," said Jackson. "So it's a really great place to go to calm down, kind of go from A to B with your mental health and your space of emotion."
The manager of Children's Services at the library, Patricia Rua-Bashir, came up with the idea more than a year ago. She partnered with Jackson and Autism Tennessee to bring the room to life.
Rua-Bashir said, "And so we want to be inclusive and serve autistic children, children with Down syndrome that have sensory needs."
Every item in the room was carefully curated with those children in mind.
"The truth is when we did this we want to make sure that autistic children and children with Down syndrome feel welcomed to the library," Rua-Bashir said.
Jackson hopes it opens the door to important conversations for all to enter.
"Try to understand and be supportive if you know somebody who has a child on the spectrum. Reach out to them because it is a very lonely path as a parent, and everyone wants to be heard, and everyone wants to feel accepted in this world," said Jackson. "You never know how much you could change somebody's life by doing that."
