Would you make space for a family with a disabled child on a train?

In my experience, people go to extraction lengths to either stare for far too long, or avoid any possibility of eye contact. Probably worried that disability might be contagious. On a train people are already engaged in avoiding everyone else, so I doubt many would notice

Start practicing your best head teacher voice and get loud, stern but polite. Direct people what is needed,so they don't just sit and wait for someone else. I may have been known to accidentally catch the ankles of teenagers crowding round the bus stop if they don't pay attention to my warnings.

If I hadn't noticed you/your charge and you asked me to move for the wheelchair, I would do so in a heartbeat. But if I heard you making snidely passive aggressive comments like you've suggested, I would blank you. Sorry

Yes, you need to be more assertive. When I was on crutches, I travelled only by bus (tube or train would have been too challenging). And typically there were people sitting in the disabled seats. Sometimes they saw me and moved, sometimes they didn't (see me). In which latter case, without apology, I would simply say that I needed the seat. And when they moved - which invariably they did - I then said thank you. But I never apologised beforehand for existing on crutches or prefacing with a 'oh I'm terribly sorry - but oh would you mind...'

Personally I've found people are more helpful now my son uses a wheelchair than when he was in his disability pushchair. I remember trying to get on the bus with the pushchair and the driver commenting that my son was too old to be in a pushchair.

When he's in the wheelchair, people couldn't be more helpful. The vast majority of the the people who didn't need to be in the disabled section of the train moved willingly. Those that didn't were moved on by the guard/conductor.

To be fair, I probably would have thumped you

I’d move bags etc to make the wheelchair space available but I wouldn’t have given up my seat - on the face of it I don’t look disabled but I cannot stand upright for very long due to my illness .

I would move to make space for the person in the wheelchair/buggy, but if you already had space, are you saying that you wanted everyone to move to make space for you and your other family members too? If so, yabu as there may have been people with hidden disabilities sitting in the spaces because they needed them just as much as your son did, and more than you or other family members did. As nice as it would be to all sit together, it is unreasonable to expect others to give up their seats to facilitate that.

How can you tell if a child could actually sit on their parent's knee or not? I had excruciating back pain when DS was young and there's no way he could have sat on my knee. I looked young and healthy though.

Agreed - I'd have stepped in first. I helped a lady with her buggy recently at a London tube station. So many people were just ploughing past her as she was stranded at the bottom of the stairs with a buggy and her own mother who had a walking stick.

The grandmother made no bones about thanking me loudly and chastising everyone else that had gone past without offering to help! 😂

OP it sucks, but you need to tell people to move their stuff. I'm a wheelchair user and if people have left luggage in the wheelchair space they often don't even notice me. You have to call down the train "please can the people this suitcase belongs to move it out of the wheelchair space, we need to use it". It will probably help to get a "treat as wheelchair" sticker or tag though to avoid arguments with people who don't know any better. Booking assistance through the Passenger Assistance app is also useful, because staff will often tell people to move things for you. And you can roll up the ramp, which is easier than lifting the buggy on then helping your DS on.

It minimised the struggles we have

There are so many things I can't do as a disabled person. I can't do things differently - there's physically no way to do them safely.

Disabled isn't a dirty word

Cos we are disabled, and there's nothing wrong with that. The idea that we can do everything just differently is daft

@TigerRag not heard it before. Why is it awful, I took it as not disabled from doing something but just able to do things differently?

Differently abled is used over here. It's absolutely awful

I was recently in Italy and I don't know if it was because of poor translation but instead of saying disabled people on a sign for the toilets they said 'differently abled' and I absolutely love that

@HootyMcBooby a previous train was probably cancelled. They can become horrendous when that happens.

We recently got the train from Southern England to Edinburgh, and it was so overcrowded that even the little junctions between each carriage were full of people standing up, many for the whole journey, including a lady who was clearly disabled and using a walker frame. NOBODY gave their seat up for her.
We were standing next to her the entire trip, the conductor had to ask people to move their bags to allow others to sit down (!!) and every time a space became available, someone else would run over to it and sit there.
I was absolutely appalled. Some people even had their extremely young kids taking up seats when they could have easily sat on a parents knee.
No idea why the train was so overbooked, people couldn't even get to the loo as the isles were full and so many people standing in the spaces outside the toilets made it impossible to use them.
Horrendous journey, and depressing to see the selfishness of many people.

If you don't feel you can ask I'd make obvious comments to your son
" oh dear they obviously don't realise this is a wheelchair and we need the space saved for us! "
Very passive aggressive but it's what I do when out with the young man I care for as we use a giant buggy rather than old style wheelchair and despite the fact he's now 18 people really don't notice the size half the time

When we used passenger assistance I booked the trains, tickets and reserved seats. We then phoned the company and told them all the details and they did the passenger assistance bit. We left extra time as we had to get across London but it worked on all four trains at the four different stations.

I used to find the excuse me this is the designated wheelchair space. There are plenty of other seats available so if you don't mind used to work.

But there is designated seating for wheelchairs. You know those tables with only 2 seats on one side of the table. But they usually get taken by mums with prams. Or the space for wheelchairs gets cluttered up with luggage. Those pull down seats as well people sit on them when there are plenty of other seats available. They are so that a wheelchair user and carer can both sit together and not feel like there in the way and an object to step over.

I probably wouldn’t have realized it was a wheelchair pram as I’ve never knowingly seen one before. There’s many sizes and shapes of prams so unless very obvious I wouldn’t know and also on a train most people zone out reading a book or listening to music so aren’t necessarily aware of whose getting in or off anyway. If someone asks then of course I’d move for them. You need to actually make it clear what you need.