Wtf is wrong with people when it comes to hidden disabilities?

Non verbal, lashing out? Report to police for assault - how dare they lay a hand on someone else

To be honest, if I, a non-expert, am assaulted, I don't have the ability or the knowledge to assess the level of that person's disability and therefore their level of responsibility for what they've done.
Obviously yes, sometimes it will be clear that the person has a severe disability. But sometimes it won't be obvious. If I were to report a significant assault to the police and they decided not to pursue charges (or whatever the right police term is) due to a disability, I'd be fine with that. But I don't think a blanket "don't report anything" is appropriate.

Neither ASD, or ADHD, or Tourettes come with the "symptom" of physically harming others. People with these conditions generally have capacity and are not exempt from the laws that govern the rest of us and equally are protected by those laws from physical harm by others.

When something like a learning disability means that an individual hasn't got capacity then the law treats them differently, as it should

Uh, if someone with Parkinsons or a 4 yo spilled a cup of tea over me and then LAUGHED, I would absolutely have a problem with that. Spilling a cup of tea is an accident, laughing when you've just scalded someone and ruined their clothes is a shocking level of rudeness.

I do not feel that children who genuinely full time support are treated the way you imply. Non-verbal children who struggle to communicate or regulate their emotions at all are placed in special schools in very small classes where the teachers are trained and prepared for potential meltdowns which might be violent. It is your role as a parent/carer to prevent members of the public being hurt. You cannot expect other people to be fine with being hit by your son because he has any kind of SEN, and if they do not know he has SEN they are going to react the exact same way as they would react to anyone else hitting them.

Children with milder ND where they are capable of managing their behaviour but need more support do not always get that support, so I agree with you to an extent there. Reasonable adjustments do need to be made, but they do need to be reasonable for everyone and not put other people at a massive disadvantage. This is how the adult world works too- if you harm another person ND will be taken into account by the legal system but will not allow you to walk away without consequences. The workplace should make accommodations but can still expect a level of performance from you.

There is a culture of not making children do things they don't want to do in case it makes them "anxious" and often ND adds another layer to this. That is setting them up to fail. You have to do things which make you anxious in life. Living a life where you never leave your comfort zone isn't just almost impossible but also an extremely small life that no-one should be trapped in.

I am not (and shouldn't have to!) going to tolerate my child having her education disrupted or being made unsafe at school. It is her job to be kind and inclusive to other children and accepting of their differing abilities, but it is not her job to be accepting of being physically hurt or prevented from learning.

And before you ask, yes, I have ND myself.

Oh come on, many people can’t even tolerate a cyclist on the road or someone with a private registration on their car..you’re expecting too much of people.

All of this.

My toddler was slapped full across the face when sitting in a swing at a play park by a large adult man with a learning disability. His carers were two very young and slightly built women who were much shorter than him and had no hope of restraining him.

I don't blame the man but I do blame the care providers for not ensuring he had carers who were capable of restraining him and managing his violent behaviour.

If he had continued his attack it would have been awful.

The problem is OP that an increasing number of people aren't taking the steps you are to protect the person they're caring for or other people from situations that may cause a reaction and expect that other people that are hurt or have things damaged to quietly accept it and walk away because a disability is involved and labelled ableist if you don't.

My neighbour is a prime example of someone who doesn't attempt to give her ND children any support or mitigate their impact on those around them when they're damaging cars and property, hurting animals and throwing/kicking things at people.
She kicks them out to 'play' and doesn't intervene when they're doing those things, and when approached about it yells at people they've got ADHD and you're unreasonable to care about being affected.

I totally understand that there's times when a situation cannot be avoided and I might be hurt or something damaged as 'collateral damage' in a bigger picture. If your son hit me because of his disability, sometimes that happens, if you attempted to stop it or were clearly overwhelmed by the situation that's completely different to standing there and watching it happen, or leaving him unsupervised and it happens, and then telling me I'm ableist because I have an issue with my property being damaged, my animals being hurt or me being physically hurt.

Lets say this slowly again:
PHYSICAL VIOLENCE IS NOT ACCEPTABLE UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES.

this remains true even if the person is ND. you make damn sure as the carer/parent that they understand that. or, you face the consequences. Be that legal or otherwise.

We must stop excusing bad behaviour by blaming it on peoples Neuro status.

the staring and the fixation is also not acceptable, the rudeness is not acceptable, the people jumping to the defence "BeAcauSE tHeY arE NeUroDiVerGent" its acceptable crap needs to stop. It is YOU who are the problem, not the rest of the population who are rapidly loosing their tollerance due to bad behaviour being normalised.

PHYSICAL VIOLENCE IS NOT OK.

I find that people seem to decide you think something is ok, if you feel the solution to certain behaviours is different for some people with differences.

So, basically OP, people should be more understandable when getting hit, bitten, hair pulled by someone with a hidden disability because they can’t help it. People should be more understandable when their loved one is killed because someone with a mental illness or hidden disability is having a psychotic episode.

Sick and tired of the excuses. Violence is never okay.

I’m in the fence with this to be honest.
completely appreciate that some compassion should be shown to those who do not have the ability to regulate/ understand what is and is not appropriate in social settings.
However I would not want my young child to be told ‘it’s ok, he/ she doesn’t understand’ if they are inappropriately touched for any reason. They should feel the need to speak up if that happens to them for any reason, and as a parent I should be able to model that behaviour and protect my child so that they know it’s ok to say something if they feel uncomfortable, regardless if the person making them uncomfortable has a disability.

No I don't agree at all. People have the right to protect themselves and their families from abuse. And I'm obviously not saying go mad and knock people out, but push away? Block? Prise hands off hair? Of course. Appropriate level of force and all that..

A women I used to work for has sever mental health issues, she attacked one of the support workers with a spade when out in the garden one day because she wanted a biscuit but had already eaten the whole pack. The girl who got assaulted was pregnant at the time and sadly lost her baby. Nothing was done because of the mental health problems of the women.. in any other case it would be murder.

I see it from both sides and I dont think anyone is being ableist because they dont want to be hurt by another person.

"Trump has capitalised on this selfish underbelly of society and look where that has taken us, the most serious threat to world peace since WW2."

Honestly get a grip. What about the Korean war? Or worse the Cuban missile crisis where jets actually had engines running on the runways with nukes onboard ready to go as WW3 was moments away? Or when a Russian submarine commander over rode an order to launch his nukes (turned out to be a system error)?

A few misplaced trade tariffs aren't the biggest threat since WW2. So much nonsence spouted on MN.

Exactly.

It's not his fault, it's the situation around him. Yet in society people don't understand this.

Some assumptions are that everyone with a particular disability are the same.

There are so many with high function autism now that people can incorrectly assume all people with autism can talk, communicate, are good at 'their thing' , etc etc. Low function autism is not so.well understood and unfortunately those individuals need more help. I think autism should be broken into separate disabilities since the range of how it affects someone is vast.

It's not MN that's the problem.

It's deep seated in the NHS.

The worst behaviour towards people with autism and learning disabilities I have seen has been from GP surgery , a&e department and MH services.

Many incidents that in the rest of society would be abuse & assault.

Comments on MN or any other social media site are the least of our worries

I am fully aware that if put in certain situations my son will lash out. We avoid those situations. If we are forced into one I risk assess the situation and ensure I have enough people with me to deal with the situation. Sometimes you need to make difficult decisions. He regualry would lash out at school and hurt teachers and students, he would also self harm. This was absolutely because they couldn't deal with his needs and actively ignored advice so I removed him from school. I am not going to allow others to be hurt especially as i know this behaviour can be prevented. We don't have these issues at home as we know how to deal with him. It's my responsibility to ensure his safety as well as those around him. It is not acceptable for others to be assaulted.

However there's is a significant problem within schools and social care of people having needs and staff actively ignoring care plans. If a person uses a alternative communication method and the staff member isn't trained on that, what exactly do we expect to happen?

Who do you suggest pays for that? Lets increase taxes then.

I've actively sought out ND friends for my son. Tolerance is SO important. As is evidenced by some of the ignorance on this thread. There are loads of ways to be human. Not just your way.

I do think the police should be called when someone with an invisible disability attacks/offends a NT who has choosen to ignore what they're being told about the disability. And then watch the police accuse the NT person of wasting police time.

Some disabilities can't be controlled. Stims, tourettes, ADHD, autism. You can b*tch and complain all you like. It is impossible to control the symptoms.

Perhaps those that feel that way think these individuals should be incarcerated in mental asylums the way they were 200 years ago?

Non verbal, lashing out? Report to police for assault - how dare they lay a hand on someone else 🙄

The eye roll emoji is wild.

It must be incredibly difficult for parents who’s children have complex needs that cause them to lash out but no one needs to tolerate being assaulted.

I wonder if when violence is part of a child’s disability, and therefore becomes part of every day family life, that the parents think ‘this is how it is and if I have to put up with it why can’t everyone else?’. No one is going to have the same tolerance you have for your own child.

I agree with 95% of what you said except when you mention trump - totally irrelevant to the thread.

I’m not a supporter, fan or excuser of him but this need to drag his name into every little thing that is wrong with the world gives people who do support or excuse him to roll their eyes and say they’ll drag trump into anything won’t they. Then they’ll stop listening/engaging which is dangerous.

If people on mumsnet hate trump as much as they claim they should stop talking about him publically. Publicity and notoriety are precisely what he wants.

This post seems to assume that you either have a hidden disability or are 100% ok or 'normal'. That either any behaviour should be understood and accepted (as you have a hidden disability) or you should accept being a physical or emotional punch bag because you are ok and therefor should be able to make allowances for others. But the reality is that everyone lies somewhere on a curve, and assuming that because someone doesn't have a hidden disability label means they are able to cope with anything chucked their way is unreasonable. What we need is better understanding, acceptance and tolerance on both sides. If we want to live together in a society, there has to be a level of acceptable behaviour that means people feel safe, and that's set out in law- assault is not ok etc. Alongside that we need to be understanding and supportive for those who face greater challenges, whilst not getting into the game of 'I have it worse off so therefore it's ok for me to do x, but it wouldn't be ok for you to do the same.'

The OP didn’t suggest any such thing.

Fear

Fear of the unknown in other people's behaviour

Fear of looking an idiot if someone with a hidden disability starts to shout/get aggressive and not knowing what to do

Fear of something that is different to your "norm" and you having to come out of your safe space and deal with it and your own feelings

Fear of not being able to help - feeling helpless and panicked. Which results in anger often. Why do we get angry when our child goes missing for 2 mins - because of fear of the unknown and being out of control of the situations. Same applies here.

Until schools have more teaching on how to deal with hidden disabilities then this feel will automatically evolve into anger about others getting a seeming advantage, because NT people are expected to change their behaviours for ND people and not the other way around. Because they can. But actually don't know HOW to.

Inclusivity in schools is improving - but pointless without infrastructure of what this actually means for everyone.

The reality is if a disabled person injures another (and it's not a typical accident, for example tripping and bumping into someone) then they're not being appropriately cared for. I get what you're trying to say in that they're not really responsible for their actions depending on the degree of disability, but it's up to the carer, whether professional or parent, to ensure the safety of others and if they can't do so then they need more help or to limit the chances of it happening by choosing a more appropriate outing or activity.

If your child hurt my child I'd be holding you accountable.