To speak to my neighbour's about her disabled child?

🙄🙄🙄 No it hasn't changed the situatuon. However your advice of acting with kindness was the most pointless advice ever seeing as the OP didn't say anything to suggest that she was going to go in all guns blazing. Reminding her to go in with kindness implied that there was something to indicate that she wouldn't be. Basically implying that she should put up with it and that it would be acting against the spirit of kindness to do otherwise.

🙄

My point, which you agree with, is that it isn't reason enough to start sedating disabled children.

No.
OPdoes not need to go to any expense in sorting this out.
It is purely the responsibility of those causing the issue

I don't agree with sedating children but it is insane to characterise OP's scenario as a merely unhappy neighbour. She and her family are being deprived of essential sleep for hours on end every night. It's not some little issue like the fence being broken or the neighbour's garden looking a bit untidy. She is being deprived of a basic human need!

I do sympathetise, it must be incredibly difficult. I don't think there's an easy answer for this, if the boy is non verbal there's probably nothing his mum can do to stop it. Other posters won't understand this unless they parent a child at the same Severity. You can address it with her, but please try to be sympathetic- she's already probably worried about what you're thinking. Unfortunately not all parents with children with severe learning difficulties can afford detached properties, (and the council certainly won't house them in any) so inevitably these situations will happen - you won't be the only one. It might be best to move house.

Again, because it is 2025 and we don't do that to children any more. Especially just to keep the neighbours happy.

Who would sedate the child?
What about side effects?
The cost?
The fact that you simply can't just continue to sedate a human being for the rest of their lives?

"Why couldn’t an autistic person be sedated just like any other person being sedated during a meltdown or episode? "

It is risky especially when it is someone is unable to communicate.

It's not abelist to acknowledge and support OPs rights.

The cause is irrelevant.
The OP is posting.
She is the one we are advising

Maybe the ableist community could live in a special, purpose built retirement-type village, from where they can demand easy solutions to difficult problems (a la Trump), and enjoy a set of stocks on the village green for any ND folk foolish enough to stray over the border? In an ideal world, obviously. 🙄

"Banging on party walls till they tremble sounds pretty damned violent to me."

Banging on walls is usually a sensory need. It has nothing to do with hurting anyone else.

Well stop trying to be offensive about disabled children then
And nobody wants violent ,uncontrolled noise in their homes least of parents of disabled childen.

Why couldn’t an autistic person be sedated just like any other person being sedated during a meltdown or episode? We have calming drugs for a reason. It would seem a kindness.

But the outcome is the same.
Which means it's a nuisance and damaging the OPs right to peaceful enjoyment. Especially at night.

It is totally possible for a disabled child making involuntary noise to be considered a statutory nuisance. The criteria are that:

it must cause significant interference to the normal occupation of a premises by a person of average sensitivity
it must be caused by some unreasonable or unusual act or omission or behaviour

Councils may well stipulate they won't investigate 'normal' noises from children playing or babies crying but someone headbutting the wall into the early hours of the morning clearly isn't usual or reasonable.

The autistic child may well not be put in a B&B but they may be evicted from their current accommodation and offered a suitable alternative. They don't have an automatic right to remain where they are just because they are autistic.

@x2boysThats all great but that’s not OP’s problem. Her kids have a right to sleep in their own home

They aren't doing it to be violent, they are doing it to sensory seek and because they like how it feels without understanding that it is noisy and will disturb the neighbours from sleeping.

Yes, that’s why I prefaced with “it’s too bad…”

Stop trying to nitpickingly find fault with people who aren’t on board with being subjected to violent uncontrolled noise in their own homes.

A detached home with padded rooms would be amazing but expensive. Most disabled children's parents, especially if they are single and/or unable to work due to their child's needs will not be able to afford it and the council isn't going to house them into a detached home with all of the adaptations needed.

Banging on party walls till they tremble sounds pretty damned violent to me.

Well yes that would be lovely but we dont live in an ideal world.

You can't medicate autism. 🙄

There's melatonin to help some children sleep but of course it won't take away stimming or their need for sensory seeking including hitting walls.

Banging on walls doesn't equal violent and uncontrollable. It won't be the children like this who are terrorising the elderly, selling drugs and being a nuisance in public places.

Not hidden, but provided with a home that can meet their needs. Sounds like this family could benefit from a detached house with rooms padded or whatever so the child has less chance of injuring himself or family members.

It’s highly unlikely that a disabled child making involuntary noise would be considered a statutory noise nuisance, so the “noise protection laws” (ie the Environmental Protection Act, policed by the LA) would not even be in play. Even if it were, the “balancing act” looks very different in the case of a severely disabled dependent child, compared to an adult living independently.

And the EA would also kick in by ensuring that an autistic child (assuming a typical presentation) would not be hoofed into temporary accommodation for a neighbour’s convenience, which was my original point. Not putting an autistic child in a B&B is broadly similar to not putting a child in a wheelchair on the fourth floor without a lift.