To think a lot of MN are ableist?

Take school for example, if there was a SEN child who provoked another child, and the other child ended up hitting them, they would quite rightly want that other child punished. But if it was the other way round and their SEN child was the one who hit another kid, their child can’t get punished because they are SEN.

I understand what you mean and have seen similar myself. But there needs to be nuance here: a DC with sensory issues may react to noise or anxiety or crowding by hitting out. It’s not (always) voluntary behaviour and will typically cease when the detrimental sensory impact is removed. OTOH some DC (who may be ND or NT - it’s not mutually exclusive) may hit others because they want to hurt them, or for shits and giggles. To my mind, those are two different things and need addressing/disciplining differently. FWIW my autistic DS has been in both camps, but mainly the first. He’s always been more distressed to find out that he has hit others, than he is when others have hit him.

The root of the entire problem is that a large number of ND children who cannot and will never cope in MS classes of 30 are expected to remain there, and muddle through, as are their teachers. It’s cheap for the LA, but a disaster for the rest of us and leads to an increase in ableist comments, and their normalization.

This is a whole area of case law. But case law does allow for difficulty to implement and/or impact on colleagues to be grounds to say no. You could be accused of being ablist, but you could also evidence why it was unreasonable.

If you dont have a definition of disability, and the one in the act is very inclusive, you cant really protect people from discrimination on grounds of disability, or give them the right to a braille version of an important form, or thier guide dog, or a hearing induction loop. It has to have a definition and it will exclude people.

I think an equalities act that listed 'Finding things really hard' as a protected characteristic wouldnt work.

I think the difficulty with it, is that yes there are a lot of people who have absolutely no sympathy, but there are also a lot of people who have SEN or disabled children who are unreasonable with their demands/expectations, and I think alot of Mumsnetters react to that (sometimes very unkindly).

I haven’t seen the threads you are referring to, but quite often the thing that sticks out to me, is that parents want their children to be treated equally and with understanding until it doesn’t work in their favour, and some parents expect their children to be treated preferentially because of the additional needs they may have.

Take school for example, if there was a SEN child who provoked another child, and the other child ended up hitting them, they would quite rightly want that other child punished. But if it was the other way round and their SEN child was the one who hit another kid, their child can’t get punished because they are SEN.

I know this isn’t the case for all parents so I’m not trying to generalise, but I do see it a lot on here and as soon as someone says something they don’t agree with they get called ableist when really it’s not the case.

@Overthemhills I'm so sorry you have to put up with appalling attitudes like that. My DD spent a year working in a school for children and young people with profound disabilities and we were shocked by the number of people who expressed sentiments like this. It is inexcusable in this day and age. I am a great believer that the level of civilisation in a country can be measured by the way it treats its most vulnerable members, and we are falling so far short - the sort of facilities offered by the school my daughter worked in (which were excellent and world-leading) are so few and far between.

i'm 44, so likely ADD, i know it was thrown around by my drs at some point without any real interest because i was 'gifted' and not struggling academically.. instead i got to 17, had a massive meltdown/breakdown in the middle of my A levels and became one of the stereotypical 'gifted to burned out' girls of the late 90s that started to push some of these changes as they began to realise WHY so many of us were burning out post GCSE.

It hasn't got any easier to get girls diagnosed now tbh, for my son it was.. 3 years from my first 'something isn't right' to referral/diagnosis, and he's collected them like pokemon cards with relative ease (he is almost the poster child for the DSM-5 Criteria). my daughter its taken 11 years (with covid delay impacting too) just to get ASD diagnosed and we're still in the pipeline for ADHD because the waiting list is ridiculous, even though the team who did her ASD assessment have said its clearly AuDHD, they can't tick the official box for the ADHD side.

No, I disagree because that's just not how it works at the moment. For example, RAs in a workplace can lead to one a disabled person requesting greater flexibility in their working patterns or to avoid specific activities. An organisation still needs to function so inevitably these adjustments will impact colleagues if implemented. All of a sudden they may find their flexibility decreases to facilitate the disabled person's flexibility. They may find they have to do more a duty they also find difficult because their colleague can't do their share. If you deny the RA request then you could be accused of being ableist but by accepting them you are adversely impacting the working conditions of other colleagues who may have very similar struggles to the disabled person but not have a diagnosis.

I know that's the purpose of the legislation but the consequences of the act is that it does effectively create a rather two tier, binary system. One where you are either disabled or not.

@Kreepture
It depends how old you are as to whether you would have been given an ADHD or ADD diagnosis in the past as a child. Inattentive ADHD was first recognised in 1980 and as this is the more common form of ADHD in girls. it was significantly harder in the 90s to get an ADHD diagnosis than it is now because the condition was defined more narrowly.

I obviously can't comment on your case specifically but I don't think anyone thinks it's easier to get a diagnosis now as an adult than it would be for a child to get a diagnosis. It's more an argument about diagnosis creep that applies to both groups due to a widening of the criteria. The adult criteria may have widened more recently but over the previous decades the criteria widened significantly for children too.

Im not sure it is abelist to think that everybody's needs should be considered. It is abelist to assume able-bodied in attitudes, institutions, processes, social interactions etc. But by not being abelist society would mop up people just below the threshold or finding specific things harder which is you main concern..

i also dont think who has it hardest is the main point of the equalities act.

The act isn't measuring is life hardest for this person versus that person. Its covers is this disabiled person being discriminated against due to thier disability or is there a barrier to access caused by their disability that can be removed by a reasonable adjustment. Its meant more as a shield as people were discriminating against the disabled or refusing simple adjustments.

Of course they are.

Confirmation bias is never the best foundation for a poll.

i think that is something every mother of a child needs to address, not just the mothers of the disabled ones, or mothers of sons.

The disabled folk need teaching it sometimes not just for everyone elses sake, but for their own, because a lot of them are vulnerable/at risk adults.

Sometimes you have to look at it from both POV.

I still hit all the prior 6 criteria when i was assessed aged 40. I also had evidence from school reports of the behaviour being present right from the get go, and peer reports from parents/people who knew me growing up that used to literally refer to me as motormouth because i never shut up... my school reports from both primary and secondary are full of comments about needing to stop daydreaming and concentrate, less talking to friends and more attention on the lesson needed...etc.

People don't seem to realise, that yes, they changed the criteria to open up for adult diagnosis, but a lot of us BEING diagnosed as adults would have met the old criteria anyway had they realised how it presented in girls and we had been assessed back then.

Most of us with both asd/adhd that are diagnosed as adults have a lifetime of failure, addiction, and mental health problems behind us.. and our medical records are often tainted with depression/anxiety/personality disorder diagnoses that were instead being ND.. and that taint goes on to affect us every time we visit the GP.

My recent reports of increased pain due to my physically disability were judged as me being anxious and i was punted towards the Pain Management clinic for CBT instead of it actually being seen as very real pain caused by arthritis and undiagnosed hypermobility... all because i have 'GAD' on my drs records... it isn't GAD.. or an obsessive personality disorder, which was another thing they pinned on me in my 20s.. its Autism & ADHD.

Well yes, of course.

Instilling appropriate social norms around sexual behaviour as well as all other aspects of behaviour is our job as parents.

It’s especially necessary when we are pushing against a tide of social media, influencers etc who push an unacceptable misogynistic narrative onto our sons - so it is far too important to ‘leave to chance’.

Exactly.

Rape is as old as the hills and present in every single earth culture. To some extent, its in all of us. A hangover from when we were apes and access to females was a resource.

Thats obviously not to excuse a single rape, every single male is responsible for not raping every single female. But I dont think we should be complacent with our sons.

Fully agree and I have a son myself with no daughters.

20% of girls and 5% of boys are estimated to be victims of sexual assault while 15% of the perpetrators are still minors themselves with 13 being a peak age for sexual abusers (corresponding with the start of boys' sexual activity).

https://victimsofcrime.org/child-sexual-abuse-statistics/

https://www.publicsafety.gc.ca/cnt/rsrcs/pblctns/sxl-rcdvsm-cmprsn/index-en.aspx

Rape is not rare - it's pervasive and needs to tackled at every level of society.

This reads like conspiracy theory nonsense. I am in my mid 40s and my diagnosis was missed as I child. I was a classic presentation - disruptive in school, distracted, fidgety - but I was female so that was that. I grew into an adult with huge self esteem issues, underachieved and with depression, anxiety, OCD and poor social skills. My life could have been so different if I had been medicated early. Studies show that medicating children can actually resolve some of the brain differences by the time they are adults. I would absolutely medicate my child if they were diagnosed.

Isn't that the case though?

After all, some mothers sons are rapists. We can't possibly know which ones will turn out that way. And I've yet to hear a mother say- oh yes, I did suspect he'd turn out to be a rapist all along.

I definitely work hard to program mine not to be a rapist.

Life-changing I would agree with but in what way long-term - that is the question.

More than 1 in 10 American children are now diagnosed with ADHD and the number keeps going up year in year out.

How much of this is just normal behaviour being considered as problematic?
If a child is not excelling in school does this mean they are disabled?

Also how much of ADHD is due to the constant bombardment of information young people now endure thanks to smartphones, computer games, social media etc.

Most on-line games are designed to be addictive and to give instant gratification on a loop. Any child who spends hours gaming is going to have trouble focusing on schoolwork - these games train their brains to expect constant excitement /novelty and constant rewards. Then they have to sit quietly for hours in a boring classroom - who wouldn't be bored?

It's not rubbish to challenge this relatively new disorder by men in white coats that necessitates giving children brain-altering medication often for years with no knowledge of the long-term consequences on huge swathes of the population.

This is a social experiment by big Pharma whichever way you look at it.

If you have a diagnosis for either condition then you are automatically considered disabled. This is very relevant under the Equality Act as it is a protected characteristic. You are literally viewed completely differently from a legal perspective once you have a diagnosis. It is a bit murkier when it comes to PIP and other benefits but ultimately having a diagnosis is a key piece of evidence when applying for these benefits. It would be very unlikely that you can qualify for PIP or DLA for ASD or ADHD traits if you don't have a diagnosis.

I agree completely about adapting the world as far as reasonably possible so that it actually suits most people. Unfortunately the process we have now works the opposite way where only those that are recognised as disabled have a right to request RAs and all too often colleagues are forced to accommodate these RAs even if they are struggling with their own responsibilities already. This approach only makes sense if we really did live in a binary world where there were disabled people and completely able bodied/NT people and there was no real overlap. We know this isn't the case so why is it seen as ableist to point this out and suggest that everybody's needs to be considered in any system and that being considered disabled doesn't actually mean you always have it harder than someone considered non disabled?

So now we have to assume our sons are all sex offenders in-waiting and work really hard to de-programme them by the time they’re 18? 🤣

My main concernd are with your final conclusion.

There are lots of people who are diagnosed with either/both condition who do not meet the threshold for disability support. There are also some people who have a diagnosis (or would be diagnosed) who are very much doing the funding.

Secondly, with reasonable adjustments. The adjustments should be reasonable, and actually help. But also if it turns out half the population cant access a service, doesnt make sense to try and make it more accessible even if the cause is not a diahnosed disability. You will never hit perfection but some organisations looks like they never even occurred to them that a large chunk of people struggle. Its harder with employment as the business has to be profitable but even things like uk productivity is low, we work longer hours than some more productive economies, maybe we all need work like a Dane and suddenly half the reasonable adjustment arent needed.

Don’t think the poster would get banned or anyone would bat an eye lid if someone said a trans person shouldn’t be alive on mumsnet 🤣🤣🤣

That works both ways. Ableism is rife on MN. The disabled and their carers should be under as scrutiny as the rest the population. IMO the problem is that many carers of the disabled and those disabled people that can advocate for themselves think that theirs is the only voice that should be heard/ has value/ has a relevant perspective because of the favour they are doing society. I believe it's a two way street where for some people's gratitude has been replaced by a distorted sense of entitlement, and a lack of personal accountability. Ironically the same behaviours wealthy tax avoiders are call out for

In world where the system is at breaking point they are not the only people that have it tough or need help.

I am not twisting anything. I linked the report so people can read it themselves. The Taskforce ends the report with the following statement:

There is a lack of survey data describing the presence of possible ADHD in the general adult population in England and the circumstances of adults with ADHD are poorly understood. The APMS series helps to address these data gaps

I am simply using the best data we have to estimate prevalance of ADHD amongst the population using the Taskforce's own statistics. I am using established trends to estimate future prevalance. The report itself notes that ADHD is more common in young people so it stands to reason that prevalance will increase as the population changes. Do you dispute this? We know for a fact that conversion rate from referral to diagnosis is above 90% in some NHS clinics and higher in private ones.

I believe that the threshold for an ADHD diagnosis as a disability is too low but I am absolutely not anti ADHD. It absolutely can be disabling.

My argument is that ND/NT and therefore ADHD is largely misunderstood and misrepresented. Most people have ND traits that adversely impact their lives in a meaningful way. Whether they be ASD traits, ADHD traits .. studies have repeatedly shown this. At the moment we use subjective, arbitrary testing to diagnose people and then act as though anybody just below the threshold is a different species to anyone just above it. We use phrases like 'ND people have their brains wired differently' when we know this isn't the case. People with BAP have similar brains to people with ASD diagnoses. People that exhibit ADHD traits and just miss out on a diagnosis have similar brains to those with a diagnosis. It's is a grey, complex area of science that people try to simplify too easily and then suggest large percentages of our population are disabled and everyone else is completely NT and has to accommodate and fund those who sit the other side of a threshold, it's madness and isn't really working for anyone.