If you have a disabled child, is this a terrible thing for a mum to say?

[Rosewinesummer]

A school mum that I am friendly with has a child in Y6, as do I. Her child is disabled but her disabilities are not immediately obvious, if you saw her in the playground she would seem to be running around like any other child iyswim. However, she has an EHCP in place, school makes significant provisions for her, a wheelchair is always taken on school trips just in case (I have helped on several trips and have never seen her need to use it), there are associated cognitive difficulties with her condition etc. Her mum's time is taken up with a lot to do for her child's difficulties eg numerous medical appointments, school meetings and so on. I know there is a lot of additional stress on the mum because of all of this.
We were having a quick chat about school applications the other day. She has older DC at a small, local secondary school. Her y6 DC will not go there because it does not have suitable provision for her needs, so she has been looking at other schools in the area as well as specialist out of area schools. One big local secondary has a very large, dedicated unit for disabled students - I didn't know about this, so said that sounds great. Apparently not....school mum said 'No, it was awful! It was full of really disabled kids! I'm not sending DC there, what sort of effect would that have on them!'
I was quite shocked by this comment, I couldn't believe she was being so judgemental of other disabled children when she has one of her own. Obviously not appropriate for anyone to be making these kind of comments but I wondered if you have a disabled child is it somehow more acceptable to say something like this? The irony is that she is actually choosing a specialist out of area school which I assume will also have other disabled children there, with varying degrees of disability?

I don't know maybe she was making the point the other school ,couldn't meet her child's needs because the pupils they cater for were far less cognitively able than her child ?
In my LEA we have two special primary schools and two special secondary school ,one of the primary and one of the secondary schools, caters for children with moderate to severe learning disabilities, and the other two cater for children with severe to profound learning disabilities, it's not a one size fits all.
My son went to the moderate to severe primary school, and currently goes to the severe to profound high schools as his needs were more complex than the other school could realistically cater for.

Needs are varied and many specialist provisions mainly accommodate those with more severe learning difficulties. Finding suitable provision can be a nightmare.

ds ended up in mainstream which isn’t ideal in many ways but it’s more ideal than any local specialist school would be

I think it was clunkily said rather than with malice behind it. Our LA named a special school for dd, it was wrong for dd because her needs were entirely different to the children who would have been her peers. She actually attended an out of County specialist school where the children there had needs broadly similar. Yes both schools catered for those with disabilities but the needs of the children there were vastly different.

She probably didn’t express herself very well, but she could well be coming from a place of valid concern.

Sometimes children struggle with knowing that they are disabled and all the difficult emotions around that can be exacerbated if they feel like others are putting them into a category they don’t feel they belong to. It’s not about negative judgement of other children.

Any place created for disabled children, no matter how fabulous, will never be able to cater perfectly for all disabled children.

I sort of understand what she means I have a dc (now adult) who has some quite profound physical issues and also ASD but was extremely intelligent and did some GCSEs early etc and when we looked at schools there seemed to be only mainstream that wasn’t suitable or SEN schools where the vast majority had severe learning disabilities and my child was absolutely distressed about being in such a setting and there was no in between except for home education

It probably came out badly. A friend has a son with autism and some mild growth, mobility and speech difficulties but his cognitive abilities are a low normal. He goes to mainstream primary. They look at what he can do (with supports) rather than what he can't. The move into secondary next year is an issue- he just wouldn't thrive alongside cognitively impaired children, nor is he suited to anything academic. It's a tough one.

She probably used the wrong terminology but I understand what she means. DC1 who is autistic/ADHD mimiced behaviour when he was younger so specialist provisions for children with significant behaviour issues were not the right school for him. An enhanced provision school with mixed abilities plus nuerodivergent and nuerotypical kids worked really well. He thrived in it and his behaviour improved a lot as he started learned other positive behaviours.

Not a dreadful thing to say.
I think what she is expressing is that she would like her child to be a school focused on the less major end of disability spectrum so that there is a stronger emphasis on learning .

We all want our child to be at a school that would best cater for their needs

I'd say poorly worded, but as a parent of any child with or without a disability, you want your child to mix with at least some others who are not so different from them.

It's probably not that the parent sees their child as more worthy as the "more disabled" kids, but that they want their child to have other children at school doing what they are doing. Even as an adult, it's often easier to try something when everyone else is giving it a go too. This is even more the case for a child.

• If everyone is walking, then it probably feels great to stand out of your chair and take some steps. If most people can't stand from their chair, then it might feel like you didn't fit in to stand.
• If most children are talking, to say a few words makes you fit in, if most are non-verbal it makes you stick out.
• If most children can listen and follow instructions, it often feels good to try to even if you need some help.

Christ, doesn’t she have it hard enough without her every word being subjected to this degree of scrutiny? What do you even care?

I have a disabled child. I’m sure sometimes I say clumsy or even offensive things in relation to that. Other people certainly do. I don’t care so why should anyone else? Very few people intend to be offensive when discussing such a sensitive subject. Just be generous for goodness sake.

Trust me when I say, someone in the position of having a disabled child has much bigger fish to fry than worrying about wording to this degree. Nice for you that you have headspace for this.

To add, my son is one of the REALLY disabled children she was talking about and no I am not offended by her using that wording, even though it’s not exactly what I might say. He needs to be around similar peers, as her daughter presumably does.

Every disabled child is an individual so their needs vary greatly. However, it would have been better if she had said that that particular school didn't meet her child's needs. What she said was rather insulting. And no, it's not OK because she has a disabled child.

On the other hand, I have met a lot of parents of children with various types of disability or SEN through my work, and to deny the extent of their child's needs is fairly common.

I Dismissed a special school for ds because it was for less academically able students they were basically taught a is for apple let's go feed the pigs all day he is NOT academically able however he wants to learn and he would not thrive in that environment despite on paper it being suitable he is at a more suitable special school now where they exercise daily learn to cook and also reading maths and computers it seems to be working for him so far (two weeks in lol)

Try not to judge too hard you really have no idea the struggle going to a special school with regular school you can "just move" you cannot do that in a special school your placement literally has to "break down" then there are many many steps that need to be taken to get another

One of the local primary schools has an SLD unit . The children are mostly nonverbal, some still in nappies etc. Would that be suitable for any and all disabled children? Of course not.

I am aware people wont like my post, but this is what i have seen and experienced: I have found this to be the case. My kids have asd with ld. And when I meet with parents whose kids are higher functioning, they don't want their kids mixing with lower functioning kids. As if it's a contagious disease. Oddly enough, these same parents seem to walk this fine line between wanting adaptations made, but don't see their kids as having an additional need.

I have a child with autism. She needs support, but most of the available programs will not be useful for her. They are targeted at children with cognitive impairments not children with high iqs and academic skills far beyond their peers. The mother may not have phrased it in the most polite way, but the reality is that our children can be harmed by placing them with children whose needs are very different from their own.

I'm guessing, as there are a range of disabilities, this mum was looking at her child going to somewhere more academic rather than just daycare for 6 hrs a day.
She doesn't want less able kids dragging hers down. I get it.

@wizzywig I dunt think it's a case of being "contagious " but more of a worry that the more severely disabled will hold the more abled back.

Op, I wrote a post above that probably came across really stroppy and I thought about it. I don't actually like associating with people who don't have the same personality/ characteristics as me. I guess she wants the same for her kids.

@Yerroblemom1923 thank you for commenting. I wrote my post from a place of hurt. Sorry if I offended

Maybe give her a break on this one. She didn't say it to somebody who might have been offended. She's probably permanently knackered and stressed about doing right for her child.

My child has a disability - he is hard of hearing. He wears hearing aids and as long as he can see somebody's lips, he manages pretty normally. He's top set, predicted good grades. Should he be educated amongst peers who all have severe learning difficulties and who aren't expected to pass academic exams? Same thing, just clumsily worded.

I think there us an assumption that if your child has any disability then they fit in with any group of disabled children. This means that they end up in special schools where the types of needs are very different and your child may not be well catered for nor will the expectations be high for your child. I had this with dd. The LA expected me to send her to the local special school regardless of whether it would help her to maximise her potential.

Oh goodness no one can say anything anymore without someone complaining

I taught in special schools for nearly 40 years. For the last 20, in a school where our pupils had fairly severe learning difficulties and high needs autism. Our LA had chosen to close its schools for those with moderate learning difficulties, so the only special schools available were ones like ours and one for children with physical disabilities that made gave them mobility issues or needed an on site nurse or physio.

Had your friend looked round any of those schools, she'd be absolutely right to call the pupils really disabled. Because they were, and none of the schools would have been suitable for her daughter.

Seriously, why on earth would you judge her for saying so?

Perhaps she didn’t express herself correctly but I get it, you want the right peer group for your child, disabled or not. If most children at that particular school are very disabled her child will not have the correct provision or peer group.