In thinking people should educate themselves and use a bit of common sense instead of asking silly, questions about SN on here?

[ApocalypseCheeseToastie]

ASD s a huge spectrum, my dd is fairly well behaved and has never been violent, however she has huge meltdowns when she gets stressed.

OTOH my son can become violent (towards me) has no sense of danger, paces and runs away when stressed..... yet doesn't have the massive screaming meltdowns his sister has. Having said all that, when they're ASD is taken into consideration and handled properly they're better behaved than a lot of NT kids I see, and i'm proud of them both.

At the other end of the scale my niece is the most severely affected child I have ever met, she is non verbal and constantly bouncing/violent towards her carers, she wasn't always like this, her epilepsy meds have a lot to answer for. Ah well, guess that's her future mapped behind a load of trees I suppose, can't have her spoiling anyones coffee mornings.

If people are so interested in kids/adults with SN they can educate themselves by picking up a book or volunteering at a respite centre, something of that ilk. I really can't be arsed with 'educating the masses' or 'opening eyes'. I don't see it as my calling, the new Mumsnet mantra should be don't be a twat, and think before you judge. Job done, and many aching fingers saved.

And please, can we ignore the constant twattery threads ? We are just as bad for giving them the attention they crave, report and ignore is the new LBD in my opinion.

Mamaz0n... Your post does explain it all in painful detail. Ditto TotalChaos's. I do actually now understand where the OP is coming from; I didn't see it.

I don't have SN children although have worked with pupils from a special school but feel woefully ignorant on how SN affects parents and children on a daily basis. Google and the internet at large is a massive boost to education but it has it's limitations because unless you know specifically what it is you're looking for, you won't necessarily find the right information. SN is such a diverse topic that unless you have specialist knowledge or particular experience, you ask dumb and clumsy questions... I know that I have and I'm sorry about it.

I think some regular posters can also be a bit 'trollish' when they want to make pointed remarks about something yet not be seen to be actively trolling. I don't know how you're expected to deal with troll/spiteful posts when it's not so obvious. MN is great for allowing debate and views of disagreement, but that can come at a big price when there's somebody in pain on the receiving end of those barbs. :(

Of course people will ask questions in a forum like this. If you don't want to spend your time educating people just ignore the relevant threads.

Entitlement. That lovely word again.
Why are we perceived to have a sense of entitlement just because we want our children to have some semblance of a level playing field with their peers?

I have posted something this morning for the first time ever on a thread related to SN and hope mine isn't one of the "trying to learn" posts that has upset you.

I have been very lucky in my life as have most of my friends. Mumsnet has really educated me and changed my opinions (I think for the better) on numerous things as I have learned a lot about life for families very different to my own in many ways.

I work and am busy enough with my family that I would never have time to "educate" myself as you suggest so, surely, if some people are happy to post and those posts can teach people outside the SN community about some of the issues you face, how valuable DLA is, etc then it can only be a good thing. Would you not prefer that people formed their opinions with input from parents/carers than get it all from the Daily Mail or similar.

I am entitled.

After all we paid years upon years of NI. So we are entitled.

Opus of course many of us would.

It's the people who post it's all down to bad parenting / diet / a fake etc that we object to, sadly they are attracted to these threads.

So when someone starts a thread saying AIBY to think disability is amde up we can hide it but we can't have a dual responsibility for education, whcih MNHQ does advocate, and to hide thread that people ask q's on JUC they go bad

Exactly, Glitter.

Thing is, from my perspective, I used to be happy to try to explain dd's condition (ASD) and how it affected her- and us.
However, after a while I became beaten down by many ignorant comments, or people thinking it was all down to bad parenting;etc.

So, these days, I rarely even tell close friends or family when we are having a particularly bad time. I only talk to people who are in the same position and who I don't have to explain things to. This is mainly because dd's ASD takes up so much of my time and head space that I simply don't have anything left to give and can't face talking someone through it.

I do see part of my role as a child with a disability as raising awareness and so on, but actually having the energy to do it is another matter entirely.

It's difficult, because no matter how much you try to give a flavour of what life is like, the only people who truly understand are those who walk the same path.