STAND UP AND BE COUNTED AND STOP THE ATTACKS ON SN PARENTS

[4madboys]

ok NOT an aibu, but this is where it will be seen the most and it NEEDS awareness.

quite frankly, i along with others am appalled at the comments that are being made and left to stand, toward the SN community, they are downright offensive and quite simply appalling.

i am sure (or hope) that the majority on here do NOT agree with them but yet the SN community on mn are not being supported, whether this is because people do not know what to say, or they havent seen these posts i do not know?

BUT IT IS ABOUT TIME THAT THINGS CHANGED, so this a thread where you can stand up and be counted and say that you do not agree with the disregard, blatant trolling and offensive behaviour towards our lovely mn who have or are dealing with sn in their family.

they need this place for support, not the vile behaviour that they are getting.

so please post here and show your support and help make a change for the better.

all it takes is a smile next to your name to show you agree :)

I think that a lot of the problems come from the spectrum nature of so many conditions. At one end of the spectrum, diagnosis of cerebral palsy or ADHD or AS will be subjective.

There is not really a neat and tidy binary where somebody plainly either has a disability or not. The systems that are in place have to pretend there is one - based on diagnosis. But it is true that some people have no diagnosis but are more severely affected than those who have.

I've been told by a paediatrician, that the diagnosis for ADHD can depend partly on the family circumstances - in a family with an excellent support network, it may be easier to cope with ADHD type behaviour, than in a family who is not so fortunate. That does NOT mean that the children involved are just naughty - it means the parents or carers are seeking extra help because they need it, and the accurate diagnosis enables them to access that.

If this post causes offence, please do have it deleted. Upsetting anyone is not my intention.

I think the issue here though is towards those who do have a diagnosis - claiming their diagnosis is ficticious for example, or does that not make sense?

I think amber's post is very important - because in the end, there ARE a lot of mums of children with SN and/or who have SN themselves who DO feel harassed etc. or this thread wouldn't exist - and since it does, and since many of them have come on here to explain how they are treated, MNHQ need to sit up and take more notice and deal with it so they are acting in line with the Equality Act.

There is a real lack of understanding about the whole process of diagnosis that is involved with conditions like ADHD etc, I think helping people understand how the diagnostic process works and the number of professionals involved is key to helping dissolve some of the ignorance that is around. Until i became involved in the SN boards, i really had no idea of just how much of a struggle people had in order to access help for their child. I don't know if there would be some way of collating a page of posts that would help explain some of the ins and outs of the diagnostic procedure, that people could link to, and that was out on the main boards somewhere (rather than tucked away in the SN section). There are a few posters, who have written some very eloquent and informative posts, that really opened my eyes when I read them, I wonder if they could be asked to put together something.

Thing is though how would enforcement of the Equality Act be implemented in this case?

I agree that some posts do breach the Act and are not dealt with. How do you get it enforced though?

hazey - I've been thinking about that myself. About writing an explanation post about how diagnosis works and how long it takes.

I've done something similar (under old nn) in response to some general comments about labelling children or how 'anyone can get a diagnosis these days'.

Hmm maybe I will

Well I have stood up and been counted on another thread - and been called a "fucknugget" for my pains. Hey ho, I can cope! :)

MrsVoltar... I agree with you actually but then I don't think in terms of segregating and discriminating members of the population, I just don't.

I don't have a child with SN, I'm not gay, part of an ethnic minority and perhaps this is why I've struggled to see the 'jibes'. It's not that I don't accept they're there, I do, it's just that I take the questions on face value without the background 'baggage' because I don't have it and have never had to face it as some people have. I don't know what to do about that really? I could jump on the bandwaggon as some posters do, hollaring just because everyone else is doing it, but that would make me feel like a 'sheep'. When I do read nastiness in a post then I'll say something, (Thank you, Sue!) I will always do that and I'm happy to be challenged in the same way.

It doesn't mean though that I think anybody is entitled to say what they like about other people, on AIBU or any other board or forum. There's too much 'escalation' and 'group hysteria' almost and it achieves nothing. The posters who post spiteful and disruptive nonsense are in a minority, I'd say that most posters do not feel the same way at all. I realise that it's any talk regarding any sector/group of the population can be emotive but that doesn't mean that every poster who doesn't have experience of a subject is being offensive either and a little tolerance, from both 'sides' would achieve more.

It's really starting to feel like 'them and us' here and I hate that.

(Given just as an example to aid thinking) With the autism spectrum, the diagnosis can only be made...
...if there is a clear impact on a person's ability to manage everyday life because of the things below.
...and if the family confirm the individuals has for their whole life had terrible difficulties with understanding social rules and social communication signals (body language etc)...
...had terrible difficulty with any unexpected change of routine or predicted sequence of events...
...and (usually) also experienced major sensory differences too

To get a diagnosis is still very difficult and very well thought out, at any point on the spectrum.

What subsequent research has shown is that the supposed "milder" cases of autism aren't mild at all, because of the very strict guidelines on diagnosis.

But another feature of prejudice can be when (for example) someone is on the autism spectrum and encounters, "You can't really be at all affected by your autism, because you can speak"

or "You're not really very autistic at all if you are married or have a child" etc.

Same principle as "you can't really be a wheelchair user if you're married or can speak", I guess. Or "you can't really be deaf if you have a job". Or "your blindness can't be too bad if you can look after a family!". And every bit as illogical.

Belittling anyone because of their disability and making false statements about it is is a 'no'.

No, I don't think I made myself clear SAF. Sorry.
I meant externally, because HQ let things stand that DO breach the act. It doesn't get dealt with here.

Thumbwitch, if anyone associated with a disabled person stands up against harassment of that disabled person and is themselves attacked for it (or encounters behaviour that makes them feel harassed even if it's unintentional), that is also covered by the new Equality Act 2010 as an act of Harassment under that law, and should equally be dealt with by the organisation and its staff. Probably doesn't apply to generalisations, but it would apply to specifics.

What IS a fucknugget, anyway? Does it count as harassment? Ach, if the poster who said it follows through on her thread to leave MN because of being pulled up for what she said then that's one less person to cause upset.

startAfire, people should first reason with the service provider. If that doesn't work, the Equality and Human Rights Commission offers help and advice to people about what they can do.

It doesn't and shouldn't have to end with a court case - often things can be done through mediation etc.

www.direct.gov.uk/en/DisabledPeople/Everydaylifeandaccess/Everydayaccess/DG_4018353 is helpful. Often individual disability charities will be able to guide people, too.

www.rnib.org.uk/livingwithsightloss/yourrights/equalityact/Pages/equality_act_toolkit_service_providers.aspx#H2Heading2 is for example a useful toolkit produced by the RNIB for helping people to reason with service providers.

Thumbwitch I was on the thread where you were indirectly called a fucknugget and FWIW I don't think you deserved that. I too winced when I saw the title but mostly because of the thoughts on MN atm about this sort of 'thoughtless' posting. If it hadn't been for this thread and the other similar ones, I would have thought nothing more of the term. I know this is because I don't have a SN child and cannot even imagine the struggles against bigotry and thoughtlessness that those who do endure daily. But I don't think the term used was meant offensively and it is in some places used very commonly in the context the OP meant it.

However.... Is it going to get to a point where people just stop posting as they may cause offence to anyone? There's a thread about someone being annoyed about people putting on FB how pregnant they are and that it's offensive to those who can't get pregnant. And I was just a bit .

I DO agree with what this thread and the others are saying up to a point - but also but LWIW said about those of us not in the same situation not being as sensitive to it.

Late as usual ... Anyone still counting?

Coolwhip - I'm sure it wasn't meant offensively which is why I was very polite and lighthearted about it when I first mentioned it - but the OP's response to it being mentioned was very poor and does typify the problems that are being discussed (in part) on here - if someone says it's likely to upset a vulnerable group of people, then the better response is to say "sorry, didn't think, doh, won't do it again", not insult the people who politely pointed out that they may have said it unthinkingly.

People getting "offended" at other people's pregnancy - that's going too far, definitely!

Where's the barometer though and who decides what it is? We need one. People who can't get pregnant, for example, can be in just as much of a rage at others' insensitivity as anybody else.

YY agreed her response was way OTT and hey ho if we're down another.

Really hope I didn't offend anyone with my post; not my intention at all. Just giving my POV.

Nope, certainly didn't offend me! :)

I know what you and LWIW are saying - there comes a point when it does start to get a bit silly - like when people post "on I wish I'd had a boy" and a small percentage of posters jump on and say "just be grateful you have a baby, I've just lost one/ had multiple MCs etc" - that's unnecessary. Or on "my MIL is a PITA" threads, and someone says theirs has just died so the OP should be grateful she still has one. Same.

But MILs and pregnant people aren't protected by law in the same way, are they - I think that's the biggest difference here.

I'd say anyone who is protected by the Equality Act itself would be a good barometer, people with disabilities are covered by the act for example.