To think the carer of this girl with learning disabilities needs telling!

[mummy2stan]

I take my son to a activity centre a couple of times a week and there is a young woman in there all the time who is clearly mentally handicapped, whilst I have no problem at all with this I do have one with the so called carers that are with her. Two weeks ago whilst my 18 month old son was sat in a high chair having his lunch, the girl came over started pinching his cheek and saying BOO really loudly and in his face, my son is a shy boy and isn't good with strangers anyway so at first he just stared and then after about 5 BOOS started to cry, I smiled politely at the carer who was stood with the girl saying ......gently.... Gently now.... And she did nothing to stop her until he was crying his heart out at which she then pulled the girl away. And then yesterday I watched as the girl followed a 2 year old around saying ... You've been naughty .... You've been naughty... Till the 2 year old got to her mother clearly upset, then the girl proceeded to try to pick her up, pulling her away from her mother, and all the while the carer is stood beside her saying nothing!!!! Now. Whilst I understand this girl may well have the mental age of 5 she is intact at least 20 yrs old and I don't think she should be allowed to behave this way towards other children. If she knows no wrong in it, then the carers should stop it before it makes other children cry! Why should we accept it because she's disabled? I feel I may have to speak to the manager if she approaches my son again because I take him there so he can interact with other children, not be pestered and scared by another adult. Once again my problem is not with the girl as such, more the people who are supposed to be watching her. Am I wrong to complain if she upsets him?

Why is 'handicapped' offensive when 'disabled' isn't? I am not being funny and I know disabled is thought of as the correct term now, but just genuinley interested?

Snowmaiden I think it's because of the way language around disability evolves. A term is used and is acceptable. Over time that term gets hijacked and is used to insult people without the condition. The word then becomes offensive in it's correct usage, so a new word is used which is acceptable and the cycle carries on.

SusanneLinder I find teens not to bad, obviously there are exceptions, but I suppose I used to ds's mates.
ds even as a lad used to say some lovely things to the gormless starers.

tbh I think having a disabled child is a good shit o metre,
you soon work how who the nasty people are...
as for parents of supposedly nt kids, why can't they tell them not too stare.

Why do people have to be so nasty? Just why :(

I have more , and - please help yourselves.

Fanjo - I'd book another cottage, you wont relax knowing the owners are next door!

Thanks chipping

We are already looking elsewhere, finding it hard to find the perfect place though and going cross eyed with looking :)

It's difficult to find the 'right' place isn't it. Do you need anything in particular/or need to avoid anything in particular due to DD's needs? Some people enjoy the looking - personally I find it a boring chore!

Somewhere secluded with a lot of space, no ornaments, no ponds, no stairs and ideally a large garden so she can let off steam

i dont mind looking, my DH hates it and gets grumpy, tells me just to "pick anywhere" then finds fault with whatever I pick

Oh - I'd never do that!! I'm far too much of a control freak to actually leave it to anyone else

I hope you find somewhere fab - without the owners next door!

If I ever get left any money. I am going to buy a south devon cottage. Autism proof it (triple locks, lockable windows, DVD's of TTFTE) and let it out to people with kids with autism/learning disabilities and force offer to arrange surfing sessions for them

I get snippy, and when people use insulting language like 'mentally handicapped', because I have been dealing with the stares, and comments, and 'veiled' mutterings, rudeness, disablist comments, and even a couple of people telling me IN FRONT OF MY DD that she would be better off dead for 13 YEARS. It get's a bit wearing, and in the end, you have a very low tolerance for shit. Especially when it is aimed at 3/5 of your family. We are known locally as the "Family of crips". (I have epilepsy, and two of my dc have autism).

In the end, wouldn't YOU get fucked off with it, and be terse when faced with it? Some days I get angry, and fire off and get shouty. Other days I approach it with humour, and respond with a witty comment. Sometimes I am so upset I burst into tears. And still other days, I am so downhearted that I just let the comments pass without a murmur - just get my head down and get home. That is the reality of it.

So, maybe we get caught on a snippy day sometimes. We're human, and we have to cope with seeing our dc in tears all evening because they have been called 'mentally handicapped' at school. Or 'spaz'. Or 'retard'. Or 'mong'. Or any of 100 other disablist insults. Try telling my DD that she is 'professionally offended', yeah?

Aplogies for the rogue apostrophe in gets.

Huntycat I think you make a good point, I don't think the sn haters realise that we have to put up with this shit all the time, you only have to look at the DLA thread in AIBU to realise that disability is something that random people think they can dx.
we are judged. stared at, insulted, ripped apart, yet expected to be all calm and fuzzy, spend all our time educating and explaining over and over why something is offensive, yet then we are once again ripped apart.
no wonder mn is full of angry sn posters.

JimJmas LMAO @TTFTE assuming it means what i think it does.

My mate in Somerset wants to do similar with the ASD holiday place thing.

Hunty (Tis Peachy btw)- hugs. That is so wrong. DS2 has been making a stand against the work retard ('honest etacher I did not know what it meant'- yeah? how come you only sue it at the ASD kid or ds2's asd sibs then?) and has taken punches and the like in hif efforts.

Yes it does mean what you think

I just need half a million to set up the holiday place :does lottery:

well said sevenfold

I know the perfect palce coming up for sale (not quite your area but opposite digegrland which would have benefits...), dammit!

Will retain TTFTE for syture use LMAO, although atm we have an Avatar issue- ds1 watched 54 episodes this past weekend on Netflix! Given his age we assumed he ahd shut himself away for otehr reasons and we were getting concerned about netflix access and about to go in heavy when we realised everything he views comes up on my FB page- reality was interesting!!!!!!!!!

My DD doesn't like it..clearly she can't have ASD

snort at TTFTE! Yes I did wonder (TotChaos) why Sonic the Hedgehog was coming up on your feed! We have the entire box set of Avatar/Airbender for DS, he loves it. You may be erm glad to here there won't be a new series till at least next year. You can get comic books of it as well btw.

What's TTFTE?

My daughter secretly watches episodes of TotsTV. She's nearly 19- :o

TTFTE = Thomas the Fucking Tank Engine.

Oh I have quite a soft spot for Tots TV myself Klad. My DS (y3) still likes Cbeebies, stuff like Baby sodding Jake and Everything's Rosie. He quite likes pop vids and Beyonce and Rihanna and Lady Gaga too. Go figure

If you could stick some bastard Brum DVDs in there, that would be great, thanks.

and Grandpa in my pocket, with its stupid Southwoldesque fantasy world and stupid character names.

Can I just ask, if the term 'mentally handicapped' is so widely known to be outdated and insulting (up there with queer and paki), then why havent Mencap (which I am assuming comes from Mentally and Handicapped), changed their name?

It is not a term I would use, but I dont think that it is universally known to be derogatory, and I do think that the OP was unecessarily flamed for it.

I suspect that mencap have to balance the difficulties with the name against the huge struggle they would have to rebrand. Look what happened to the spastic society. Many people can still not name their new identity.

It's difficult.