To think badly behaved kids do exist....

Good point Fair. There were plenty of adults accompanying children last night who were trying to remind their dcs to say thank you but some were just too excited I think.

There must, I always think, be something peculiarly difficult about remembering ps and qs for some children. I have NEVER (and I mean never) let my kids get away without saying please and thank you. But ten years in, do I still need to constantly, constantly remind them to say it, both to me and to others? It's maddening and mystifying. I've done the reminders every which way. I've done the expectant pauses. Even then sometimes they don't bloody get it. They are exceptionally well-behaved in all other respects.

Depending on the behaviour I am not sure it is really something to get your knickers in a knot about.
My son has SN but also has manners as does my younger brother, who is an adult with SN, tyvm.

Since when have children with additional needs not been able to say please or thank you? Unless they are non verbal of course but then I suspect a parent would be with them to say it for them?

Both my dd’s have autism, they both say please and thank you, if they don’t then I prompt them or I apologise and say it for them. Sometimes dd can snatch things, I will apologise and explain she has ASD. I don’t think SN’s can be used as an excuse, I don’t think people should just assume a child has SN’s if they are misbehaving. I get fed up of the number of people that assume because my kids have autism they are going to be little shits. My kids behave when we are out, if they don’t then I remove them from the situation and calm them down (if they are having a meltdown or can’t cope).

I know many children who do not have sn’s and are not well behaved, don’t say please and thank you and generally misbehave.

Wonder where all the constant please and thank you are from The Grow ups.
Mners are all about children doing this and that ( cleaning their room at 5 after a busy day at school, repeatedly being grateful and aren't allowed to have people emotions without them having serious issues)
While on average - ( over ten years in retail) 1/5 people will say thank you or excuse me can you help me.
It's just expected- I must do all to please you without any manners at all.
And you don't think the dc see this?... g

They do. Same with adults.

I have worked with children for many years and some of the rudest have come from families who do know better but either can't be bothered to discipline/instil good manners, want to be the child's friend not parent or expect someone else to put in the hard work - school, nanny, etc.

I agree with you - of course there are plenty of children and adults with SN but there are also plenty of just plain badly brought up, rude, entitled kids and adults alike - we make too many excuses nowadays

Manners are learnt and I think if you expect them you should be encouraging them. Takes a village and all that. But then I have no qualms pulling up other people’s kids on minor stuff like that and no one has ever minded.

In a situation a child has informed you they’re going to take all of the sweets that’s the point as an adult you tell them no and they’re for everyone to share.

If you want them to act in a socially acceptable way you have to be part of the lesson if you choose to interact with children.

Aside from SEN I’m quite conscious of shyness. I was a shy child who got tongue tied easily and was mistook for rude. A bit of gentle kindness and friendliness goes a long way in teaching kids why it’s nice to be nice.

I agree with you OP. If someone is behaving badly - be it a child or adult, chances are, they are just badly behaved. Only on MN can you not judge/tut at bad behaviour just because of the small chance that someone has SN. You don't hear anyone assuming that someone has SN if they reserve the seat next to them on a busy bus or is being noisy on a plane etc. Too many excuses for basic bad behaviour.

My son has difficulty making eye contact with people and often he doesn't realise that he needs to say something to people and needs to be gently reminded or having it pointed out that someone has spoken to him. But he is quite capable. Children with additional needs often need prompting, more frequent reminders or a longer time to learn and be taught. But like all children, if the parents don't teach, they won't do it.
I assume that most of these children were with adults so if the adults they were with didn't remind them or ask them to say anything, then I don't think it was the kids that were being badly behaved.

I see where you're coming from and to some extent agree, but as pp and you say, you don't know, and can't know realistically. No one who doesn't know the child could.
But I do agree that not every child you come across with poor behaviour will have additional needs. The sad thing is that I fear many jump on the bandwagon so to speak, and this just makes it so much harder for the children and parents who genuinely have to live with it day in day out.
People will always judge, be that through lack of understanding, sheer ignorance or because they enjoy a good bitch.
I think a big part of it is that we assume that anyone who needs extra support to be safe in society gets it. This sadly isn't true. About a year ago a lady was sitting at the bus stop I use crying. I'd seen her most days and she spoke to everyone around, and clearly had additional needs and was quite often ignored or told to leave people alone, she wasn't doing any harm. I asked if she was ok, she'd lost her purse, but was in a real state. I asked if she had a phone or was there anyone at home or in her life that helped her? Only a social worker, who's number was in her purse. I called the local social services number, gave the lady's name and was told that there was no record of her...... I called the police non emergency number to be told they would send someone out, in 2-3 hours. I couldn't sit with her for that long, she couldn't remember where she lived - all her day to day info was in that purse. She was so upset that she couldn't be coherent. I ended up taking her to the local GP surgery and luckily the nurse knew her and they took it from there. She came with me, a stranger, quite willingly, I could have been anyone, with any intention. I strongly feel that she should have had some more support than she did or probably still does. She is still around, and still talks to everyone, but doesn't remember me specifically. She's still alone when I see her. She's vulnerable, but seems to have minimal support.

My child is naughty, he has SEN but his naughtiness is independent of these. He does have good manners though

We had a group of kids last year who took huge handfuls of fun-sized bags of maltesers. When asked to take only one as otherwise children who came later might go without the little tykes told me I should have bought more.

Also have kids going round chucking eggs at front doors

IMO they are badly behaved not SEN.

all children are badly behaved at various points. Even children with SEN (I have one) can be badly behaved. That’s normal. All children are forgetful of manners or rude or defiant at some point. They’re kids!

Experienced it myself last night op. Kids trying to grab sweets from bowl, returning sweets they didn't like, not saying thanks.

Bloody hell, wasn't like it in my day. Where just bloody grateful to be given anything

We were not where.

All our Trick or Treaters were lovely last night
I hand the sweets out to avoid the “grab a handful” issue
One boy said “ I don’t want one of those “ and went to grab the bowl. I moved it away and the adult with him said “he’s autistic “ I said “ oh, Im Sorry” and offered him the bowl .
The adult said “ but it’s no reason for him not to have manners, so ask the lady nicely X” (he did)
I appreciate that some dc’s SN can in some cases make it hard or even impossible for them to display what we think of a “manners” but in most cases it shouldn’t be an excuse for rudeness

I think the OP makes a good point: it is necessary to distinguish between manners and behaviour. Children who are visually or hearing impaired or who have mobility problems or any other range of problems still can be polite. I have autism and am polite.

Yes, some challenging behaviour can be attributed to SEN, but not all.

There are more NT people than people with SEND needs.
That means on balance if someone is a rude arsehole then they're more likely to be an arsehole than be on the autistic spectrum.
Most arsehole won't have additional needs. Not everyone with additional needs acts like an arsehole (and in my experience most are nowhere close to be rude and dickish)

Same with children. There are more NT children than SEND children.
Some children might have experienced huge amounts of trauma and that impacts their behaviour (even though they don't have a special educational need).
Some children have been taught it's fine to behave badly because home can't be arsed to parent and will get in the face of any adult who dares to say certain behaviours arent acceptable.

At one extreme you have adults who'll argue send is just a convenient label to minimise bad behaviour. At the other extreme you have adults who'll argue that children are inherently saints and if someone is antisocial, verbally abusive and generally unpleasant in their actions then that's a sign we should sit the child in the room and give them a hot chocolate and make the victim apologise to the perpetrator because the perpetrator is really the victim in all this.

Of course you can't assume either way by looking.

yeah I was out with them. I would never let children of any age go knocking on randomers doors without an adult. Far too dangerous.
I didnt even think that people would. Wow


I do think that children with recognised/diagnosed SEN are more likely to have some behavioural issues surely, as the ones without behavioural issues that highlight their other difficulties are still so much more likely to go undiagnosed until adulthood, where they then put two and two together. I wonder if there is any information out there on this, but from what ive experienced and know about in my local SEN community, it seems to be the case. By behavioural issues, I dont always mean serious ones. I often mean stuff like social niceties

The whole concept of Trick or Treat has changed over time. It now seems to be about children dressing up for Halloween and going around doors demanding sweets or they will do a nasty trick on you. Not really conducive to good manners.

When I was a child during trick or treating (or guising as we have here in Scotland), the children dressed up, you invited them in and they "begged" for sweets in exchange for a song/joke/poem/magic trick etc. We would practice our "turn" in the week before going out. ds(14) used to take a magic trick with him and another parent and I would stand outside as his group went into each house to perform. They were reminded to say thank you while in the house and we would call over thank you to the house as they were let back out.

How many area's still expect the children to do something for their sweets, or do they just hand them over on demand? Our still does, the children go into the houses and have to do something to earn their sweets.

imo children are now encouraged to be naughty and bad mannered during Trick or Treating due to the change of focus from doing something for sweets (we cant ask our snowflakes to do something as they are tooooo shy ) to give us the sweets or else we'll be naughty and trick you. At least part of the fault lies with the people who are encouraging handing out the sweets for nothing in return.

Two of my dc have Aspergers, well before being diagnosed, from being toddlers they didn't get unless they said please or thank you.

What even is this thread? 'In my day children were all well mannered, no one had one of them new fangled special needs and we all respected our elders.'

Listen to yourselves FFS. Don't you remember being a child and hearing the adults in your family mither about this kind of thing?

You're right sometimes it is just bad behavior or lack of parenting skills.