To think badly behaved kids do exist....

I have a daughter with autism. She's nearly 4 and manners are hit and miss, as is all normal communication as that's a bit part of being autistic. What I've learn't since having a child with SEN as well as already raising a NT child up to her teen years is that other people's expectations of a child's behaviour are usually the deciding factor on what is and isn't 'bad behaviour'. Everyone has different ideas and rules and there are all sorts of different types of children, personalities and levels of need.

When you take something on face value and use your own yardstick for measuring something then you never have the full picture. Maybe kids ARE sometimes rude or badly behaved, maybe you are a grumpy grown up with high expectations. Maybe kids are overexcited, shy, nervous, impatient, upset about something else or have unmet needs. People have great theories about child raising. So much importance placed on manners, being grateful, being a model sweet child. The real solution to your 'problem' OP is to turn off all the lights on halloween and don't answer the door. Otherwise I would suggest worrying less about the face value of something and more about your own reasons for handing out treats on halloween.

I think you have to accept that in lots of circumstances you just don't know. Best just to treat them as kindly as possible whilst doing what you can to avoid bad situations arising.

Yanbu. The presumption that ill mannered kids have sn is ridiculous. The kids I know with sn are polite, or something is obviously triggering them. The majority of the rude ones have feckless or indulgent parents.

Plenty of those parents don't say thank you either

It feels like encouraging or allowing bad manners, and sets a poor example to my younger son who's beside me in the doorway.

You need to practice higher-level good manners. Which include tolerance for the rudeness of an over-excited child who is not your responsibility, while making it clear that you have higher standards and expect better from your own son.

The other children are not there to set a good example to your son. You are.

You give the sweets out, and when the door is closed behind the visitors you can say "he didn't say thank you, did he? That wasn't very polite."

commented in a general context to other mums.

Whose own children might have been out and over-excited? Then that was a nicely passive-aggressive bit of rudeness on your own part.

I've often wondered how many of the MN's children with a variety of SN issues have been actually diagnosed by a professional, there does seem to be a far greater that average number in the population?

@tillytrotter1 One of the hard things about having a child with a non-visible disability is people who think it's made up or that it's not 'real', your comment perpetuates that stereotype and is not at all helpful. It can be very isolating being a parent of a SN child, I won't go into the details but for many families the best - and only - place to get advice, support, and solidarity is online which is why online communities such as this seem to have a large percentage of parents with SN children. This is especially true is parents whose children are now adults, SN children grow up and what little official support there is vanishes almost overnight once they turn 18 so again online is the best place to go.

Would also like to point out that SN and SEN are not the same thing, while there is some overlap between the two groups you can have Special Needs without having Special Education Needs. DS has SN/a disability but until a few years ago was not on the Special Education Needs register as he had not yet met the needs threshold for inclusion. A few children in his intervention group at school have Special Education Needs but no additional/special needs or disabilities. Some of the children have both.

OP, YANBU. If I didn't know a child and saw what most would class as 'bad' behaviour then I would always err on the benefit of the doubt because it's not pleasant to judge people or for others to feel judged however yes, there are rude, bad mannered children out there. Some have SN, some don't. Some children with SN are polite, some are not. Sometimes their lack of manners is due to their SN, other times it is not. DS can forget his manners, particularly when he's in a heightened emotional state, even with a reminder to say please/thank you or a very pointed "and what do you say, DS.......?" it doesn't always register but in those situations I'd do it on his behalf and then have a talk once he's calmed down.

I've often wondered how many of the MN's children with a variety of SN issues have been actually diagnosed by a professional, there does seem to be a far greater that average number in the population?

If you look on the sn boards you'll find there are quite a lot of parents who come looking for support, advice or to offer it to others.

Both of mine were diagnosed by CAMHS, unfortunately ds2 was 17 and had to go all the way through school with no support in place.
I can tell you it was awful for him being sent out of most lessons, standing in corridors, missing his education and labelled a naughty boy.
You wouldn't wish it on anybody, so not sure why you'd make it up for a forum.

I agree! Some kids ARE just shits. Pisses me off when everybody says the whole, oh they might have this might have that..bla bla bla. Always someone making excuses for shitty behaviors...

It is therefore statistically more likely that when you’re dealing with a badly behaved child, they’re just exactly that - badly behaved.

Well only if you're coming across different badly behaved children on a regular basis. If you come across the odd shockingly bad behaved child every now and then and its noticeable to you then there's a good chance that child has additional needs. I have two children with autism and can spot others a mile off. Negative Behaviour caused by additional needs has subtle but definite markers, which are actually pretty easy to spot if you know how.

And it often takes years to be diagnosed, lots of children are assessed and the parents are told "your child is exhibiting traits of xxxxxx but not to the extent where a diagnosis can be made" or you're told they almost certainly have xxxxxx condition but because they're not having difficulties they won't diagnose it or your child can't engage with the assessment process so they can't diagnose it. You get caught up on waiting lists. You can't access Service-A until Service-B has done as assessment and Service-B won't do an assessment until they get a referral from Service-C but Service-C aren't taking on any new cases at present or they won't act unless school ask them to and school can't afford to buy in the resources needed for that. It's crap, you have to fight for everything, and at the centre of it is a child who is floundering without the support and intervention needed to give them the best possible outcomes.

You are right that most children who had sn would have a parent with them in this circumstance.
In general though it may not be true that only 15% of children with a particular behaviour actually have sn because the population the 15% is coming from doesn’t contain all children. Only the one's with that particular behaviour.
So if you see an older child having a meltdown or hitting their parents, it is quite likely there is sn involved.
My disabled child is 13 and has no concept of manners but since some of his understanding is as young as 6 months, he is hardly likely to.
He wouldn't be out on Halloween but I suspect he and we may be judged in other situations when on first glance he is looking 'normal'.

Negative Behaviour caused by additional needs has subtle but definite markers

We can tell when DS is being an arse because he has SN vs being an arse because he's a child and children are sometimes arses. Ditto when he does something really "naughty" like at our old house when he stripped his entire room of wallpaper in the space of one night between 11pm when I checked on him and 7am when I went in to check he was up for school. He found one little speck of paper sticking up and tried to pull it off to make it tidy, which made another piece stick up so he pulled that, eight hours later, the whole place was stripped and he was hiding in the wardrobe. That's part of his SN. Last week he thumped his brother in the arm for eating the last apple. That's naughtiness.

Why do so many parents assume poor behaviour is down to poor parenting? Is it because you want to preen yourself on your amazingly superior parenting skills because your children are so perfect (I suspect they're really not)?

Children have agency and make their own choices in life. As a parent you can say something is or isn't a good idea but ultimately they'll decide for themselves.

If you're an inconsiderate adult is that because your parents were crap or is it just because that's the way you're made?

I agree with the OP - most "naughty" kids are naughty and they'll grow out of it.

if it makes you guys feel any better. One of the louder more boisterous autistic kids in our group got the door slammed in his face by one of the neighbours. Thatll teach him!

I know lots of parents of children with so-called made up conditions as part of a support group I attend. Not a single one of them uses it as an excuse for shitty parenting. They may talk about an issue in the context of "he's got xxxx and doesn't understand , what more can I do!?" but that's not the same thing as them absolving themselves of responsibility for it. Every parent I know from the group, myself included, have adapted our parenting style to meet the needs of our individual child, we have developed our own ways of managing our child in certain situations, and in situations where they cannot be managed and there is no choice but to power through then we power through. Sometimes this does involve saying "he can't help it, he's autistic".

There aren't made up conditions though, they all exist.

I have met parents who use sn for an excuse, others that don't.
I've met parents of nt children who are feckless and don't care to socialise their dc.
I've met parents of nt children who blame their bad behaviour on an undiagnosed sn, rather than sort their kids out.

There are all kinds of parents and all kinds of sn, some managed well with intervention, some more challenging.

My village Facebook group is full of it today.

One mother is complaining that no one offered small toys as her child has severe allergies so couldn’t eat any of the sweets.

Another complained about the teenagers throwing eggs and smashing up pumpkins. Again everyone is saying maybe they have special needs etc. I mean really? A child throwing eggs at car windscreens is a symptom of special needs? Bollocks.

Op I would be the same as you. If a child knocked on my door unaccompanied by an adult and didn’t use manners I would think they were rude too.

Sorry, second line should read "reason" not excuse.

As a teacher yes they exist buy most are lovely.
A girl threatened to piss on my floor because I wouldn't let her go to the toilet last week. That is in yr 4.

And it often takes years to be diagnosed, lots of children are assessed and the parents are told "your child is exhibiting traits of xxxxxx but not to the extent where a diagnosis can be made" or you're told they almost certainly have xxxxxx condition but because they're not having difficulties they won't diagnose it or your child can't engage with the assessment process so they can't diagnose it. You get caught up on waiting lists. You can't access Service-A until Service-B has done as assessment and Service-B won't do an assessment until they get a referral from Service-C but Service-C aren't taking on any new cases at present or they won't act unless school ask them to and school can't afford to buy in the resources needed for that. It's crap, you have to fight for everything, and at the centre of it is a child who is floundering without the support and intervention needed to give them the best possible outcomes.

Well said! There's loads and loads of undiagnosed children with SEN. A diagnosis isn't the be all and end all. I have a diagnosed child and a younger child with possible SEN who's only at the first stages of assessment. As her parent, I don't need a piece of paper to tell me whether I should parent my child as if she's neuro-typical or has SEN, I go on her behaviours and an understanding of the differences.

Bad behaviour always starts debates about SEN. Real bad behaviour is rarely what's being discussed on mumsnet on these type of threads..my autistic daughter presents as 'naughty' in some situations, under some conditions. However I will always draw the line at behaviour which hurts others, causes damage to other people's property or is dangerous. This thread is about social graces, manners etc. These things involve social understanding and reasoning and an ability to judge situations properly as well as being in control of impulses, being able to wait..etc. All of which are much more easily learnt by neuro typical children than those with developmental disabilities. Should a child like mine go trick or treating and enjoy normal experiences despite lacking some of these finer social graces? God yes. That's why adults are cleverer than children and will use patience and understanding when presented with unknown children..right? Well I can but hope..

YANBU.
I totally agree with you.
Some people and their kids are just ignorant.

See Myth 1 - very top of the list.

www.mumsnet.com/campaigns/this-is-my-child-myths-about-children-with-special-needs

YANBU

I was a right little shit