To urge you to teach your children to be genuinely inclusive, not just polite?

[gingerginger2]

My kids are back at school this week (Scotland) and after a summer of seeing them without the context of their peers it’s a sadness again to see them interacting with other children.

On their own, they are sweet, silly, funny, kind, playful, interesting, creative, chatty. They are part of the world, full of wonder and learning and play.

But in the context of kids their age, they are different. They both have learning disabilities and dyspraxia.

They don’t know this though, they don’t quite realise they are “different” yet. They are little, they learn slowly, despite the constant lessons from society’s exclusions. They run up to their “friends” in such a carefree happy way, eager to talk, play, connect. It doesn’t seem to occur to them not to.

And when they do they mainly encounter silence. Uncomfortable polite looks. Or polite confused monosyllabic mumbles followed by eager escapes into actual easy friendships groups. Or at best a short conversation in a humouring tone, a tone learnt by imitating the tones adults take with small silly children.

There’s not really any unkindness. There’s just a refusal to actually engage, to get to know, to connect. An embarrassment and unwillingness to spend time with my children’s lack of social skills, messy clothes, an uncomfortableness at their invasion of their personal space. So a brief hello before getting on with actual friendships and relationships and life. An obvious desire to politely not engage. A smile with the lips not the eyes.

I’m amazed they don’t seem to realise that they’ve been snubbed again. But they din’t Mainly. Learning disability means everything is hard to learn I guess. But it’ heartbreaking to see they just carry on and continue to fling themselves at people, wide open, encountering boundaries wherever they go. I worry that soon they’ll start to realise and feel the pain of these rejections.

I worry too that maybe they do feel the pain. Maybe it goes somewhere deep, and maybe they are learning day by day that people don’t like them. That society isn’t for them.

I hate it.

Please can you teach your children to be more than polite and kind to their peers with disabilities? Please can you urge them to actually get to know them, to actually connect and include them? Even when they are messy, annoying, noisy and a bit weird. Even then?

I for one thank OP for starting this thread - it's not OK to just be polite to persons with SN and we absolutely should be teaching our children to step out of our comfort zone and empathise how that child with SN feels.

I've always made sure the children with SN are included in party invites - my nephew has ADHD and was never invited to parties. His behaviour was appalling. However, we never made excuses for this and told him that the reason he wasn't included was because of his behaviour - he made huge efforts to control himself and he's now a firefighter - all because his mam didn't excuse his behaviour but explained it to his peers - they wouldn't tolerate his outbursts and told him so - he learnt to rein it in :)

Nowt so queer as folk! ;-)

I really should go to sleep! But thanks everyone, i’ve Found this thread very helpful. Really appreciate all the comments. Shall look forward to revisiting tomorrow! Night x

It’s hard OP - I’ve hopefully taught my kids this as have the school - especially dd who has a friend in her class with severe autism. He is non verbal and I’m not sure really how much he gets from their friendshipp but dd gets a lot ffrom in terms of patience and empathy and tbh she just really likes him and revels in his achievements and worries when he’s not well or upset or whatever .

I do struggle though with general inclusivity because I’ve always taught dd not to leave people out but there are unfortunately girls in her class who leave her out one day then want to play with her and be BFF the next and dd doesn’t understand the nuances that actually it’s ok to leave them out in terms of not choosing to play with them when they’ve been mean to her. I’m finding it really hard to balance her being a decent human being and not being a doormat!

Both my kids play out on our street and a new family moved in - dd and ds we’re playing with their wee boy on and off over the course of a few days (I do look out and check on them!) and told me all about him how he has a different accent, what his mum does at work, his siblings names etc etc etc. One day the boy came to call on the kids and he had quite severe physical disabilities which neither of them had mentioned which made me feel quite emotional but I don’t know why and I don’t know if that’s a really wanky and patronising thing to say.

I have rambled as usual but I hope I’m getting it right for my own kids and others I really do.

It's distracting me from every post it's written in. Sorry I see the location is indeed in the first post. None of the Scottish people I know say folks to mean people. It strikes me the same way someone opening with "trust me" does...

I worry a lot about childre and vulnerable adultsn being told to ignore their discomfort and get over themselves because of the histories of people I work with, and it makes me suspicious.

Vulnerable young people are exploited for being too kind/ trusting and wanting to make everyone happy.

As I said, it's an area far too complex to be boiled down to buzz words, there's no clear sound bite one size fits all policy and children cannot be seperate into those who should be inclusive and get over themselves and those who should be included - many children are both very vulnerable and expected to put what they're comfortable with behind them in order to make others happy/ comfortable. It's not NT kids and SN kids, and one group must be inclusive of the other - things in reality are often more complex and blurred.

They generally seem to learn social skills through a “survival of the fittest” regime in the playground. If we taught social skills to all children, and supervised their playtimes more thoroughly and intervened more, we might end up with a nicer society.

Completely agree with this.

Ps I’m from Scotland and use the word folk a lot. Finding it pretty offensive actually how because it isn’t what @theresnotthatmuchtoit is used to it must be wrong or fake. Kind of the opposite of inclusivity.

I think parents do help teach their kids social skills. But many adults don't have that great social skills themselves. So hard to teach when you struggle with it yourself.

thaegumathteth yep, perhaps it's normal in some areas. The whole thing makes me uncomfortable, but the I'm hung up on the suggestion children get over feelings of personal discomfort in order to be kind and inclusive and it's got my hackles up because I work with vulnerable young people some of whom have come to harm because they're conditioned in this way.

The second part of your latest post has literally no relevance to you fixating on a local dialect feature

I think this one is really difficult. As people have said, these are extremely complex social concepts for children to grasp. Not all human beings are totally altruistic, we are biologically evolved to be selfish to some degree & it takes huge emotional maturity to override that.

OP I don't think you can simply say to people "include my child. Invite them on play dates". The meaningful connections your kids need extra help making won't come from forced efforts. But chat to other parents & give it some structure - what are your kids hobbies and interests? Help your kids and the other kids find common ground through shared interests. My very young toddler will form a connection with a child totally different from himself, if that child shares his Thomas obsession. But he can find those shared interests without me, your kids obviously need a bit of help with it.

I think this is what people mean about looking beyond school. The children from your kids school might do hobbies your kids share interests in & being at scouts or whatever together outside school can be the conversation starter in the playground the next day.

And OP huge numbers of people struggle with making friends in school. I'm NT and it was a complete minefield. Children (little girls in particular) are no notorious for leaving others out, at times very deliberately, as they try to establish themselves in various social roles & groupings. Educational psychologists have spent years trying to unpick this! I think your expectations of some kids may be too high at times. If your kids difficulties mean they have little in common with their peers or display behaviours that make many people very uncomfortable this is so hard for adults to persevere past, let alone kids.

I look back myself and find that like many lonely kids desperate for friends, I did everything wrong. I was trying to head straight for popular, established groups and was not noticing the other loners in the playground who would have been much more responsive to my approach. Are your kids doing that? You might find there are more introverted kids who are more inclusive but even with their parents encouragement, they need help to bridge connections with your kids.

Also. You ABU if you are expecting people to have whole class parties at age 7 or 10. They are terrifically expensive to do at that age as the sorts of activities kids that age enjoy are much more costly, and it's not fair to expect kids to give up the birthday party they want which might be a favourite activity wuth 4 or 5 others, purely to include everyone.

@WhyTho I think you make a valid point. Girls and women especially are under constant pressure to 'be nice' and sacrifice their own boundaries, time, energy and sometimes personal safety so that men and boys don't have to feel uncomfortable. We should be teaching girls to listen to their instincts, that it's ok to say no, that they aren't responsible for every one else's feelings.

The personal space thing would be a big issue for me. I would want my daughter to follow her own instincts if someone was in her space and she wasn't comfortable. Every. single. goddamn. time, regardless of whether that makes her 'nice.' I won't ever dilute that message by adding 'oh unless you suspect he might have SN and would benefit from your participation in developing his social skills.' Nope nope nope. If a girl is uncomfortable, she should be taught to politely remove herself and never feel bad for doing so.

I was a studious child and time and time again my teachers would pair me up with boys who had ADHD or ASD. I was made to feel that it was my obligation to help them keep up, to help them fit in, to keep them calm etc. it made me incredibly stressed and took a lot of time away from my own studies. Looking back it was an unfair burden to place on a small child and I wish my parents had said something.

I have a SN child, and absolutely the world should be more inclusive, and things need to change. But I don't agree that forcing children to feel morally responsible for the social outcomes of their SN peers is fair. Be kind, be respectful, be inclusive if you're comfortable doing so. But they are not responsible for teaching them anything.

I haven’t RTFT, but can I ask what is the age cut off where kids can decide for themselves who to include and be friends with?

There is no age for that. Children must be allowed to choose their playmates....correction....they WILL have personal preferences naturally.

My best friend's son has Autism. My children are inclusive and kind when we're all together...but they don't seek his company out. I can't make them want to seek his company out. They don't ask "Can we go to X place with John?" because they don't want to.

I have always, always spoken of him fondly to them as a way of modelling the right behaviour...discussed his strong points and charm. They do like him...but they don't seek out his company because it's quite a one-way street.

I arrange things sometimes...but now the DC are older, they're arranging their own social lives. This happens from 11-12 onwards.

I find people latching on to personal space being a ok reason not to interact with someone so frustrating, does that mean all the children and adults in society that struggle with this, just doesnt deserve to form bonds with people , that thats an acceptable reason for ur child not to engage with them???? It actually makes me mad that we live in a world where this is seemed ok. Its about looking past the disability and seeing them as a person first. So a child might be a bit close when they talk to them, so what. They are not a danger to the child because of it.

"....would benefit from your participation in developing his social skills."

Its not about developing his social skills its about finding a human connection with someone who happen to struggle with certain things because their brain is wired differently.

"Girls and women especially are under constant pressure to 'be nice' and sacrifice their own boundaries, time, energy and sometimes personal safety so that men and boys don't have to feel uncomfortable."

U make it sound so predatory, its not a personal safety issue, its about having a connection with another child.

I would like to add something personal, i have a friend who doesnt give eye contact while speaking, at first i felt uncomfortable as i was never sure where to look. Being uncomfortable didnt prevent me from being her friend and getting to know her. I seen the person first. I now know that if i also dont have eye contact it works. And thats how i will teach my children. Its about looking beyond the difference.

So a child might be a bit close when they talk to them, so what. They are not a danger to the child because of it.

Can’t you see the problem with my teaching my daughter that she has to ignore her own feelings of discomfort and her own right to personal space because the person she is interacting with might have special needs?

I was in a play area with her the other day. I was watching and she was playing about fifteen feet away. An old man walked up to her and began talking to her. He clearly had SN. What should I have done? I will tell you what I did; I firmly and gently told him to leave her alone. I am sure he meant no harm at all and just wanted to play, but that isn’t my child’s responsibility.

When she goes to school I need her to be able to keep herself safe. I need her to be able to enforce her boundaries based on her own judgement.

None of the Scottish people I know say folks to mean people

🙄

I’m Scottish. I say it and hear it around quite a bit. Maybe you just don’t know many Scottish folks, @theresnotthatmuchtoit?

“Troops” would be more common where I live. But I bet if OP had come on MN saying, “awright troops, what do you think of this situation?” many wouldn’t know what she was talking about.

The problem is that chemistry can't be taught.

Friendship develops from not only shared experience but natural chemistry.

Having things in common...humour...ambitions...

If those things aren't naturally in place, there's no natural bond...therefore no friendship.

Girls and women especially are under constant pressure to 'be nice' and sacrifice their own boundaries, time, energy and sometimes personal safety so that men and boys don't have to feel uncomfortable

WTF has that got to do with this discussion? Stop dramatising. We’re talking about children with SN being made to feel included, why would you make out like they’re behaviour is unsafe or that the other person would be made to feel so uncomfortable? As chicken2015 said you do make it sound like they’re predatory.

"would benefit from your participation in developing his social skills*

Depressing outlook.

And OP I'd also like to say that it can sometimes get easier as they get older.

One of DD's best male friends has ADHD and learning difficulties. He's one of her absolute best pals because they share an interest in the same type of music. They're working together on a music based project at school.

I'd keep working on your children's hobbies and interests.

We’re talking about children with SN being made to feel included, why would you make out like they’re behaviour is unsafe or that the other person would be made to feel so uncomfortable?

Sometimes their behaviour will be unsafe, won’t it? Like sometimes the behaviour of children without SN will be unsafe. Sometimes their behaviour will make other children feel uncomfortable, which is just as true of children without SN. And sometimes the behaviour will be linked with their SN, because they may not understand - for example - when it is appropriate to hug and when it isn’t.

That isn’t saying anyone is “predatory”. How ridiculous.