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'm just coming onto this thread as a mother of older/adult children to reassure the OP that it gets easier as they move to secondary school - generally children find their tribe without it being forced.

Ironically, I think the emphasis on 'inclusiveness' in the primary years can make things worse. My children aren't SN, but one in particular did have terrible friendship problems throughout primary and it is harder, because you can't ignore the other children and they are all expected to get along together, whole class parties, class trips. Its a minefield.

My children went to a big mixed comprehensive and soon made friends with children they didn't know from primary - one gravitated to the gay/gender questioning crowd, for example. There was no longer a requirement that the popular sporty kids had to hang out with the dweebs (and my fabulous children would be the dweeb end of that spectrum), and that made life easier for everyone.

So I would maybe relax a bit and focus on your own children so they can flourish and find people who appreciate them as they grow into the world. The wee girl upset you, but she wasn't rude and will doubtless go on to have a completely different set of friends to your child and that is fine.

Asking for inclusion is not forcing anyone to be friends with anyone. It’s asking for interaction, for effort, for the opportunity for friendship to happen. Not for it to be constantly shut down with a polite tolerance, and a move on to your real friends who don’t dribble, wobble and stutter

It’s so depressing that you have to keep saying this OP but thought that comment needs highlighting.

sinkgirl are you still responding to me? Because that is not what I said. You are being really offensive now

No, the ignorance here is the assumption that disabled children are being excluded for behaviour that’s disturbing, boundary-pushing, etc. In reality, disabled children are usually excluded because they don’t have the same level of social skills as their peers and are obviously different, not because their behaviour is threatening in any way.

But don’t you see that you are saying that as an adult, who understands the causes of certain behaviours much better than a 6 year old? Our children pretty much have to manage at school with minimal adult supervision. If a child doesn’t know that another child’s behaviour is just affection, or that their lack of eye contact isn’t designed to make them feel uncomfortable, we can go a certain way towards helping them understand this, but we can’t fundamentally change their feelings. That’s why I can’t force friendship. And as much as I feel for the OP and her children, my first responsibility is to my child and her feelings of security and autonomy.

NO ONE IS SAYING YOUR CHILD SHOULDN’T HAVE BOUNDARIES

Is this really so hard to understand?

There is a massive difference between avoiding a child because they are aggressive / unsafe, and avoiding a child because they talk about a particular topic too much or they stutter or they struggle to make eye contact (or they are a different colour, are gay, etc).

Does this really need to be explained repeatedly?

The girl who walked the long way round has been in the same class as my son since preschool. 6 years or so.

Not a knee jerk rejection then. She's known him for a long time and didn't want to engage with him that morning. How do you know she wasn't preoccupied with something in her own life that morning? Perhaps she's had long enough to assess that this particular friendship just isn't for her.

Fair enough you didn’t say “fuck off spastic” , you did it politely, but the effect was the same. You couldn’t even spare 5 mins of your time.

You see, this is where I think you continue to be unreasonable, OP. Equating someone being kind and polite but - for whatever reason of their own that you don’t know - not willing to engage, with someone using abusive and discriminatory language, is very unreasonable.

Don’t shout at me. And stop telling me what I have said, when it was all made up in your own head. It doesn’t matter why a child avoids another, they have every right to, for whatever reason.

Perhaps she's had long enough to assess that this particular friendship just isn't for her.

So true. Just a coincedence that every disabled child is surrounded by children who’ve decided the friendship just isn’t for them, independently. Funny, given how people here are going on about how you can’t force or dictate a friendship, chemistry etc...

We’ve already seen on this thread how NT and ND kids can be brilliant friends when their parents foster that understanding. And we’ve seen plenty of examples of parental attitudes that will no doubt mean those parents and children will never make this effort.

I think people are expecting far more of children than even adults are capable of here.

Its incredibly difficult to get the balance right. Everyone has the right to walk away from situations they find uncomfortable. That's the first thing any child should he taught. Ignoring gut feelings is a one way street to trouble and that applies to any child.

We should of course have conversations with our children and explain what nice things to do are and what unkind things to do are. We should all teach our children to not be arse holes towards people and to not judge a book by its cover etc

I'm not exactly sure what peope want here. You can't force a connection with people.

Both mine have had incidents out and about where random children have come up and hugged them.and followed them.about. now not once have they been.rude or nasty yet they were clearly uncomfortable with a random child they had never met before hugging them.so much.

Dd2 can be oblivious to other peoples boundaries occasionally so I obviously make sure that I am.around to tell her when to back off a bit.

I dont think.there is anything to he gained to tell any child they have to attempt to make.friends with any other child. The dream.might be this wonderful union of children . The reality could well be that a child with SN, and many NT children for that matter are taken advantage of, or manipulated. Why would you want kids who have been forced to make friends with your kid as a friend. Would you not worry that when its not a genuine friendship that it could in fact make a situation worse?

Do peope not remember what it's like to "play" with people who are only there cos the teacher told them to be? I was a kid with no friends at primary school. I didnt really gel with any of them. Kids arent stupid, credit them.with some ability to know when people like them and want to spend time with them and when they are just pretending to be nice as the teacher asked them.to makensure X waant alone every break.time. believe.me I was far happier on my.own than being someones assignment for the day.

I'm not sure what the solution is. I.of course teach and will continue to teach to not to.judge people or to make fun.of.people and i of course explain.that people look.and act in.all.sorts of ways and to give people a chance when they make.their friends. But I'm.now.not entirely sure that's enough going by some.of the responses here.

It doesn’t matter why a child avoids another, they have every right to, for whatever reason.

The fact that you think this, and admit to it, sums up the problem brilliantly.

NO ONE IS SAYING YOUR CHILD SHOULDN’T HAVE BOUNDARIES

They are saying my child shouldn’t be able to decide on her boundaries for herself. The OP is denying that my child’s rights to do that ‘trump’ her children’s rights to interaction...with my child. That isn’t reasonable. Nobody has a right to interact with my child. If she wants to go to school and not talk to a single person all day, I will support her in that decision to the hilt. She is a person, not a facility for the other children. That goes for the OP’s children as well.

and don’t start equating this with racism or homophobia, you are being really disgusting now.

They are saying my child shouldn’t be able to decide on her boundaries for herself.

No, they are not.

If your child decides that their boundaries are that they hate black, Muslim, Jewish or gay people, you’d damn well have something to say about it.

I’m being disgusting? How dare you say they’re not to be equated? The comments here on this thread about disabled people would never be allowed to stand if they were about any of those groups.

Sinkgirl, seriously stop. That is not what this thread is about. I get that it is really hard for you, but don’t start being racist.

People get very black and white on this one, they divide kids into either Sen/ disabled or popular/ confident/ able to adapt. The reality is less straightforward, kids have their own immaturities, anxieties, inflexibilities or simply aren’t that good with social awareness because they are only kids themselves. Politeness is usually the first step in growing into decent people.

For example I’d have been the girl walking off on the way to school. Not because I judged your son or disliked him, but because I was actually shy and awkward outside a few safe friendships. I was inflexible from nervousness and stuck to routines, such as walking alone, as part of coping and avoiding dealing with complex social situations. I was often perceived as aloof, I wasn’t. I could be animated with a known few, and this made it worse.

One of my dds sounds like your kids, she’s certainly had a lack of politeness (pushing into meltdowns for example for entertainment) and exclusion (mainly from adults) due to her LD/ ASD. My son though has the other end. Everyone knows him and he’s that in the middle of everything. He has though had some tricky friendships where parents have put expectations beyond his years on him though. For example he had a very tactile friend, his mum kept pushing him to accept being touched or even hit. My son has genuine sensory difficulties with touch, and he ended up crying at night. It really stressed him out coupled with the adult pressure that a nice would understand. He wanted to be nice and was conflicted. He looks so popular, but it’s because he’s very skilled at sport and full of energy. Not because he’s socially mature or flexible or skilled in social skills. Teachers have pushed him to play with people 1:1 before and he’s been unable to think of words, then seen as not trying! At age 6 he was a happy little thing who could run around with a ball but simply didn’t have the transferable skills to lead a conversation with a new child with different interests. He needed adult support to do something like that (with an adult actually guiding he’d be happy to play in this way, he just didn’t have the ability to do it himself or know what to do).

I’m waffling, but as a parent of both disabled and ‘NT’ children I honestly feel sometimes we forget kids are just kids. At primary age the majority are not socially developed and they need to be actively shown and taught, usually repeatedly. Even if you tell them how to act, they often can’t apply it. They need guiding through things.

With my daughter in the walking to school situation I’d probably facilitate chat initially, greet the child, maybe compliment her or ask something about her. Relate it to my daughter and guide them into conversation with my support.

I also teach my daughter clear openers. If she just walks up to other kids they often ignore her. 99% are actually receptive to something simple like ‘can I join in play’ or I teach her to comment on something they say. I observed her for a bit, she was unaware and used to either try to start games of her own in the middle of established games or talk to one person in a group and separate them off. She’s clearly happier with her small set of opening tactics to being included, and it mostly works. The other kids weren’t excluding, the communication was just a bit out mutually.

Kids are kids. Kids are impulsive, do things without thinking, have far less social awareness than adults. There’s no sense in blaming other children, but working with them helps. It’s harder, I’ve seen with my daughter, and it can be sad. But with good support and guidance there are ways forward. Start play dates, read social stories, teach personal space (I used the arm length rule), talk to parents directly, ask school about support and just be proactive. My kids over the years have had massive fall outs, upsets and unkind behaviour from decent kid they also have good friendships with. There are very few bad kids out there, more mistakes, low awareness and poor guidance.

Do the children who reject your DC know your DC have disabilities?

No, they are not.

Yes, they are. If my child wants to politely avoid a conversation with another child, that is her right. The OP is blaming a young girl for not providing opportunities for her child to interact socially...when that young girl is not obliged to interact with her child or any other child. She set her own boundary, politely and kindly.

It would not occur to me that my child would ever ‘hate’ anyone for any arbitrary reason. If she does I will be very upset and will teach her - as I have said - about prejudice. But she will go to school in the knowledge that I will support her right to decide when she does and does not wish to interact.

Sinkgirl it's not your child we'd be avoiding it would be you and your hostility and inability to rationalise even when people are going to great lengths nevermind patience to try and explain.

The situation with the girl who took the long way round isn’t in isolation, the way that some of you are assuming. It was just one I wrote about. I could write about dozens from the first day back at school. It’s not just one girl maybe having a bad day or having their own personal space issues. It’s constant. It was twenty other social interactions over the next ten minutes being exactly the same. It’s the inclusive genuine reaction and connection being the exception, not the rule. It’s a world , a society being built and maintained to exclude those who have learning disabilities.

Sinkgirl, seriously stop. That is not what this thread is about. I get that it is really hard for you, but don’t start being racist

Oh stop with your condescending bollocks.

Oh god, ignore me, I did t realise the thread was this long!!!