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?

Dot - perhaps he had different interests to then? People want to interact with people that enjoy the same things. It not purposeful exclusion because they have SN but they maybe just don't have anything in common. My BFs son has SN he is obsessed with gaming my son is obsessed with football. Neither boy wants to play with the other because they don't enjoy the same things. It's not because one has SN. NT kids are the same - some they get in with some they don't. Unfortunately having SN means that often they are unlikely to have the same interests as others but you can't force kids to enjoy something they don't

Newnewnewnew - I'm actually astounded at your wording....

Newnewnewnew - Your post is very poorly worded.

@MaryBerrysBomberJacket. I have to thank you again. Your posts are magnificent. Unfortunately you seem to be being ignored by the more angry posters of children with SN. Which is somewhat ironic.

@sunshinedaisydo - I agree. That post really takes the biscuit.

Sympathies to those on the receiving end of a pile on, Hercule particularly.

There are so many conversations at cross purposes here, it's frustrating.

My situation - one child ND, two NT. My kids have friends across a range of abilities, ethnicities, sexualities, both NT and ND.

My ND child struck up a friendship with an older child with LD and some associated complications. They had a shared love of a couple of topics. DS accepted this teens outbursts as part of how he processed things, didn't take it personally, tolerated physical contact ds really hated by only saying "I would rather you didn't do that" as coached by the school.
That young person seriously assaulted my son in a rage over a small perceived slight.
School and the authorities all defended the teen as "he couldn't help himself" but my child was terrified and damaged. It's had a profound effect lasting years. He'd been repeatedly told to not enforce his boundaries by school to accomodate the SN of the young person.

I aapreciate that teen had a terrible start in life and has many obstacles to overcome. I don't wish him ill but I sure as hell want to prevent him having access to my child again. And for circumstances to be managed so he is not alone with younger, weaker students while his impulse control is so poor.

I will never again advise any child to accept the overstepping of physical boundaries in the name of 'inclusion'. I had applauded my son's tolerance and forebearance like a nice polite boy right up to that forebearance getting him abused. I feel guilty.
Safeguarding isn't a theory, it need to be at the forefront.

Obviously "not all SN are violent" but when the OP mentions poor boundaries or impulse control, there are reasons not to tolerate that, especially as those children get bigger and stronger and less easy to contain when angry/upset.

So I heartily endorse those saying children should absolutely be empowered to enforce their boundaries despite the reasons for someone overstepping them.

Only as an adult do you have the patience for different types of people.

This isn’t my experience. My children like all sorts of people of different ages, abilities, and backgrounds, as do I. I feel so sorry for people who don’t understand the joy of different, what drab predictable blinkered little lives they must live. If children feel like this their parents have failed to show them the world and should be ask8ng themselves why? To me no different than failing to expose them to books, music, art, exercise, or love.

NewNewNewNew

You are vile

Newnewnewnew - I'm actually astounded at your wording...

Apparently she’s new. 🤷‍♀️

hollygoloudly1 thank you. I am desperate, really fucking desperate, for those reacting with anger to read what I have written and think about it.

I am all things in this situation. I am that child. I am the parent. I am the teacher. We cannot expect kids to do this. As parents we can support but no force. We can educate and model, but not expect them to act like adults.

Please, please stop accusing parents who say we need to respect boundaries as excluding people. I would have walked the long way around. I would have been polite and then looked for my mum because I was awkward. Are you going to call me a bully? A twat? Ablist? Even now I don't really know how to respond in certain situations, as I child I had no fucking idea. Even now I might do it, because sometimes I'm still overstimulated by the world, let alone someone in my vicinity.

These are children. Remember that. Be the parent; support your child, help them navigate the world, because the world will not change to suit them. Trust me. We find our own way, our own people. Demanding that the world bends, using some of the language here about children who do not know how to do more than be polite... it won't work.

Can we please have a discussion here without the aggression and name calling? We might actually learn something.

I agree with a lot of what you've been writing but just to point out as well, you are talking about how you feel (which is a great insight) but it isn't how my son feels so like everything, we can't assume all children with SN feel like you do and want what you want.

Yes, it is often just about common interests and applies not just to SN children. Every class in the country will have some children not prepared to play with others particularly as they get older because they don't share the same hobbies etc.

On the little girl not walking the 5 mins with the SN child, when I was a teenager I would cross the road even if just a neighbour I knew was coming because I would rather not talk to anyone. I don't think that made me a bad young girl. It was just how I was.

Also young children are not as sophisticated as adults and it can be safer if we tell them just to keep themselves in situations where they feel comfortable so if someone who might be going to hurt them (usually an adult or teenager) lurches towards them or appears a threat (and I am sure parents of SN needs children say the same to their children) keep yourself away from that perceived threat.

Then as they get bigger in teens children's friends become even more a complicated issue with all kinds of layers and levels of difficulty for many. Even primary school children often go through a phase of only wanting to play with the same sex in the play ground eg that does not mean they are being exclusionary awful people that the girls aren't playing with the boys. It is just how it is and their own choice just as we all have people we find sexually attractive and marry which might appear arbitrary but is up to us - we aren't told our bride or bridegroom by the Big State or our cult leader.

whateverhappens Nope, not in my brother's case. The rejection (and outright bullying) had nothing to do with shared interests. It had everything to do with his disability.

blog.optimus-education.com/shocking-truth-about-disablist-bullying

Why should a kid without special needs have to drain their time and energy with someone they have nothing in common with and don't derive any pleasure from?!

What a vile attitude you have.
What if every child in the class had this train of thought? Would you feel it was their right to not bother with a child in a wheelchair?

Every single one of them? How on earth do you think that child would feel?

That goes for all of the posters thinking it’s perfectly fine for their child not to be friends with a child with a disability.

What if that were your child? Would you be understanding of everyone not wanting to be their friend?

*That goes for all of the posters thinking it’s perfectly fine for their child not to be friends with a child with a disability.

What if that were your child? Would you be understanding of everyone not wanting to be their friend?*

I would think they were being very unfair. I would accept that they had the right to not to build a friendship with my child. I would not accept them excluding my child in lessons or group activities.

Dot- and that is unacceptable - and everyone on this thread has said that is unacceptable. But there is a difference between being tolerant and kind - which is how your brother should have been treated - and forcing children to socially interact in their free time with other children they don't enjoy spending time with. If the thread had been "my son is being bullied for his special needs" it wouldn't have been so long. Instead the thread is "my child is being treated in a kind and friendly manner, but that is not enough for me"

The truth is that far more people become disabled than are born that way. Build the world you want to live in guys.

Newnewnewnew- your making it worse, please stop.

It's really odd. The ones demanding understanding are the ones most lacking it on this thread 🤷

Brass - I agree

But every single child in the class didn’t want to be that child’s friend in the wheelchair? They didn’t get invited to any parties, they didn’t get invited to play at one of their classmates house, they weren’t included in sleepovers or the little games that children play in the school yard.

I can’t imagine anyone would be able to look themselves in the mirror and say “well my child has the right not to be friends with her/him” because if every parent thought like that and nobody encouraged their child to include the child in the wheelchair we might as well all give up.

If it were my kid, of course I would not be happy, but I wouldn't force anyone to be friends with them.
I wouldn't expect people to magically find something in common with them.
I'd understand.
Life is unfair.

new, look at your language. You describe children with SN as 'exhausting' and a 'drain' on children without SN.

In a way, having a DC with SN is a blessing as all the disablist cunts aren't a part of our life anymore. I have seen so many people show their true colours since my DCs diagnosis. I absolutely cringe when I think I thought I had things in common with these so called friends. Luckily my NT child has a completely different approach to children with SN: kind, non judgemental, sees the ability, not the disability. She is only 8, very popular child but has cut off already quite a few 'friends' as she won't engage with disablist bullies. If an 8 year old manages this kind of attitude, I really don't understand why so many adults cannot even display an ounce of the compassion some children have. At least we don't have to engage with these kind of lowlifes anymore and are the richer for it.

But every single child in the class didn’t want to be that child’s friend in the wheelchair? They didn’t get invited to any parties, they didn’t get invited to play at one of their classmates house, they weren’t included in sleepovers or the little games that children play in the school yard.

I agree, it’s horrible. But each individual child has the right to decide not to invite someone to play at their home, or to a sleepover. These are intimate things. If two children are not close friends, you can’t expect them.