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?

NEw
Your post are vile

Hercule - Do you think it is okay to invite the entire class to a party apart from the child with a disability?

I think you get more out of playing with a diverse group than sticking to people just like you.

Hercule - Do you think it is okay to invite the entire class to a party apart from the child with a disability?

No. Unless that disability makes them behave in unsafe ways that can’t be managed.

The ones demanding understanding are the ones most lacking it on this thread

I agree. However, I think we probably disagree about who is demanding understanding and who lacks it.

No one would think it right to invite an entire class to a party except from one SN kid (unless that kid was physically violent) but when they get older they start having smaller parties and presumably that's when some of these children get excluded. I would think very badly if any parent who had a class party and didn't invite a child in a wheelchair. That said we are now bringing physical disabilities into the equation which is quite different from the original OP

When does the unwillingness to include or form a friendship with a person with a disability become something abhorrent as an adult? When do you think the magical switch is, what age?

What would make a person who as a child didn’t want to be friends with a child with a disability suddenly think “shit what was I thinking and why was allowed and coddled by my parents to behave like this?

Or does that carry on into adulthood? Is that why some people are truly disablist?

I should have made it clearer.
I was talking from my own perspective and my own experience as a child.
However, like a poster above said the people that want tolerance do not extend that to others.
No one wants kids to miss out on a childhood, it's the best time ever, but expecting kids to just be polite and extend more of themselves is unrealistic.
Bullying someone is not excusable, but being offended a little girl was polite and walked the long way around!!

My dd didn’t have any problem at that age, or younger, about expressing her feelings if someone invaded her space or did anything else she felt uncomfortable with. Being unsure of herself in a social situation is an alien concept.

But not all dc have that same confidence, and it’s not fair to judge them as somehow lacking or unkind because they have equally nice but different personalities.

A child who is, or perhaps appears confident in a familiar situation or with people they feel comfortable with, is not automatically blessed with the composure and confidence to tell a child they are uncomfortable with x behaviour, especially when they are presumably in sight and earshot of the mother as in the op.

Not forgetting that even if they do naturally possess that type of personality, they can have their own sn or other problems.

What would make a person who as a child didn’t want to be friends with a child with a disability suddenly think “shit what was I thinking and why was allowed and coddled by my parents to behave like this?

It is not coddling my child to allow them to choose their own friends.

I have autism, I had very few friends because children can sense something was different. However as an adult I would hate to be forced to spend time with someone I had nothing in common with or made me feel uncomfortable, not even mentioning if they were in my space without warning. If children have nothing in common or feel uncomfortable then that's just what happens, you can't force them to be friends.

I can't force my children to ignore their boundaries, they help keep children safe.

Could the school have interest groups? So children with the same interests can get to know each other, that might help?

You’ve already made that clear Hercule but what about the rest of my post?

When does it become ok as a child to not include a disabled child but something abhorrent as an adult? And how do you think that person makes the change in attitude and is it ok it they keep their mindset throughout their life?

This has to be one of the worst threads i have read on mn, the othering of children with sn and the awful heard hearted attitude is so sad.
A lot has been made of letting nt children be children, but no such considerations of children with sn.
Once again i so glad that we never went down the mainstream route.
I was also lucky that my dd had some nice nt home friends.

When does it become ok as a child to not include a disabled child but something abhorrent as an adult? And how do you think that person makes the change in attitude and is it ok it they keep their mindset throughout their life?

I imagine as they grow up and develop more empathy and insight into the nature of different disabilities, they become less anxious and conscious of difference.

Samcro - couldn't agree more

I imagine as they grow up and develop more empathy and insight into the nature of different disabilities, they become less anxious and conscious of difference

Who knows, you’d hope so. I think the issue is a complex one and not something that might just disappear with age.

. I think the issue is a complex one and not something that might just disappear with age.

The child has to be taught as well.

Dot- no I don't mean kids with SN are violent. There are a lot of violent incidents in schools and the victims and perpetrators are both kids who are NT and have SN.

My oldest was at school at the kid next to him suddenly freaked out and try to strangle him. (He didn't do anything to deserve this attack)

All 3 of my kids have witnessed kids freak out and kick, hit, throw tables and chairs etc My 16yo dd saw a boy lose control and throw a glass test tube (I think) and it hit a girl who has a big scar on her neck where the glass broke. No idea if these kids had SN but it's common knowledge that kids aren't always safe at school.

After a violent incident, kids obviously give that child a wide berth and they are also told to leave the child they hurt alone.

Whateverhappenstheremore - your basically talking about segregation.

Samcro I think a good point has come out of your post. OP should be angry about the lack of funding that prevents her child from finding likeminded children to socially integrate with. Instead her anger is directed at parents of/ and NT children - who just want to be children and naturally want to enjoy playing the games they want to play, with the kids they share a commonality with

It sounds like you're saying children with SN should be squirrelled away in more expensive special schools so the normal children can get on with playing....I really hope that's not what you're meaning to say.

OP should be angry about the lack of funding that prevents her child from finding likeminded children to socially integrate with. Instead her anger is directed at parents of/ and NT children - who just want to be children. Did you support apartheid too?

No I am saying that Samcro's daughter was much happier in a specific school that catered for her needs and many children who could do the same are prevented from doing so. Most children with SN do very well in mainstream but some do not, and for some children they don't have the option. It's like some of you are just determined to see the bad in everything anyone says!

How the hell would funding do that?? Are you talking about special schools? Because I don’t think op was

Perhaps I have more direct experience of special schools than you @whateverhappenstheremore