Crying over French attitude to my autistic son

[Luckyloubytwo]

We are in France at the moment and having a mostly wonderful time. DS 9 has asd but is usually fairly easy going, quiet, and you wouldn't notice he was different to other children.

However, yesterday and today he has had a huge meltdown in public. When this happens in the UK it is difficult but people generally are understanding and mimd their own business. However, here it seems to bring the whole town to a standstill. People will just stop in their tracks and stare. Today we were in a busy area and it seemed to bring everyone to a halt. We all got very upset back at the car and I just can't stop crying.

I am just feeling so upset at the attitude of the French people towards our son.

Autism diagnosis rates in the us are similar to uk if not higher. Half the class is very high though, is there some reason why parents of autistic children are attracted to that school, eg. Small school? Good reputation for Sen? Your post makes it sound like you doubt the diagnosis

Ive been told by a couple of the mum's to try and get dd diagnosed so I could get PIP but I can't do that as there's nothing wrong with her, no amount of money would make me do this.

You won't get PIP for a child so I doubt they said that and if your child doesn't have any issues you wouldn't get it anyway. You need evidence and DLA is given on care needs, not diagnosis.

How on earth do you know the private medical information about every child in your kid's class?

Why in the UK does every other child have autism? I'd say it's half DD class. My sister lives in USA, no children in her ds class. Wonder why it's so prevalent in the UK and not in other countries?

Hmmm

Ive been told by a couple of the mum's to try and get dd diagnosed so I could get PIP but I can't do that as there's nothing wrong with her, no amount of money would make me do thi

👍🏻

Pip is only available to over 16s do your daughter would need to apply herself if she’s that age.

dla which is for under 16s is based on care needs not diagnosis so you can still get if her care needs are higher than a typical child her age regardless of diagnosis if you have supporting evidence. Likewise you won’t get dla with diagnosis if care needs are no higher than typical child.

my son is in a specialist asd schools and one of the girls is now very obviously asd but it took her mum a very long time to get a diagnosis and support as she was a young mum so she was tarred with “you are only trying to get a diagnosis to get benefits “

This is such a strange comment. Are you saying that if you were in an uncomfortable and difficult situation in public, it wouldn't make it worse to have a load of people stop and stare at you? I'm autistic and sometimes break down in public. If people didn't politely ignore me but instead stopped and just STARED, I would find it very hard to go out in public at all in case it happened. It's embarrassing enough already when it happens without the additional humiliation of blatantly being stared at.

the amount of posts about how frankly shit English people are, and the uk in general and I’ve not seen the amount of pushback I’ve seen in this thread
say anything negative about France and it’s shock horror all round

sorry that happened to you OP. I’d be so anxious in that scenario. Hope you’re ok

🙄

I am sorry pp have lacked such empathy and understanding of your awful predicament op, instead jumping to defending the indefensible. Usually linked to their own life choices/blinkered narrow thinking.

We assume western countries have moved on in the same ways as us, when many are decades behind. Some countries revel in sticking with ‘traditions’ and not developing/expanding. The same number of autistic people will be everywhere but many will be deterred by stigma, hate or lack of provision.

I love France but they have a cultural revulsion for any imperfection, but I see a back lash this summer with many French people sporting tattoos ( I haven’t seen that many in the south before) and visibly western branded clothes and seem less indoctrinated than before. I am not saying it is a good or bad thing - but a free thinking democracy should welcome everyone

Equally many people resent it when the UK sets itself up as the global arbitrator of "what constitutes good manners".
Staring is rude in some places, it isn't in others. If you find it rude then maybe travelling to a country where its common and expecting them to suddenly change their ways because "lo, a Brit has arrived to show us how to do it" is a tad arrogant.
This isn't aimed at the OP btw, sounds like she had a difficult day and the staring was the last straw. I hope it helps her a tiny bit to know it wasn't personal to her or her son.

The words are really strong full of personal opinion. France has been one of the richest country for a reason. Its many industries are extremely successful (not only tourism). There are things really work for the best interest of the country. We met many really caring French people who do care how to change the society and the world in a bigger and very positive way by sacrifice themselves. When you judge someone else with this extreme views, it renders yourself opinionated instead of speaking for truth.

We lived in both countries for many years. In fact, UK is far from perfect and can't be called "wiser" than France. Sorry if it upsets you to hear!

Whatevs. The point is that for autistic people clear rules make things easier.

A comparatively indirect culture like the UK can be more difficult and stressful to negotiate. Difficulties + stress can equal tantrum, meltdown or other term of your preference.

I have reported the post quoted above, it is hate speech.

I know staring is considered normal in some cultures, but I can’t get past feeling that’s is intimidating and downright ignorant.

That’s why I would never go to to China for example, or other parts of south east Asia.

I love France, and it’s not perfect, but on the whole it’s a better place to live than the Uk.and i think it gets most things right, including respecting workers rights and looking after it’s public services.
it also has an decent health care system.

So pleased you have a cure for meltdowns - if only all parents were just clearer Then they’d have a much easier life 🙄

Culture. Not parents.

Must be because it's just so easy to get a child diagnosed as autistic in this country.....literally handing a diagnosis out to anyone who asks really. All those tales of waiting lists more than 2 years (if you can even get on one in the first place) are nonsense. And don't get me started on how easy it is to get DLA or PIP!

FFS. Probably the most stupid post I have ever read on here. 🙄

I worked in an English school with a lot of French kids, and I must say unfortunately they were the most disrespectful children in the whole school. They were actually the only children in the school who would have temper tantrums if they, for example, lost a football match or didn't get the dormitory they wanted that term. Sometimes these tantrums got physical. Unlike the English pupils, they would not accept "no" and would immediately resort to sulking, begging or shouting. I'm aware that this is merely one person's experience, but I'm just saying, from living and working with children of several nationalities for a while, what people are saying about English and French children is the exact opposite of what I've witnessed. It could well be that these particular children were spoilt at home, or had issues due to their parents sending them away to boarding school, but the behaviour of this particular cohort of students was quite striking compared to the other students.
I can also see how it's true that French kids do expect to be treated more like adults, but in my experience this had no positive effect on their behaviour. It meant they couldn't, unlike the English students, accept having set bedtimes, for example, or being told to be quiet when adults were speaking, because these kinds of separations between what's expected of children and adults wasn't familiar to them.

This isn't aimed at the OP btw, sounds like she had a difficult day and the staring was the last straw. I hope it helps her a tiny bit to know it wasn't personal to her or her son. as said before this isn’t OPs first experience of being in public with her disabled child, it isn’t her first experience of French staring she is reporting something MORE.

Part of the problem with the idea that there are less autistic people in France because of their superior child rearing a social expectations is that it owes much of its origins to the French model of autism being caused by upbringing. It’s true that they have tried to enforce a more widely accepted idea that autism is a neurological condition since 2018 but the ideas are still there and evident in the responses on this thread.

To the poster up thread avoiding the Far East because they fear the atmosphere will be unwelcoming, my experience is exactly the opposite and the welcome and acceptance have at times been overwhelming.

National Autistic Society still has the same statistics for diagnosis as it did when my ds was diagnosed 16 years ago ie 1 in 100 in America the stats are roughly the same.

*Why in the UK does every other child have autism? I'd say it's half DD class. My sister lives in USA, no children in her ds class. Wonder why it's so prevalent in the UK and not in other countries?
*
This is generally bollocks on a lot of levels.

I don't think I would describe the UK as very child friendly either. Like France, it's OK, but I have a lot of issues with how young people are treated in UK too. Living in France and raising kids my personal experience was that it's not particularly geared to kids. In the South there were very few playgrounds and often tarmac, instead of safe surfaces used, There was little play equipment and few playgroups. Libraries did not have children's activities or areas particularly designed for children. Museums had little interactive exhibits, often just crayons and paper, and charged high entrance fees. Maternelle had few books and toys and just a lawn to play on, with no outside play areas. There were very few swimming pools, very few extra curricular activities. That was my area and obviously parts of the South are quite poor. It seemed to me, however, that children were not prioritised in town development or activities. I did feel that adults were keen for children to fit in and conform and nobody seemed aware of neuro diversity or how that makes it difficult for some children to conform. Not that people were unkind, just old fashioned, I feel.

Excuse you???????