AIBU about another parent saying my kid has learning difficulties

[Buyer97462]

Hi

My daughter who is 7 has a best friend. Said best friend came to our house after school today and said his Dad had said she has learning difficulties (I don't know the context of the conversation). Daughter is autistic and slightly ADHD but doesn't have any learning difficulties.

Am I unreasonable to be upset by this? I am hopefully not upsetting parents of children with learning difficulties but my child is perfectly capable they just struggle socially. It's particularly upsetting as she has a very small circle of friends and I do worry this kind of impression will make relationships harder.

Apologies I am not saying there is anything wrong with having learning difficulties and probably not putting this across very well.

Am I being unreasonable at being a it upset?
Edited for typo

Very gently OP, I think that you will need to develop a slightly thicker skin. When your child has various diagnosis (mine has Autism, ADHD, GAD and SLD) you will find that people will judge them (and you as a parent!) and label them - mostly due to ignorance, rather than nastiness in my experience.

As a parent we can't control other people reactions to our kids and the way that they are. What we can control is our response, and the way that we frame our children's neurodiversity. Maybe this is a great opportunity to explain to your daughter that everyone is different, we all have things we are brilliant at and things that we find harder, and that's OK. Turn what you perceive as a negative slur to a positive.

You aren’t, hope you come back to thread.

I think it’s mostly because people don’t walk around with a post-it on their forehead announcing what condition they may or may not have, it’s not immediately obvious what you should call it. So saying oh they’re autistic when maybe they have ADHD or another condition can be seen as derogatory. Also in this particular context when it’s child to child the condition could lead to broader mistakes with other people so it’s best to just use a “safer” term

It's just a fad today to say "my child is (slightly) ASD, ADHD, has anxiety..." etc. all fuelled by social media. I don't know how can someone be "slightly ADHD". Either you are or you are not. ADHD is a diagnosis.
It's actually bordering on insane nowadays, at schools as well. 1 in 5 kids in the UK is SEN compared to 5 in 100 in the EU. Something has gone horribly wrong somewhere and I think we are often simply mislabelling normal differences in children's development and misdiagnosing them as a disability.

I appreciate it's a sensitive topic for you but as pp say please don't assume ill-intent.
I will also say that if I tried to answer my own child's questions about another child in a sensitive and inclusive way and you came at me based on the way a 7 year old had repeated it I wouldn't be rushing to organise any other playdates.
Some posters on this thread expect a much higher level of understanding of SEN than the person in the street is likely to have. Surely a brief explanation of someone's difficulties, even if the wording is slightly off, is better than brushing it under the carpet?

That sounds really rude, do you feel better now?

‘Slightly ADHD’? I’m not sure it’s other people you need to worry about labelling your daughter incorrectly

No, you are absolutely reasonable to be upset by this parents misunderstanding - ableist as it is - of what ND conditions are and involve.

I’m afraid (being AuDHD myself with AuDHD children and siblings) I would not let this lie and would drop him a message along the lines of:

Hi friends Dad. I understand that you seem to be labouring under the misunderstanding that a diagnosis of ND means an individual has learning difficulties. And also that it is appropriate to discuss that belief in the presence of the child concerned, who is now confused and upset. I’d be grateful if you could withhold such opinions and refrain from mislabelling and discussing my child’s needs in their presence, especially given they are of no concern of yours. I had hoped to frame this message gently, but it is difficult to do so when your child has been upset by such thoughtlessness and ignorance. Happy to refer you to some educational links to help you learn more if you are interested.’

Yes dear troll, I absolutely agree. People with ADHD and/or autism must universally be disabled.

I have ADHD and work in a public facing profession earning well over £100000, paid off my house early and have been offered positions within 3 separate organisations this year due to the quality of my work (despite high levels of unemployment within my industry). I sing at high level and am on the way to a diploma in music performance. My sister is autistic, at med-school and rows for her university.

But yes, disabled... Just like you said. I'll have to reflect on exactly how we're disabled, but I'm sure it will come to me.

If you need help with this, l can give you my nieces contact details -she has a PhD as well as diagnoses of Autism and ADHD. Maybe between the 2 of you then you can muddle through it and / or put the troll under the bridge…

It sounds like you are incredibly over sensitive.
There are way bigger hills to die on.

I am the same! Hugely successful and very happy.
But I also have a disability. The two are not mutually exclusive. If you think disability is a dirty or negative thing to be, thats on you and your own moral compass, innit.

I'd try not to overthink it OP, it might be as simple as them thinking ASD is a type of learning disability/difficulty. ASD + learning difficulties would have been called classic autism back in the day.

Disability and learning difficulties are two different things. I think a PP has demonstrated the misunderstandings there are around the language though.

ASD is considered a disability, but it doesn't necessarily mean the person has learning difficulties.

So if his dd asks questions about Ops daughter, he is just supposed to ignore it or direct his child to, "ask a medical doctor"?

Our family profile is similar. We have one DC who is currently ‘disabled’ as a result of AuDHD comorbid MH issues that we are working to resolve, but the rest of us are individually successful and count a couple of millionaires within the family AuDHD network, along with a NASA consultant, doctors x3, lawyer and riding stable owner/showjumper.

As @x2boys states - ASD/ADHD/AuDHD are conditions where incidence of other LDs/disabilities may also occur (possibly at a higher incidence vis a vis NT individuals, although I wonder whether it is simply that diagnosis for those occurs more readily if you are already receiving support for AuDHD). I would not say that any of the aforementioned people are necessarily easy to live with [me, especially] and nor do they navigate their lives and relationships without significant obstacles, but ‘disabled’?

Yes, he should say ‘I understand your friend is AuDHD but I’m afraid daddy doesn’t really now much about it, so perhaps you can ask your friend or her mummy when you go to play next time’.

Bloody hell. Don't say anything like this!

The OP specifically says in a comment that her daughter "brushed it off" - it's the OP who is offended, not her daughter. Taking this aggressive approach with the Dad won't educate him, it will alienate him - and that will have a knock on effect on OP's daughter's friendship. It is not always easy to find a close friendship as a neurodivergent child - preserving and nurturing that is so much more important than a moment of catharsis for the parent!

If the issue MUST be addressed (and I really don't think it needs to be), then a gentle face to face conversation with the Dad - along the lines of "Just wanted to check - I think there might have been some confusion along the line somewhere..."

But being neurodivergent doesn't mean you automatically have learning impairments, which I think is the point. You don't automatically have a deficit just because your brain works 'differently' or because you don't process information in a way a school says you should.

Additionally - many of those with autism and ADHD demonstrate a HIGHER level of capability by doing the learning AND translating the teaching style into something they can use.

Like I said - I am AuDHD too. And absolutely sick of ableist assumptions.

I have neurodiverse kids and although they don't have learning difficulties, they do have SEN. (They can learn at normal level but need TA to keep them on task and remind them what they're meant to be doing). Dose you DD have any additional suport at school? If so it's possible the friend has asked about it and the dad tried to explain but either him or the child mixed up the terms.

Disability is not a dirty word at all to me. The key word in my response was universally.

I consider my ADHD in certain respects hugely advantageous to me - my hyperfocus stops me making mistakes (deadly within my industry), I think outside the box and enjoy having a large number of projects on the go.

A person is disabled under the Equality Act 2010 if they have a physical or mental impairment that has a ‘substantial’ and ‘long-term’ negative effect on their ability to do normal daily activities.

None of this applies to me. I may get sensory overload, struggle with concentrating on tasks that bore me, struggle with executive function tasks e.g. washing/drying clothes but none of this is disabling. I'm able to do my ADLs just fine.

I think the assumption that neurodivergence = disability is incorrect. Disability causing a significant and long-term impact on ADLs may affect some neurodivergent people, but is not a universal experience.

What would you hope to achieve by such an aggressive approach? Ok, so you get to set him straight. But it would be moot if the girls spend much less time together because you've burned your bridges with the family. All on the say-so of a young child.

@CautiousLurker2 I'm with you. Ableist assumptions abound, and they suck. But there are situations where it is fruitful to fight against that, and situations (such as the OP's daughter's friendship), where the main impact would just be harm to the neurodivergent child involved in this.

I really think taking an aggressive approach like that with the father would be an adult ego trip, not truly in the interests of OP's daughter.

Also - it's inevitably the case that we don't truly engage with things on a deep level until we are impacted ourselves. I would not have done the enormous amount of reading I have about neurodivergent brains if my own child didn't have one! I think we need to be a bit empathetic to people not getting it 100% right 100% of the time. My family is not in any way impacted by physical disability. I hope I am not ableist in relation to that, but I bet there are some things I don't know and might get wrong. If that's the case, a gentle nudge would be way more effective in changing my attitudes and behaviours than an attack.

ASD and ADHD are considered disabilities under the Equality Act 2010. A learning difficulty is a different thing. You are still legally considered disabled even if you don't consider yourself disabled. ADHD causes a significant and long term impact on people, it might not all be bad and some might be very good - but to get a diagnosis it should cause a significant and long term impact on you. Of course though it is your 'normal' so you may have excellent ways to deal with the issues it causes and built your life to work with it.