to be fed up with people saying " how do you cope, I couldn't you must be really special"

[2shoestrodonalltheeggs]

ok so dd is severley disabled but that doesn't make me specail, and what am I suppsed to do......not cope!!!

The way the mother at the swings post came across to me was slightly different. What I read was another mother trying to find common ground with another parent, full stop. In the same way I would ask another parent how old their child was when meeting them for the first time or commenting on their beautiful eyes (the child's!) etc. To me the other mother was saying, 'Look both our children love the swings!', perhaps as a prelude to a conversation.

Surely the intention is the important thing. Someone who says something with malice is despicable and I am shocked that people voice some of the comments I have seen on this and other threads, not least because it makes them look so unpleasant and stupid. I have also noticed that people who have children with disabilities or are carers for other relatives etc don't agree on what they find offensive in terms of appropriate words etc so how the hell is anyone else supposed to know?

You can't know, just like you can never know what the right thing is to say to someone who's just lost a loved one - there is no 'right' thing. All you can do is try and make yourself heard from the best intentions. I've learned a lot from this thread but I really hope I'll still try and do that and not just turn away/walk on by just in case I inadvertently piss someone off.

both my children, stillenacht are NT, although DS has dyslexia and related issues, so i have seen a tiny, microscopic little chink into the world of SN, of ed psychs and SENCOs and seeing him struggle to keep up with his peers and sobbing over his homework, because he just cannot , cannot understand and compute what is in front of him. if you have been on MN for more than about 5 minutes, i think it is fair to say you should realise i am neither patronising or nasty, and certainly never intentionally so!

i do really agree with justabout's last post, especially the last few sentences.

thing is stillenacht, you want to be asked , that is great. the next mother or father asked my be totally sick of being asked about their child and their needs . of being stared at and treated as public property

people come out with cliches because it is the path of least resistance, something nice to say , without much thought and certainly not malice.

this thread has demonstarted that there is no set answer to the question and that 99 % of people mean what they say kindly

the thing is, if people said nothing then some would be unhappy with that as well.

In fact I have seen posts from people on here saying that parents of NT children just don't understand how hard it is/have no idea what it's really like to be worried about a child's development/eating/health etc etc. And I agree, we don't. But it seems that when people acknowledge that it's wrong also.

i know, damned if you do, damned if you don;t

as i said earlier, why is it so terrible to acknowledge and admire parents who do cope with a huge amount? since when did that become wrong and patronising

What does matter though is that somenoe says something

I find rather than daft comments I mainly get people standing the other side of the playground

Now I sorta understand: I have 2 sn kids, some no doubt cottoned on that ds2 also has stuff going on before I did (you know, it's incredibly obvious now someone says- we put it down to being attention starved with his ds's though).

So people who don't know us well enough to know how much we input etc might well think the behaviours the boys have are as a result of neglect rather than ctually, massively improved after lots of input.

maybe they assume that we're in school telling them to leve off ds1, wheras I actually ask them to be strict.

So I understand but I don't like. I haven't seen ds1's Godmother, a lady who was my best friend for a decade, since he had a meltdown in front of her 5 years ago.

What does mmake me PMSL is this idea that we do cope. I will happily raise my ahnds and say not always. And if I am coping mostly now when ds1 is 9, I am aware that if he takes after his dad in 2 years he will have a mega growth spurt and it will be a child as tall as me trying to throttle me, not one a foot smaller. I know that restraining him will become impossible, but also that we still won't qualify for help with him, although apparently we will with ds3 as his dx is considered more severe even if the rpesentation is copable with fairly easily.

I don't want people to say 'God, that tough' I want people to say 'oooh nice shoes' or 'have you had a haircut?' because I didn't vanish the minute the DX's arrived. I occupy the SN world enough thanks, I'd quite like to have a way to get outside it now and then.
If the ds's act up, resume the conversation afterwards.pretend for me for five minutes that everything is OK. I'll love you for it.

'the thing is, if people said nothing then some would be unhappy with that as well. '

Of course, but then each of us is ndividual rather than art of a special club so it would be like that.

I operate froma default assumption that nobody can see the boys issues (which can happen on occasion).... soneon like Riven knows her dd's SN is very visible. Of course we will have different attitudes to it. We are, after all, different people.

'I operate froma default assumption that nobody can see the boys issues ' (should add and therefore thinks I am a bad aprent or the calm time is fairly usual- its not)

Riven - i totally agree. Offer some help if you keep telling people they are special and how hard it must be to cope - help practically not just with words you can walk away with.

Peachy i also agree with your last paragraph 2posts ago about having chats external to the SN world - i am still me not just downtrodden mother of SN child.

I do say that riven

...and yes i am met with cats bum faces but then i guess no one knows what to say to my reaction - i wish they wouldn't bloody say it in the first place

yes this will go on ad infinitum and I am sorry Luisis but dyslexia really isn't in the same category as life limiting or severe disability. My DS1 is being tested for dyslexia at the moment - he is permanently bottom of the class in everything but in no way are my worries for him as profound as my worries for DS2 with low functioning autism.

indeed riven - i was really getting it in the neck lst night and repeatedly i told people how i would like to be addressed/talked with etc...but time and again they kept asking 'well, what shall we do.... damned if you do bollox repeatedly...'

if I saw someone with fourteen kids I would think they were insane.

You're right stille of course you are...... am going to add a but though

The most upset woman I ever talked to abouts tatements had a child with dyslexia (well, Has one, obv). Regardless of the fact that dyslexia isnt the end of the world, she found it immensely distressing and distress is sad regardless of the dx. I could ahve sat thre and said 'you're having a laugh right, ds3 won't be independent, still needs dressing and ds1 is very aggressive indeed....' but that would have been cruel: she ws upset and needed a chat.

My boys dx's will never be as severe as oters on here but I do get scared and depsondent.

I confess I took a few days to post that ds2 had been flagged becuase I know ADHD is very little compared to what others deal with. Now I hoep people will understand an accumulative effect to my frsutration as well- by the time you get to the third childs IEP you can get pretty fucked off LOL- but I still know I am lucky comared to many. But an awful lots less so than most.

I find the whole "Oh I don't know how you cope, I couldn't" comment really rather bizarre. Not only does it smack of "Thank fcuk it's not me who's the unlucky bastard", but it also gives me little room to respond and still come across as reasonable. How am I supposed to respond to that?

"Don't be silly. Of course you would, because you'd have no choice, like me" (Truth)
"Oh dear. In that case I hope your poor children never become ill or injured" (Wake Up Call)
"No, probably not." (Bitch)
Or just smile weakly and change the subject (Reality)

Either way you come across as being shirty, rude or otherwise a bit 'funny'.

sorry 2shoes