to think that a child with SEN should not be exempt from some attempt at behaviour control.

[NaccetyMac]

Today at a fete, a small child took a toy from my DS1 and was playing with it. I told him (pleasantly) that it was DS1's toy and asked for it back. His mother turned around from her (clearly very important) convo to at me and say "he's disabled, he don't understand." And make no attempt to take the toy from the child.
So I explained to him again that it was not his toy, found him another toy to replace it with, gave it to him and took DS1's toy away out of sight. Mother turns around and says (again) "HE'S DISABLED, HE DON'T UNDERSTAND."

OK. SO get off your bum, stop ignorning him and HELP him to understand.

Really angers me, that some people appear to think that an additional need gives them carte blanche to ignore behaviour and totally fail to apply boundaries!

Will risk being slated but i agree with the op.Wasnt there a time when all our toddlers didnt understand? Did we allow them to hurt others ,snatch, bite, electrocute themselves simply because they didnt understand?
Of course not.

Sadly i have a freind who cant or wont control her young son who has difficultys.Visits are horrific with him attacking my daughter and smashing toys. Freind sits idly by while son is smashing toys or my child is cowering in terror, stating that he doesnt understand.
Frankly i dont care if he understands or not, i want her to stop him and am not prepared to explain to my daughter that this boy doesnt understand therefore we will excuse his beating you.

Theres no doubt hes got problems, and im not blaming him in any way, but his mum should at least attempt to stop him.

I see your point, but also see it from the other side. I was talking to a woman the other day whose DD has ASD and won't stop hitting other children, especially babies, and she is finding it very hard to stop her, and indeed isn't able to go out anywhere really. She is very upset about it.

Have you talked to your friend about it, she sounds like she is struggling with him a bit. Obviously it is hard for you too, though.

up until maybe a year ago i couldn't be more than 6 inches from DS.
he would violantly a ssualt people just for walking past.

there was no reason for it and it meant i barely took him anywhere that there was a chance he may be near other children. i only took him to the park at gone 5 as it meant they were empty.

that doesn't mean that if we did go out where other children played i would just alow him to hit them without stopping him and telling him that it w as not appropriate.

It is bloody hahrd work dealing with it and quite often soul destroying because you just can't see the light at the end of the tunnel.

It is hard and always the duty of the aprent is to protect thir own Dc,absolutely, I always say that to ds1's victims.I never blame them for complaining about ds1, I only get angry with them if they attack me (verbally, not been hit yet)

Though I agree she shounds like she is struggling, which after all is far more likely with a sn child. perhaps she thinks you accept it by visiting her?

DS1 strugglesmroe in the home than elsewhere in terms of visitors, so tbh we dion't have any, almost ever,maybe once a year or so. That is of course tremendously hard for the rest of us, esp. NT ds2, whose friends drop him on the lack-of-reciprocal-invites basis eventually.

I do explain though that it is different with disabled kids- nto that they shoudl take whatever is coming of course, but that the disabled eprson is no more to blame than they are, and whilst safety is a priority understanding is also crucial.

'Wasnt there a time when all our toddlers didnt understand?

Yes but a child of any age with a normal capacity to learn is very different from who does not have that capacity or whose capacity is impaired. I don't like this line of argument - it's a bit Heidi like - Just chuck the wheelchair off the mountain , that'll get her walking. I agree about the need for parental control whether it is an SN child or an NT child whose parent thinks their child needs to run around screaming and annonying other people for the sake of their emotional development. My DS1 (ASD) has been complimented often for good behaviour but I am well aware that he is judged by different standards and that the world is much less indulgent towards SN children.

I get the feeling that many families with SN children limit any time out of the home because of the fear of judgment. Is it really so hard to live for a few minutes with what the family live with all day?

Yes but a child of any age with a normal capacity to learn is very different from who does not have that capacity or whose capacity is impaired.

I agree.Some children have an impaired capacity, through no fault of their own, and no one is judging those children in any way.However , when parents , who do not have an impaired capacity for understanding fail to intervene that is unacceptable sureley .

Visits with my freind take place in my home, and while i try to be supportive i dont feel i can invite her any more when it means that my child is being severeley hurt, and i dont mean a bit of pushing and shoving.
I am not complaining about HIS behaviour, i object to her behaviour, shrugging her shoulders stating he doesnt understand and doing nothing.

I can see where the OPs coming from but then again we provide respite care for an SN child and it is hard to be constantly vigilent ( Lord help parents dping it full time, I take all my hats off to you. You try but you're only human.

ds has aspergers. the toy didnt belong to the child so it should have been given back whether he understood or not... if it was ds i would have swapped it for one of my bag toys...

(ds is 8 now and does understand)

Did the mother understand that it was your son's toy he had?

I would take a toy off my son (10 years old, severely autistic, non-verbal) unless a) I thought it was a communal toy and b) I thought that taking the toy off him would cause a huge meltdown that would be hard to control in which case if your son wasn't upset I would get it off him asap (likely to be pretty quickly, once he'd had a good sniff at it) but not right away.

So many unknowns to judge whether other was BU imo.

People have started to complain loudly about my son when he really isn't doing anything that affects them. Just being a bit odd. I just complain loudly about their ignorance in return. I suspect he does something that annoys someone every time he goes out :shrugs:.

"But if the child doesn't understand, or is not capable of understanding, then she has a duty to help the child to cope in social situations, does she not? If the child cannot understand that it is not OK to take another child's toy, does that social rule suddenly cease to apply on that occasion? "

No but it can be bloody hard to teach. You try getting a 10 year old who is very strong to wait in a queue when he has no concept of queuing. Yes, it results in bruises (mine usually). The only way you can teach it is to repeatedly try (and remember this is a child who is going to learn very differently- for example learning to queue in one place, doesn't mean that 'queuing rule' can be generalised elsewhere).

Or perhaps you know exactly how you would do it.

So yes ideally you stick to social rules, but sometimes you can't, or the resulting fall out would be more socially unacceptable than breaking the social rule. For example when queuing at a local beach cafe or McD's I prefer my son to wait at the front of the queue with a helper quietly (even if he helps himself to apples at the cafe -me in the correct spot) rather than try and keep him screaming and twisting and injuring himself and others just to make him stand in the 'correct' space. Sometimes people at the front of the queue suck lemons. Sometimes staff complain about him eating apples before I've reached the front of the queue. No doubt they'd complain even more if he started screaming and hitting himself (and others accidentally), so :shrugs:.

I didn't see the OP state what condition her DS had so thought he was NT. If I had been the OP and another SN child took a toy from my DS when the mother told me her child didn't understand because he was disabled I probably would have said "Oh really what's wrong with him? We think my DS has ASD. Would it be OK if you took the toy back cos DS is going to do XYZ in a minute otherwise?"

saintly What do you mean by a communal toy? Do you mean a big toy like a kitchen or garage that could be shared and played with by many children at once? That I agree with and wouldn't make DS come away. However if we were at a toddler group for example and DS took a toy from someone that only one child would play with at once (like a car, pushchair, book, ball etc) then I would try and distract him and give it back (unless the other child wasn't bothered and started playing with something else in the meantime). He would then be fixated on getting it back ASAP so I would stand very nearby so when that child had finished playing with it DS could get it before anyone else got in before him.

No I mean a toy not owned by the child.

it depends entirely on the child doesn't it. I mean if ds1 accidentally picked up a child's teddy, I'd pass it right back. If he picked up a toy microwave another child was playing with I would know that taking it back immediately was going to cause a scene which would potentially distress the other child far more than ds1 playing with a toy they were already playing with. So I would probably start some count downs in an attempt to get the toy back and avoid a scene. I mean nothing is going to distract ds1 from a toy microwave.

Likewise when he shoves people out the way and turns on other people's microwaves I do a balance between 'not acceptable' and avoiding the physical fist fight for the microwave (which he would win).

As I said hard to tell whether other mother BU without knowing her child's understanding/flashpoints/difficulties.

"I didn't say DD was autistic (didn't feel able to tell people at this toddler group, just don't go now) and felt compelled to tell her off and explain to her about not taking other people's drinks.

I KNEW she would not understand and it just felt like some really stupid fake acting to appease the other dad."

Oh god I have done that and still do sometimes. I say 'say sorry' to ds1 then remember he can't bloody talk. And the other person stands there waiting. At least if I sign it now he can copy the sign sometimes or I can move his hands. what a total and utter waste of time.

Why does it matter so much ? If you know a child is disabled, why is it so important to enforce a SuperNanny view of life? I think I read somewhere that the OP works with SN children - how can you do that if you don't understand the children or their parents? It reminds me of people who think foreigners understand English better if you shout loudly and smile ? No one is disagreeing that SN children should have boundaries if possible but the issue seems to be more some people would be happier if parents of SN children pretended their child's disability did not exist so that parents of NT children can feel that their pointless little point has been made.

tbh cybersraphim I think there is an undercurrent to some of this pointless little pointthing.
I think that a huge swathe of parents like to be superior about other peoples choices and parenting. And I think SN is not excluded.
I think there is a certain amount of the Mercury Rising in all this - the bit at the end of that film where Bruce Willis - who has known the boy with autism five bloody minutes, gets all moody and forceful and says 'look at me' and the boy who is surrounded by therapists and loving attentive parent for the previous 11 years, just makes perfect eye contact and hugs Bruce because, you know, Bruce was just really determined. You know really

I think there are millions of folk out there who are the special needs versions of back seat drivers. And we real life parents just are not really getting with the programme for fucks sake.

Poor old DS2. If only he had had Bruce. Or the mother in Lorenzos oil? One of them. Because that is how all the parents that tut would do it.

ha ha, I'd give Bruce Willis 5 minutes if he tried to come between ds1 and a microwave

Not at all cyberseraphim. I think what the OP wanted was for the other child's parent to resolve the situation, rather than the OP needing to without having any idea how that child may react. From the sounds of it, the other child's parent seemed to think it was OK for her child to take the toy, because he is disabled, and made no effort either to get the toy back, or to reassure the OP that she was dealing with it in a way that she felt was appropriate to his needs.

saintlydame Would you do the same sort of thing if the other child was distressed at having the toy taken from them (either by trying to get it back, crying or if they are quite passive perhaps just looking at it in a sad sort of way) or in that case would you pass it right back?

I agree it is so hard getting the balance right. For instance we were on the bus the other day and DS had his own seat. It started getting full and I thought shall I put him on my lap and endure an hour of screaming or let him keep the seat? I decided that once there were no possible seats left at all then I would stand and give him my seat. Anyway there were still a few seats available and I heard some woman tutting at him having a seat to himself. I turned around and explained that he has SN and if he has to sit on my lap he will scream until we get on the bus so I was waiting until his seat was the last one left and then I would stand and give him my seat as I would much sooner stand than listen to his screaming . Anyway as soon as I explained that her and a few others said oh don't worry it's ok we're not stopping on for long anyway.

tbh nappy addict it's not just about my choices. My son is 10 and very strong -,I am not always in physical control of him - and this will presumably get worse. How I react depends in part on how able the other people on the vicinity are able to cope. And how dangerous it is. If there is any danger of ds1 being run over for example then i deal with that above anything else. Bit yes I have (for example ) dropped my basket of shopping on the floor in order to cling onto ds1 who was finding queing incredibly difficult although I have also unfortunately had to leave a toddler to pick up smarties that ds1 had accidentally knocked out of her hand because he was headed for a gate near a main road.

If we are somewhere safe and enclosed then I can risk more of a meltdown (for example I am currently refusing to wash his hands as he can do it himself

• and independence is important) but we are inside with family and if he has a meltdown about it then that's fine.

Outside in public there are a whole host of other considerations. How I react depends on making a snap judgement. Ds1's safety comes first, then mine, then teaching/learning, then social expectations. (I haven't mentioned other people's safety as ds1 doesn't go for people - if they got knocked it eouls be accidentally with me in the firing line).

I think everyone has agreed that in an ideal world, the mother of the disabled boy could have got the toy back in a time scale to the satisfaction of the OP but other than that I just don't know what she is on about really, If that is all she has to moan about, she is extremely lucky. In an ideal world, the girl in Tescos could have been a bit nicer when I asked her for more plastic bags but I think my self esteem can just about deal with it. It's not a priority for me to re assure anyone that I am dealing with any situation involving DS1, if I'm being honest it's barely on the radar.

Agree with so much here

But there seems to be an undercyurrent of 'Mum should be on top of it'

Well.... I am 90% of the time, but sometimes I can't be- I get dsitracted or am just crap.I expect people judge all my parenting sometims when they see that but they'd be wrong,then there's stuff Ic an''t solve- ds2 is bruised today because ds1 dived at him at whilst Dh and I both ran, a second was all it took- and that was with two of us in the same room: ds1 isn't as severe as Saintlydames but he is stillvery aggressive and 10, and it takes time to catch him and remove him sometimes. I wish it didn't, but I ahve wished that for a decade and no magic fairy has come along for me yet.

saintlydamemrsturnip, you sound like such a capable parent. Your ds is lucky to have you to complain loudly about ignorance on his behalf.

Exactly..from what i see on here, having a child with ASD turns you into some sort of super-capable and on top of things parent, but it takes a while to find your feet at first (well I am certainly finding that) so maybe the woman in the OP was struggling a bit still.

and my DD probably has moderate ASD and is very sweet and easy going (for now) but just doesn't listen, and I find that hard enough, so I am in awe of people who manage to cope with aggressive children who have meltdowns.