is this all he has to look forward to at school etc?

[mumandlovingit]

i know this will go on and on as im so furious and i'll just keep on writing so sorry in advance.

ive just taken my two children who are 3 and just turned 5 to a ball park/soft play area.my youngest son is behind in his development and speech and doesnt pronounce the 's' letter and 'f' for example.he's come on so much over the last year and has really grown up and developed and now uses sentences but i admit it's hard to understand everything he says especially if you aren't used to children with speech problems.??? why he has these problems, it could just be that he is slightly behind or it could be to do with the fact that he had shoulder dystocia at birth and wasnt breathing and it took alot to get him to come round once born.thats a different subject though.

they were happily playing when a boy aged around ten and his twin brother (only difference was one was wearing glasses) went up to him and wanted to use the bike that he was riding there.my son in his own way said that he was using it and the boy just stood and laughed at him and walked away laughing.this upset my child.i let that go and then i found my child sitting upset on the aparatus and found the problem to be that a boy had got the balls from the ball pit and were throwing them at his face.he then took my hand and pointed to the boy and it was the same boy.i then kept an eye on him on the aparatus andgot a friend's older girl and my older son to stay with him so that he wasn't picked on anymore.
you would've thought that was the end of it but oh no, the boy followed them round the area, my eldest told him to go away and that he'd been nasty to his brother and the boy told him to F**K off!!!
he proceeded to follow them, grabbed my little boys let and then kicked his head.my eldest son shouted at him and i went over to see what was wrong and the boy had scarpered.i found out what had hapened and took my children over to where he was near his mum and i confornted him and said tat he'd just kicked my little boy in the head and had been nasty to him previously, he looked at me and lauged and denied it all.according to him he hadnt done anything.my little boy isnt in the habit of lieing, to be honest i dont think he's capable of knowing what a lie is at his stage of development.his mother just sat there and looked at me.i told her what e's done and that it wasn't acceptable, especially for a ten year old to be picking on a 3 year old!! her response was that her son said he didn't do it so he didn't do it!!!!

im furious and so upset at te same time.my son hasnt got the vocabulary or size to stand up for himself when people take the mickey or pick on him and im now left upset and wondering how on earth he's going to get on in the playground when he starts school etc.
i now realise just how nasty children can be.how on earth can i prevent him from being upset all the time and being hurt by people's ignorance and immaturity.i really want him to start school in sept and make friends but im also so worried about the minority who will thinks its funny to take the mickey when he doesnt understand things or say things correctly.
sorry to go on but im so upset.has anyone got any ideas or been through this type of thing?

he grabbed my little boys leg, not let.sorry, cant type well when angry etc

The other boy sounds like a horrid child and his mother doesn't sound much better. But it doesn't mean school will be like that.
Think soft play brings out the worse in some children, tbh. All that racing around can make the aggressive ones more aggressive.

Not the same thing, but just for comparison, was in the park with ds a few weeks ago. I checked his nappy and some older boys who were on the same climbing frame laughed at the idea of him being in nappies. I pointed out ds was only two and they just said 'Oh, sorry'. Ds is big for his age but once they realised that they were fine and didn't make fun of him any more - in fact they played very nicely with him, which surprised me as they looked about seven or eight and I wouldn't have thought they'd be bothered about a 2yo.

Hi,
I think it's really sad what you have just been through with your children and i don't blame you for being upset.

From the sounds of things the 10 year old is just that type of child who wants to cause trouble and i think it may have happened regardless of your child's speech. Maybe it's a good thing his speech is delayed or he may have copied that horrible language.

Some parents just cannot admit when their little darling has done wrong and would rather take their side than admit the truth.

I am sure your little boy will continue to develop his speech and will go on to enjoy school. Remember boys like the one you have just encountered are a minority!!

so sorry to hear that mumand..., I'm sure school won't be like that. I am also a bit wary at public play areas because some children can be so rough so I am constantly watching mine to see who is around them and what's going on.

I think you have to do that regardless of development, and it's an unfortunate fact that not all parents care about disciplining their kids.

FWIW I don't think many three olds would be able to defend themselves against a 10 yr old.

Poor lad - I also think at school, staff are on the look out for things like this & won't let bullying behaviour like this happen.

what a dreadful experience for you and your children{{hugs}} hope your dc's are ok.
try not to worry about his speech when he gets to school, i had the same problem with ds1, who is 5, hes just finished his reception year and was referred to SALT, but was still on the waiting list when we moved.
he had glue ear so had immature speech, he slurred his letters and would say y for l, miss off the s from the beginning of words.
his school were made fully aware and the other children always seemed to know what he was saying anyway, in fact the school enviroment seems to have brought his speech on dramatically and the school think he prob wont need therapy now.
has he been referred for SALT?
btw try not to(easier said than done) upset yourself, not all kids are like that and the mother didnt exactly react in the appropriate way, id marmalise my elder son if he was mean to a a sm all child.

thankyou for your responses.i really hope that at school they wont put up with that sort of behaviour and put a stop to things quickly if anything does happen.
if my child did that to another id be so upset & ashamed and immeditaly get him to apologise and make sure the child is ok etc.
what is this world coming to? with parents like that what chance have the children got?

he has been referred for SALT and is being reviewed every 6 months.they say all the help he really can get, he was getting through us at home, playgroup and schol when he starts in september.his last review said that he seemed like a different child, hed come on so much.im not sure about his hearing.i did question the hv about it but she said he'd passed his hearing test.i will keep a check on it as my 5 year old had constant glue ear for over 2 years, failed every hearing test and finally had grommets inserted at the begining of july.fingers crossed they'l work.amazingly his speech wasnt majorly afected, he just sounded nasal all the time and had alot of ear pain and infections.with all the disabilities in the world and the amount of people with them, you'd have thought that people would be educated enough and brought up well enough to know right from wrong and not take the mickey out of people who have extra needs.its a sad old world we live in and unfortionatly the minority often spoil it for the majority.

Yes, don't worry, soft play areas are a thing unto themselves, and school will be a whole different thing for your DS; we've been told that the reception year children are separated from all the other year groups in our school, for the first few weeks so there won't be any older children around in the playground; also, we had a whole leaflet given to us about playtime, and the rules, etc; so I'm sure lots and lots of schools have these sorts of procedures in place to combat any of this type of behaviour. I'm sure your DS will have no probs like this.

I hate soft play places most of the time because there are some lazy parents out there that use the time to let their kids run absolutely wild.

Please don't worry, and btw your DS sounds like he is making great strides with the talking! I have a friend whose DS was referred for speech therapy as he was so unclear; even before the therapy things had started to get clearer anyway and how he's almost there!

Bloody hell I hate those soft play areas. You get some real w**nkers going there, both children and parents

just to reassure you - my ds has a little girl in his class with quite servere speech problems (and also some mobility issues) and all the children treat her just fine - she is popular and has as many play dates as the other little girls and the children all seem to be able to understand her and are especially quiet when it is her turn to speak.

thankyou for all your positive responses.ive had time to calm down a little now but i was so furious at the time, not just with the boys behaviour but with the parents behaviour too.
my eldest son is starting year 1 in sept and reception and year 1 play in the same playground so he will be in with him at playtimes and my youngest doesnt start fulltime until january so hopefully he'll have time to settle abit before he has too many playtimes outside each day.
im hoping my eldest will keep a lookout for him especially if he's left alone with no one to play with.im hoping it wil be a good thing and not a bad thing though as he's quite protective and ds needs to learn to make friends and stand on his own two feet.
small problem in comparison to some people's problems but bullying and nastiness like that to people, especially with learning difficulties/disabilities etc makes me sick and so angry.my partner had the same learning problems when he was at school and when we were first together i still remember him crying when he was talking about the bullying he was subject to and the things people used to call him because he was in the 'special needs' class as they called it.there's no way we're letting either of our children go through the same.

mumandlovingit, I worry about bullying too for my dss. Ds1 starts Reception in Sep and ds2 is 2. The best we can do is to try to build up their confidence as much as we can so even if God forbid they are faced with nastiness it doesn't damage their self-esteem. And from looking at other threads I've discovered that there are workshops (Kidscape) I think, which teach children how to tackle bullying. It's a worry for me and I know it must be even more so if a child is already vulnerable.

Mum - my DS(6yo) has also had very bad speech problems, although with a lot of SALT they have improved significantly.

I can assure you that it has never been a problem at school! The teachers seem very alert to picking on children with disabilities of any kind and they have always acted as if my DS was entirely intelligible

The other boy is a bully, and would be a bully irrespective of your DS's speech issues. I've only once ever had a problem with a child (a friend of my DD (8YO) who mimicked his poor pronounciation of a sentence. I kept very calm, but said very assertively, 'we(!) don't act like that in my house! If you would like me to call your parents now to pick you up I will do so straight away. If you choose to stay then you will not behave like that again!'

However, in the bigger scheme of things she is a nice girl and has always been very kind to DS since. It sounds like the boy you had the misfortune to encounter today is never going to be in an environment where anyone is going to teach him that his behaviour is inappropriate

Horrible, horrible experience

But on the up side - ask yourself how often this sort of scenario has happened to your child?

Very rarely I would guess? - and take some comfort in that.

ds1 attaended mainstream school for 4 terms (can't talk at all), and the other children were generally very sweet to him. With divided playgrounds its less of a problem anyway- in reception most seemed to just completely accept him.

I've found that its actually girls of about 8/9+ who can sometimes (emphasis on sometimes- and really only when with friends) get a bit silly with him now (he's 7). Usually they imitate his sounds. He doesn't notice, but I do and ask them to stop.

I wouldn't worry about Sept. DS2 starts school in Septmeber and can't pronounce the sound "k" (substitues with "t"). I think unclear speech is really quite common in reception.

What I mean is (sorry I am expressing myself so poorly currently, I can't imagine that his school experience will be anything like this so try not to worry too much about it)

thankyou to all of you
im having a meeting at the beginning of sept before he starts school with his teacher to discuss his needs etc and let her talk to him and see if she can understand him etc.its more the children i worry about, i know the teachers will do well by him but its the nasty playground comments that get to me.my eldest has had hearing problems and some of the children keep running off and leaving him behind and when he calls to them to wait for him they laugh and say they cant hear him! i get so upset when children are nasty to them as all my children ever try to do it play with the children, they're not nasty or vindictive back!
a friend has a child with special needs and he cant talk.he makes the noise 'mum mum' and whinges quite alot as he's not comfortable with people.ive seen children mimic him in it, including my own child who copied because he thought it was cute apparently but i put all the children straight and told them that he makes those sounds because he cant talk yet (he's 6 or 7) and that they should talk properly so that he can try to copy them and learn from them.there were only two of the children(one of them being mine) who actually asked why he cant talk.the others just laughed and said only babies cant talk.
sometimes i wonder how the world has changed so much.i really cant remember all this from when i was a child.since when has the world consisted of 'if you're not 100% perfect in everyway, you'll have the mickey taken out of you and ridiculed and made to feel useless'
i know children copy others but i think alot of the problem is that alot of parents nowadays sit back let their children do what they want just so they're happy and have an easy life.alot , (not all and im not trying to offend anyone), dont seem to have any respect for their parents let alone anyone else, they've not been brought up to care about anyone else's feelings.