a chance for the SN community to tell you how it really is and to tell you the horrid stuff they have to deal with

[2shoes]

all the time..
after the horror of the other thread, I think it would be good for the sn community on mn to tell their stories, when they have been harassed/assaulted/ and abused by the nt world.
night help to put a couple of minor incidents that someone in the nt world has had to put up with for a very short space of time.

so I will start ....
we were subjected ot haye crime for 5 years....why because my ds fell out with them when they called my dd a spaz.
we can't go out without the staring...small children blocking out way in the shop, whilst mummy/daddy does nothing, just so their child can stare at dd, who is shock horror in a wheelchair.
my son was bullied at school by nt kids who took delight in calling dd a spaz.

mie are minor compared with most.

Re. educating people - how long, if at all, are trainee teachers taught about SN/ SEN in the classroom and school environment?
And if it's not at all, or no more than a day, then why the FUCK isn't it more?
Because if the rate of diagnosis of ASD etc. is on the increase then it must be blindingly obvious to the meanest intelligence (Govt, yes, I mean you) that most teachers are going to have a child with SN/SEN in their classroom and they'd better learn about the proper way to cope, especially as it seems that the cuts may include removal of 1-to-1 TAs through lack of funding.

I think education professionals who are not only ignorant but bigoted about the children as shown on this thread are the very worst. They are in a position of loco parentis during the day, are they not? They are supposed to be taking care of the child's welfare in the classroom and school environment, are they not? Well they'd better bloody start doing it, is all I can say.

Have just read an article about an 18yo boy with autism who has committed suicide because a GP link worker told him he'd be "better off dead than going back to college" - so he took that person at their word and 2 days later killed himself. I hope they feel as guilty as hell for the rest of their life - but I bet they won't. article here if anyone can bear it :(

Thumbwitch what a sad read, makes me despair for the future.

Apparently, MNHQ are now going to treat disablist posts as hateful and delete them.

I found this out on the thread about transexual people. Apparently any transphobic language will be deleted as it is illegal.

I was incandescent, since it has historically been fine to come and say awful things about people with disabilities.

Helen replied that although they do concede they were shamefully slow to get to this point, they do also now (and they've specifically included this in their Talk Guidelines) remove posts that are reported to them that they consider to be disablist.

So. We'll see then, what is considered by nt people to be disablist.

You know, all these 'noooooooormal' people around us, don't seem so normal to me, when they're savaging vulnerable people. Circling them like a pack of dogs. Delighting in hurting people. Acting like those who have disabilities have no place in the world. Behaving like it's such good fun to harass people.

If that's NT you can keep it. I prefer SN.

Ime of staffrooms, there is virtually no awareness of sn and very little respect for either those with a dx or ta's who are the ones dealing with it day to day.

I've had some pretty nasty experiences (nothing on the level the kids have suffered but worthy of a grievance in any other environment) in MS schools through the sheer pigheaded ignorance of senior staff

im sick of people not looking below their eyeline and walking into me as dont see me but then blaming me for almost hitting them As seemw by default the powerchair user is to blame

JustHecate yes mn hq Do say that, but actually getting them to delete disabist stuff is very hard, a word yes, but a thread full of hate .....no, normally they leave it to educate.
sadly disablism is alive and well on mn.

My DCs don't have SNs but I'm reading this thread with and and :(

On behalf of anyone for whom I could speak, I'm sorry.

MmeLindor MN HQ re now very good about deleting words, but as I hsaid to Hecate, crap at deleting threads,
imagine the one about playgrounds imagine it was a racist thread instead of a disablist one, would be gone.
I reported it ages ago, never even got an email from mn hq,
trouble is even if they agreed with me, it takes ages for them to decide to delete, so by then a lot of hurt is caused.

2shoes and Hec you have mail.

canitmaybe Tue 17-Apr-12 23:41:40
Can I ask something.

DS (4) looks at wheelchairs etc, I always encourage him to say hello, he asks questions, I try to get him to ask (this is usually with older people, I think he just accepts it in youngsters), I will say, speak to the nice man/nice lady if he wont, I just say hi, smile and go.

I have always wondered what the most appropriate thing to do would be.

dd is in a wheelchair and a smile is always nice, but asking questions imo is well intrusive, when out with dd, I just want to enjoy being with her, I don't want to keep being asked questions.

I'm registered blind and have additional support needs (I HATE the term special needs.) and I've had to deal with absue and unkindness my whole life. It won't ever go away. Society doesn't "do" different. The worst treatment i the "invisible treatment" where people defer to my Husband when I ask questions or speak. I endure phsyical violence on occassion, but being ignored is well worse and damages me more in the head. I can't really say why tbh.

I must say that it's coloured my view of the world and of people in general. I mean, people can't gt a piercing tat or dye their hair pink without getting judged for trying to be different. All that is is metal and ink, so I don't see a lot of hope for those of us with no choice but to be different. i do get tattoos and dye my hair as ameans of trying to embrace difference (Trying to bridge the gap, as it were.). it makes me feel better and is kind of a personal "fuck you" to anyone who judges differences for whatever reason.

It seems that everyone like this has missed the memo that tell us that we are ALL different.

I don't look at every person with immediate mistrust but I have learned that it pays to be guarded.

The hatred of difference is innate. It's people's instinct to want to preserve the gene pool. Still, it's also people's instinct to hunt animals for food. But we evolved beyond that. I'm hoping the same will soon apply to people's attitude to difference too. Society is the dog and acceptance is the new trick to teach it. It's just so fucking hard.

And I know that we still hunt and kill our food, but we don't HAVE to. I suppose that was a bad analogy but the point behind it still stands.

Autumn- that is so bloody wrong that you have had to endure violence and people defering to your husband! It makes me mad that people don't see the person and only look at the disability.

true, 2shoes.

The transexual thread was blasted into oblivion, as were any threads about it. Not all posts on those threads broke any kind of legislation. Why didn't they leave the thread up "to educate" and simply delete specific posts that clearly broke written, clarified, identified legislative clauses?

I think there should be equality. If hostile debate about one 'protected group' (I believe that is the term) is banned (as removing all trace of the debate itself is actually doing) then hostile debate about all protected groups should be banned, and threads about how disabled babies should be killed, (for example) should go up in a puff of smoke.

It is the inequality that bothers me. It says that X group must be protected from being hurt by people, but Y group does not deserve that.

And you can't stop people talking anyway. You're always going to hear things you don't like. It's impossible to create a bubble where nobody says hurtful things or expresses offensive opinions. Those people will always exist.

But to have a company (which is what MN is) condone, accept - endorse? - those views by coming onto threads and telling people that they really should stay because they are 'educational', while not feeling that similar sentiments expressed about other groups are 'educational' but calling them offensive and removing them - is unacceptable.

god, that's wordy, waffly gubbins just spewing out of my fingers. I hope you can wade through it!

warmandwolly it's left me feeling old and jaded- and I'm only 28! i'm goingto try to write my experiences down to help people but I need to get over my "what's the point?" attitude first. It's just fear. Rejection and I are reluctant friends and just I see this as something else that means me working hard and opening my soul for it to not make a blind bit of differenc or to evoke more scorn for the less tolerant.

*from the less tolerant.

The questions thing can be a difficult one as I have a friend whose daughter is physically very disabled. She finds "stares" hard when she is put and is irritated when parents pull their naturally curious children away. She says she would far rather the children ask questions about the chair, about her daughter rather than just stare or ignore. I suppose it's different for everybody and don't know if she is the exception rather than the rule.

My DS would be very interested in the chair, the person in the chair and any other items accompanying them. He is autistic so is likely to just outright ask " what's this, that, his/her name" and "why is he/she in a wheelchair". Generally in those situations he asks me.

My friend had similar in a hospital outpatients with a child asking about her daughter and the mother explaining that "she (friends daughter) can't walk and her legs don't work" which led her daughter later to move her legs manually and say "look Mum they DO work". . Friend says she would far rather the Mum had asked her to explain about her DD's challenges.

canitmaybe Tue 17-Apr-12 23:41:40
Can I ask something.

DS (4) looks at wheelchairs etc, I always encourage him to say hello, he asks questions, I try to get him to ask (this is usually with older people, I think he just accepts it in youngsters), I will say, speak to the nice man/nice lady if he wont, I just say hi, smile and go.

I think with older people, they may want a bit more privacy. 2shoes dd is a teenager irrc.

From our perspective, ds1 is 9, and he doesn't mind in the least chatting to other kids, in the normal way, that kids do just start chatting to each other. He also doesn't mind explaining about his physical issues. He is more private about his asd issues tho! I hate it when parents pull their kids away from ds, or don't let them talk to him for fear of offending someone. If a child approaches me, I tell them to talk to ds!

ds doesn't use a wc full time, so it is absolutely horrible for him to suddenly go invisible when he does need it. He still wants to charge around with other kids, play catch, chat, etc. It's soul destroying when parents pull their children away from him.

I agree with AutumnSummers, the invisible treatment really is the worst. I remember once as a young teen being in town, seeing everyone ignoring a lady with visual impairment who had gotten lost and was on the wrong side of a barrier on a two lane road. All those adults who saw her, and the panic in her face, but looked away, all the cars that swerved around her and drove on. I was the only one who went round and helped her back to a familiar pathway.

thumbwitch I'm sorry that you have had a bad experience of teachers. But my experience (I'm a secondary teacher) is that we had a significant chunk of our training dedicated to facilitating learning for pupils with SEN, and more equally importantly, watching out for their wellbeing - in the classroom and the playground.

To say that we could be trained in dealing with every form of need is just not possible - there are too many individual needs, each pupil needs individual attention. It needs to come from the school SENCO, making staff aware of the specific needs of the pupils we teach, not just a blanket set of 'SEN rules' (like autism always equals good with maths and science, which is obviously too simplistic)

At our school we all know who the kids with SEN are, and could give you a rough precis of their needs from memory, whether or not we teach that child, because its part of our inset. And this is with only 10 TA's for 150 pupils on the SEN register (20 or so with statements), because we're skint. It can be done if prioritised by management.
When our school was threatened with closure, the campaign to save it was led by the mother of one of our boys with a ASD statement. We teach about different needs to all pupils, who make me so proud when they help the child with brain damage at the talent show by cheering and applauding and singing along when he forgot the words, and many other examples of everyday kindness.

But you have just said we are all ignorant and bigoted. I try my best every day to meet the needs of all my pupils, not because I'm extra virtuous, but because it's what a normal professional person does. So it's not nice to find out I'm a bigot who may as well be throwing rocks at the kid in a wheelchair. Blanket statements help no-one. I'm sure good practise is far too thin on the ground, but it does exist, and all the parents who have ever voted with their feet by leaving a school where it's lacking are helping make it obvious that good SEN provision is valued.

Thanks everyone for your replies.

I guess the answer is there is no right answer. I don't like to just pull DS away and I don't like talking about people, who can clearly hear him, as if they aren't there.

I am very mindful of the "does he take sugar" effect, my friend had muscular dystrophy, and always hated that. So I've kind of taken my queues from him.

I feel so sad for you all that you and your beautiful children have to go through the terrible things described here - on such a regular basis. :(

Thumbwitch, teacher training...

I trained as a teacher, I'm in Scotland, so it will be different but I'd imagine not massively. On a four yr combined degree there was one essay about additional support needs - all additional support needs and one lecture, again about all additional support needs. There was also a lecture and seminar about ADHD where it was very much implied that it was an excuse for poor parenting.

I did more than that, because I had an interest in it - but some of my classmates are now teaching having had one lecture and essay to cover all additional support needs and having been taught that ADHD is an irrelevant diagnosis. Well if they didn't hear me complaining anyway, lol.

That's for secondary btw, I'm told for primary there's an optional module.

If as a shop assistant I am serving a wheelchair user....it feels odd to be looking down at them...I once read that one should come down a level physically so that you can be eye to eye but isn't that like the way we do with kids? Would that be patronising/

I am not a shop assistant anymore but when I was, I was never sure what to do when a wheelchair user came in.

Thumb- at my uni trainee teachers get a half day to cover all SN; it's apparently largely seen as irrelevant and skived

I don't think you should be allowed to graduate if you have not had some SN teaching, preferably far more than half a day!

WRT to children asking- that's probably personal but for me, fire away! Kids ask, it is what they do! And I know my friend who uses a wheelchair has been fine about showing ds3 how it works. Equality is about accepting people for who they are- and kids fall into that! Besides, my boys are by the nature of their dx more likely to stare / ask inappropriate questions and that includes about differently disabled people. We live opposite a great ASD residential centre and I an assure you we get a LOT of questions an comments from the boys!

campbelly there are good teachers out there; excellent ones. But tehr are also some terrible ones and they DO cloud people's vision a bit. And when they hold a leading role- such s the Primary SENCO here , it colours the whole school. It just does. Liles, bias..... I am NOT looking forward to ds4 starting there this year (but only catchment school)

re: teacher training. A friend recently did a PGCE course. There was a week of SN training in-school, which sounds good, doesn't it? But the school ignored all the kids on roll with ASD, ADHD etc and gave him a case study of a statemented kid with VI, and a very strong message that this kid (who clearly had a properly challenging disability but tbh the school bent over backwards for him so it didn't affect him much educationally) was "properly" disabled and had a wonderful and inspiring work ethic etc. and all of those kids with "made up" disabilities were a bunch of idle slackers with incompetent, scrounging parents. He went in with an open mind, and came out of teacher training with a strong negative bias against most kids with disabilities. I had huge difficulty persuading him that a) these kids' disabilities were just as "valid" and (educationally) as disabling if not more disabling and that b) it was idle and facile of the school to give him this kid as an easy case study as he would maybe never come across another kid with the same challenges in his teaching career but he would have to teach thousands with invisible disabilities.