I have to go on a course so I know how to 'deal' with parents of children with additional needs

[KatyMac]

........I didn't realise people like me were something I had to learn to deal with

& if I don't attend the course I won't be allowed to go on the site with a special 'logo' which says I am capable to 'dealing' with children with additional needs

I think I feel insulted but I'm not entirely sure why

Give them wine and chcolate? Tell tehm not to switch on the telly in the run up to a budget?

About all you need to know, no?

I am speechless tbh

I'm a good childminder, I have cared for lots of children both with & without additional needs - I go on lots of course to gain information and learn techniques to help me in my practise

but to have to go on a course so I know how to talk to parent of children with additional needs is quite bizarre

Oooooh!

No, you have to go!

Because I always knew that everyone we dealt with had been on some sort of course saying that I was a delusional moron with munchausen's by proxy, and everything I said should be assumed to be a lie without bothering to actually listen to the content. But before now, I never had proof.

You have to go, and you have to tweet proceedings back to us, second by second!

(I'm absurdly excited about this now. I should get out more, shouldn't I? )

why do i need special handling?
why should my son be any different to anyone else's child?

I too am offended by this.

My son may need to be cared for by someone who has had special training but i do not.

& on the course I was on, when they told me this, the tutor kept talking about 'Disabled children' rather than 'children with disabilities'; which just put my back up

Oh Dear
I'm coming at this from another angle. I've been on a lot courses dealing with different aspects of sn, including dealing with parents.
I found them useful, especially when they were run by sympathetic people who used real life scenarios to explain why some responses were inappropriate and how to respond and when to listen instead of decreeing.
I handle my boy in one way, but others may do things differently. It also helps you see why being impatient with parents in denial or into some weird solution isn't helpful
Be rude about the course after you've done it
And you can always heckle. I sometimes do.

The course is less worrying tbh than the idea that only people who have been on it can have the logo saying they are suitable to care for children with disabilities, sorry 'disabled children'

It's a hoop to jump through, most of us have to do numerous ones in a year. PITA but have fun picking holes in their assumptions.

KatyMac I have just done a course where we were told the difference between disabled children and children with disabilities, I will try and explain.

A child with asd for instance has a condition and it is not the condition that disables them it is the world around them, so they are being disabled. It is called the medical v the social model re disabled people. I would say this will be explained to you if they are using that terminology and it will make more sense than what I have said I am sure.

I would say that the wording of the course is what makes it worse.

But hopefully it will teach you to be sensitive in responding to parents who disagree.
For example, my son is an Aspie, it's a term he and his mates use and we are comfortable with.
Another poster took exception to this and asked me not to use the term.
I said that I wouldn't use it about another individual, |I'd find out what they used.
But I'm still using it for us, and so is ds.
So if a parent who has a child with disabilities doesn't like the term 'disabled child' what would you do, keepingupwiththejoneses?
Tell them their interpretation is wrong, or listen and explain and adapt your language, despite your training?

'It also helps you see why being impatient with parents in denial or into some weird solution isn't helpful'

Ah this is where the patronising nonsense comes from. My really weird solution is evidence based-practice and I am quite sick of not even being able to defend it because I get 'the look'.

No, I was thinking more of trying to talk with the parents of a child with epilepsy about their solution being to beat her and pray over her and make her eat pieces of holy scripture until the jinn left her body actually.
But of course, to believe that this was an ineffective cure would be patronising no?

Defiantly listen and adapt, it is a question of what the parents are happy with not me, I was just explaining why that was said.
telling people that a parent of a child with additional needs, needs 'dealing' with is wrong they should be treated in exactly the same way as any other parent. I volunteer at PPS and we never talk to people any differently because of their children's needs.

Although an awareness of some of the pressure and exhaustion they may be wading through does colour your responses for the better I think.
I come on the sn boards to learn about areas I have no first-hand experience of.
Just because I'm an experienced teacher,parent and parent of an Aspie doesn't mean I would automatically know how to handle a parent with very different parenting experiences. I'd try, but I could always do better.

& do you honestly think a course run by a LA would help you handle a 'parent' irrespective of the issues their child might have?

I deal with parents & children every day & the only assumption I make about them is that they are all individuals and in the majority of cases experts in their own child.

Then don't go on the course.
Build your reputation by recommendation instead.

Hold on a minute. We can't have it all ways. We spend all our time on here moaning about how this person and that person said this and that, about the ignorance, etc.

Perhaps, just perhaps, this course will be about forming a collaborative relationship, about exploring concerns and matching pace with regard to the journey that we all go on when our child is identified as having special needs.

Think back. That first niggle, the first time you thought 'is this normal?' Did you want someone to tell you it was all fine, or did you want someone to say 'no, that's not right, do this...'? Chances are that we all wanted something a little bit different.

I vividly remember telling one of my church leaders about DD1's SN. She said "I did wonder if your DD had SN, but I sought advice and was told not to raise it with you, because if she did have SN it would be raised in time anyway.' I was INCANDESCENT. I took a deep breath and said "Well you can tell whoever it was that you sought advice from, that they were WRONG to tell you that. They had NO RIGHT to tell you to withold that concern from me."

Perhaps this course will be in part to help childcare professionals to identify the needs of parents with SN, and to meet them.

Even on this board we see 'I don't want him/her labelled' or 'Why won't they dx him/her'.

It isn't an insult to anyone to suggest that they can learn more about catering for the needs of parents with disabled children/children with disabilities.

I would consider my DD1 disabled, tbh. I can't think of a single part of her that is not affected by her brain malformation. Not one thing. She can't even watch a cbeebies cartoon without being petrified because she thought that the moustache was two big teeth. Her hands curl, her arms shake, her legs wobble, her head shakes, her grasp is weak, her speech delayed, her understanding delayed, her sensory processing is all to pot. She is adorable, I wouldn't have her any other way, but who am I kidding to say that she is 'with disability'.

Child with disability is fine for a child who, say, has one part of them that is affected, when the rest of them is 'typical'.

Anyway. I am sure I am ranting for nothing.

So should I stop bothering to go on courses I feel are patronising or demeaning to me as a parent for 20 years, a teacher for 28 years and a parent of a child with specific needs for 16 years?
Because no one has anything they could teach me, I have far too much first hand experience of everything. What on earth could I learn from them? I should be running the courses.

The majority of courses I have to go on are offered in an annoying manner, linked to whatever the latest educational bandwagon or fad is.
After a couple of decades, you recognise the snake oil wagon coming around for the fifth time, all shiny and new, new jargon for old.
Every time I look for the positives, hoping and expecting to learn something new and to have my opinions and ideas challenged positively.
And on every course there are at least two individuals harumphing at the back about how they have nothing to learn, and who does the flippertigibbert running the course think they are? No idea of what it's like in the classroom, no understanding of what is realistic. They already have experience and don't want to try something different.
That's what I find arrogant and insulting and complacent.

Exactly, Goblinchild. And I have to say being a mere whippersnapper with only 4 years 10 months and 1 day of SN parenting, there is nothing more annoying than a childcare professional of any variety 'talking the talk' and saying they know all about dealing with SN, how children with SN should be no different to any other, etc., etc., when actually they could do with 'walking the walk'. The very best professionals are the ones, IMO, that are still willing to learn from anyone and everyone they can, who never think they 'know' all about it.