Stop looking at my dd like she has 3 heads!!! Had enough!

[makemineaquadruple]

Morning mumsnetters!

As you can tell from the title, i'm getting really angry about the constant stares and whispers aimed at my dd.

Firstly, whatever dd has it's fairly mild and sometimes she blends in with the "normal" children just fine. Sometimes however, she stands out like a sore thumb. For example, she does a lot of bouncing and spinning. She's also very repetative and will ask people the same question constantly eg "are you my friend? Do you like me all the time? followed by a usually unwanted bear hug. Ok so this is slightly unusual behaviour, but the looks or should I say gawps are absolutely doing my head in! Most of the time I just feel sad and disappointed in people, but recently i've gone into "mother bear pose". I think that's quite a good way of putting it and i'm sure most of you will understand what I mean when I say that.

I'm not suggesting that just because my dd doesn't have anything severe that people shouldn't stare, but it's ok if a dc does have a severe disability of some kind. I suppose what i'm asking is how do you turn a blind eye? Can you?

I remember this one time, which I did actually post about, when a little boy(horrible little is more fitting) was teasing my dd about her odd behaviour. She was smiling at him and was excited that he was smiling(laughing)at her. He then started talking to his friend about her and then he started suggestively slapping his cheek and mouthed spastic! Bear in mind this was all in a car so dd didn't actually hear any of this. That was months ago, but it still haunts me. The amount of times I see adults looking at my dd with almost disgust! I don't understand why anyone would do this. If you really believe that something's wrong with a child or adult for that matter, why on earth would you look at them in such a rude and hurtful way?!

I'm not sure if it's lack of awareness in our society or just people being completely insenstivie with all the knowledge. I'm not saying that every person who looks at my dd in a funny way makes me angry. I know i've done it and there's no bad intent there. It's human nature to an extent, but what i'm whitnessing more and more is that there are so many ignorant people out there.

How do I keep calm about this? I'm worried that one day i'm going to completely snap.

Thanks for reading.

I know just what you mean. I was in a shopping centre on Friday with my son who started to wander around and eventually sat on the floor and refused to get up. Lots of people were staring and in the end I used a loud, confident and sunny voice and said 'Hi!' Most people turned away and stopped looking but by this point I was furious and said 'Well, if you're going to stare you might as well speak!' I felt better for sticking up for my son and myself and felt that those staring had been publicly shown up. But really, what's most important is that you prioritise your daughter's feelings over everyone else's. But kids are incredibly mean.

I think it can be a lack of knowledge... They assume no difficulities, but are taken aback by certain behaviours as they are comparing with what they know... If that makes sense. I know it's heartbreaking and hurtful, sometimes I think people don't realise when it comes to invisible disabilities.

I know how you feel! I was in tesco today and dd2 screamed the whole way round. The checkout lady asked if I couldn't keep her quiet with a disgusted look on her face as dd was frantically shaking he head side to side.
I despise ignorant people!
At our local park quite often teenagers with autism are Taken there an some of the mums are so rude Im totally shocked! Even my dd1 was appalled by their rudeness and promptly went and played next to the teenagers as a show of goodwill. I think if adults can't be accepting how can we possibly accept the next generation to be accepting