Can we talk about MNSN, and the community/support/chat etc?

[silverfrog]

This thread may not be a good idea. I am severely sleep deprived (ds has decided yet again that sleep is for the weak, and I have had about 4 hours sleep since Sunday), and had the morning from hell getting dd2 off on a school trip - change of routine, needed ot wear tracksuit not uniform, different drop off/pick up - you all know the score. If you all think it is a bad idea, please feel free to report and have it deleted.

Anyway.

Can we have a thread where we try to sort out some of the perceived isues with MNSN?

I keep seeing, on the main boards, posts saying that MNSN is not suportive. That some faces don't fit. That it's not all it's cracked up to be.

Fine. I get that not everybody is the same, and may not want the same things form this board as me, or other posters. But it isn't really said here, and so we don't reallt get right of reply.

It's a bit like talking about us behind our backs.

I know there have ben disagreements and differences over the years. I have been part of some of them, but on the whole I thought we muddled through quite well - expcially given that we are all under a reasonable amount of stress most of the time, and that we all face fairly different challenges on a daily basis.

So - what do people want form MNSN? Is there anything we (as a community) can do to welcome people who feel left out? Anythign we can do to help posters who lurk rather than post?

I am rather hoping htis might be a moving forward discussion, rather than a re-hash of any he said/she said grievances. BUt as I said earlier, maybe this is entirely misguided. Sorry if it is.

there was also the part where you failed to see the Riven post, then what I said was turned to the past is the past leave it there so to speak when that isn't what I was saying, then that caused a few to turn against me.

oh dear I wish I had never tried

apologies to those who have said the same or inboxed etc, I am not the right person to air this, hopefully someone else can.

yes Maryz your quoted response was to my retaliation against a post that was very aggressive to me

anyway I shouldn't be on here, the home tutor is here

there are deleted posts on this thread?

I didn't think it had anythign worthy of deletion on it - most of it has been very measured indeed.

devient, I am sorry, but I don't understand why you feel bullied.

I have seen you say it often, and also that the SN board os not a welcoming place, that it's not for everyone, etc.

there have been disagreements here - I have been part of some of them, others I have steered clear of. Some I have just simply missed.

Plenty of peope have voiced opinions that the interventions I use with dd1 are cruel, or pointless, a waste of time and money. occasionally it gets to me - more in a red rag to a bull way than a woe is me way, but I do sometimes bite back.

but ultimately, I don't care what others think - I have to deal with my dd, in a way that works for us a s afamily. other people don't have ot deal with my life.

I don't like the repeated assertions, especially out on the main board, where there might be posters who could be thinking of dipping a toe into the SN board, that we are all bullies, that we gang up on people, don't accept them, and hound them off the boards. that faces don't fit. as I said above, a lot of what I do/don't do doesn't 'fit' with many posters on this board.

I don't vaccinate. I use special (unproved, scientifically speaking) diets. I use 'woo' interventions like sensory ot and cranial osteopathy. I have investigated behavioural optometry, and retained reflexes. I use 'dog training methods' with dd1 (and dd2, for that matter) - there are loads of people here who would think I am bonkers for any one of those, let alone a whole string of them. I have been called names many a time for a couple of them (not really here - out on the main boards, although w do sometimes get threads which edge towards judging on issues like vaccination over here too).

but I don't feel bullied.

I have been questioned as a parent because of what I do - told I shouldn't have childrne ,that posters would be pleased ot see my children get ill. sometimes I can't handle that, and I withdraw from those topics for a while - I haven't really been in the vaccination topic for a bit, as I have a baby ds, and he is unvaccinated, and obviously as he is so young he is quite vulnerable. I don't need ot be told repeatedly that he wil DIE if I don't vaccinate him.so I don't read the threads, and I don't engage with them - because it would not be a good place for me to be right now.

but I don't wander around the rest of MN telling evetyone that posters on those threads are bullies, or unaccepting (although they are far more unaccepting of alternatives viewpoints than MNSN ever is or has been) - I engage with them on those threads, or I ignore.

I am quite sad there are deletions, tbh. this thread was for talking it all through, and I though for the most part that was what it had done.

there have been some disagreements - see the PDA stuff from last night - but they were openly discussed. maybe agreement will never be reached, but views on both sides are known.

oh, and totally agree re: vaccinations and feminsim.

I avoid feminism, but vaccinations is (sometimes) like and itch I just have to scratch.

If you want nasty on any parenting forum go look at a breast v bottle thread - they are really only for those made of stern stuff

I can only remember twice being outright horrid to anyone on this forum. The first was when I felt that another poster was saying that if people didn't adopt her own approach then they were dooming their children, the second was when I felt a fathers for justice bod was trying to appropriate the forum for his own very personal political campaign.

Otherwise I'm only guilty of ever being sleep deprived and as a result a bit tactless!

It is funny about the feminist site. I too find it scary yet I m a total feminist (in fact probably a little too far the other side) and have operated at very senior levels in very pressurised and high-powered male-dominated environments. Yet somehow those threads make me feel like I've missed a vital memo, or haven't read the correct left-wing feminist tracts. Most odd

I've just come back to this and I'm absolutely baffled as to why my post has been deleted. I don't see that calling a passive-aggressive post a passive-aggressive post is breaking the talk guidelines.

I have kept my cool, I have not retaliated to threads directed at me, with my name in the title.

This situation is completely destructive. Posters who claim they 'cannot post' having other posters speak on their behalf. Really?

I'm not getting the impression at all that there are discussions being had elsewhere about the SN board. No, not at all

Lol Maryz, that was what I was gonna suggest, right got to go and finish decorating my easter chick

Hey now, I'm a feminist vaccinator and I play nice

devient, I just don't see this 'ganging up' that you speak about.

Which leads me to another point - I actually do have a knee-jerk reaction to this idea of SN parents all being a homogenous (sp?) mass. We don't always think the same way. There will often be challenges to peoples' approaches. I think that's a good thing though. Because we're not a 'gang', we're a collection of individuals.

Admittedly 'but I can't because' threads get wearing, but I always try to put myself in the OP's shoes and think, well, they probably can't see the wood from the trees, or see that they can change anything, right now, today - but maybe they will tomorrow.

This thread just isn't juicy or interesting enough for PMs imo.

It was started as a pretty bland welcoming, have a brew kind of way.

A couple of posters said they felt isoltated because they didn't drink tea.

Some of the brew offerers said, 'sorry, what would you prefer?'

Posters responded with 'stop ganging up on me. It's obvious!'.

Miss, miss, Starlight said my thread is boring!

YY to hotheadpaisan's comment about PDA strategies. We were using them with DS1 long before I'd ever heard of it. By the time he was 6, the standard textbook ASD approaches just plain enraged him or, at best, increased his anxiety levels to boiling point.