How do you cope with other parents judging your child and your parenting?

[Cheerilee]

Just this really. I am feeling particularly judged at the moment by DDs best friends mum. I would consider her a friend, she's one of the few people I've told about DD's difficulties. I know she doesn't agree with the things I let DD do, it's abundantly clear by the jokey comments she makes which I always shrug off with good humour. I found out this week she thinks DD is a spoilt brat and it's made me irrationally angry. I have to be nice to her for DDs sake, her DD is pretty much my DD's only friend. ARGH.

You can't make people understand they need to want to. It's helps if you don't become defensive or explain anything that wasn't asked of you. Put your energies into making the right decisions for your chikd, not this mother.

I agree with star she is probably completely ignorant about what it is like to live with a child with SN's!

Parent your child in the way you need to!! Its actually liberating when you stop caring about what all the judgemental people think!!

Good luck

I found out this week she thinks DD is a spoilt brat and it's made me irrationally angry

No, that is rational.

I went on a course about how to persuade people to your view (required by work at the time) and apparently the dominant person asks questions.

So maybe ask her what she would do for a child in a different but roughly equivalent situation. If your dd is given extra allowance because she is stressed, a mainstream equivalent would be a child who was stressed because a parent had died.

Invisible disabilities are especially tough. Mainstream folk just don't know nearly enough about them to be in a position to judge, but visible disabilities like wheelchairs, CP and Downs can bring out the best in people. Ask her what she would say if DD had eg Down's Syndrome which is visible.

And try not to take any notice of what she says about your parenting as it is about as useful to you as her views on hear surgery would be to a heart surgeon.

Good Luck

I don't know why she thinks she's a spoilt brat - I'm definitely not doing anything utterly bonkers I promise. I'm probably more permissive than her when it comes to a lot of things like diet, screen time etc. I say yes to DD a lot, where as she has a lot of rules. Ages ago I decided to concentrate the important stuff, and let the relatively unimportant stuff slide. Or maybe it's because of DD tantrums which can be quite epic even though she's more than old enough to have grown out of them. It does often look like she's crying to get her own way.

I don't know why but I'm disappointed in her. And angry, but you're right perhaps not irrationally. But feel like acting irrationally and pulling her up on it, but it won't end well and I have to be nice. I'm feeling very 'got at' in general at the moment, from school and the incompetent professionals who are making it as hard as possible to access help :(

for feeling got-at, it's something we all go through.

"I found out this week she thinks DD is a spoilt brat"

How did you find out, was it via a third party who is hoping to cause trouble between you and your friend? Whoever told you really doesn't have your best interests at heart, do they? Don't give them the satisfaction.

If your friend says anything directly to you, simply say your daughter is disabled and does not respond in the same way as NT children, therefore she needs parenting differently, in accordance with her disability.

No her DD told me quite cheerfully "my mummy says DD is a spoilt brat". Out of the mouth of babes...And the fact she thinks it's ok to say nasty things like this to her DD about another child - nice lesson to teach your child. Excellent parenting skills

Yes feeling "got at" seems to be our lot in life

She's only said it out of ignorance, just try to ignore it, IF she understood about kids with different neurology, she wouldn't say it.

We all get this, from school and health professionals, (over-protective helicopter mother) from so-called friends and a lot from our own close families, then it extends to the wider population, shop assistants quite often mentioned on here as saying very inappropriate things and tutting strangers seem to be everywhere whenever you're out in public.

Some people want to be educated, most don't and would prefer to only judge and criticise because they are too stupid to realise that not all kids respond to 'traditional' parenting techniques. Behaviour for our kids is not a choice, it's often an anxiety-driven response to sensory over-stimulation. Some people are too stupid to understand that so call our kids 'spoilt brats'