You know you have special needs child when......

[ShinyHappyRocketsGoingBANG]

(a thread like this was the first I ever encountered on MN and I cried with laughter and relief. So can we have another one? It's too long ago to be able to find and resurrect..)

You know you have an SN child when...

..everything in your house is getting higher and higher in order to keep it out of harm's way.. so high that even poor-little-short-DH can't reach some things...

.. your storage cupboards are fixed together with hair bobbles...

..you have a whole filing cabinet devoted to the your SN child's various reams of paperwork...

Thanks bubble and eidsvold, but thankfully we don't need it anymore as he hasn't had a urine infection for years.

As a matter of interest though bubble, is it the bags that you're referring to? ... because we found those useless as the wee just escaped back into the nappy and wasn't really sterile. With my invention, the end of the syringe acted as a valve to stop the wee flowing back and also went some way to stop external contamination.

What a valuable source of info - I am getting all new doors on monday with higher handles lol. Perhaps we should all move onto a lovely island with a school suitable for all our children where our families will be NORMAL.

......when you go and visit the GP/CAMHS/Community PEad/SALT etc and they give you a abit of advice....you come straight home and ask MN if its worth the effort as you know full well that there is not a single thing that the rest of MN hasn't already tried and tested for you.

.....when you get all excited in the sports shop as you have just found some tracky bottoms that actually fit your ds and dont have "scratchy bits" down the side.

......when parents from the senior school (when your child is only 6) walk past in the morning and say "hi, your xxx mum arent you" despite you not having a clue who they are or knowing of any reason why they would have need to come into contact with your child.

......when the greeter at ASDA notice you have bought ds with you and quickly jumps up to offer you the SN trolley that is hidden at the back of the store. he then gives him a flashing badge to occupy him whilst you shop.

.......you want to cry when you go into ASDA on a day when your usual greeter isn't working, instead he has been replaced by a some middle aged po faced old cow who asks you why you need a SN trolley as DS looks perfectly normal...."surely he is old enough to walk"

......when you have to spend half an hour on the phone to the ladnlord explaining that no your not actually killing your children of an evening its just that he gets very loud sometimes and he doesn't sleep at 7 like other children, and that you apologise for the fact that your neighbour felt the need to complain about the fact that i am apparantly beatig my children during the night but that i had explained my ds's needs prior to accepting the property.

......when your having a chat with the behavioural specialist at school an mention a new idea that you have been given and then have to spend ten minutes workign out how to explain that your "friend" is actually someone you have never met, never spoken to and is just words on a pc screen and yet you mention them almost daily.

.......when toy ad's come on the telly woth big pictures of santa, and Ds comes over and asks you....."is that the birthday and christmas man mummy?" and you want to cry because it means that at least a little bit of whats happening around him is actually sinking through

......you take no notice of the fact most of woolworths is staring at you because your 6 yo ( that is the size of a 9 yo) is walking around wanting to wear a pink ballerina outfit

oh i would absolutly love to live in the same round with only SN kids and parents.

oh the releif!
can you imagine how relaxed it would be.

Hi Mrs F, just thought i'd bring your ds back...found him flicking my porch light on and off wearing nothing but a cowboy hat.

no no, no problem at all. in fact i left him for a little while as he was entertaining my ds with the flashy light.

oh baty...i know just what you mean!!!

the track bottoms with scratchy bits....my 12 yr old...well he'd much rather have the £1.99 fleece onces (that fade and go bobbly after one wash)...than a 'fashionable' 'branded' pair from the sports shop ...he hates the mesh linings...he struggles to even put his feet through anything lined...he ends up with the lining fully on view around his ankles....the ones with 'lovely soft stretch t-shirt type linings' are even worse ...as he says his feet grip to the sides as he puts them on.)

d'you know... i will be really precoscious now....and paste this whole thread to word...then edit out what is not relavent to him...and then give him a page of bullet points of all the things people have posted (like you!) that he would identify with....cos i'd like him to know that others feel the same!)

....you find a gorgeous pair of pyjamas in woolworths...with 'disney cars' on the front...JUST what ds3 is into at the moment...just maybe he may keep them on....then you find his size...and you are glowing with exctasy....then horror of horrors...you discover that 'behind' the picture on the front is a 'button to press to hear sound effects'...which on the iside of the jamas (to 'protect' the childs skin from the roughnesss f the botton!!!)...is a 'patech' of fleecy fabric....which ds3 HATES!!!!

so you stand there contemplating how you could buy them...remove the sound effects...and fleecy patch...and then you remember all the other items of clothing already piled up that need 'adjustments' cos the 'annoy' ds3!!!!

..you want to hug the child in the park that comes and a chats to yours and takes him by the hand and appears not to notice (or doesn't care about) all the dribble.... while the others just stare...

(This is almost becoming a diary now.. I think we're adding them as we experience them; I'm just back from the park )

......you are never more than 3 feet from your mobile, eveyrone has at least 3 different numbers for you in case they cant reach you on the first. and if you go out the firstthingyour do is check 1471.

...you just want to sigh at people when they whinge about the amont of parties their child has to go to this week.

.....you want to cry when you take your child to school and a lad comes and ask's him how his holiday was. you havent been anywhere and you realise some time later that it was this boys birthday that weekend and he was obviously told DS was on holiday and that was why he couldn't come....in fact his parents clearly couldn't be bothered with inviting him which makes you but as well as the young boy obviously asked for Ds to be invited.

you realise your child has NEVER been on a sleep over.........unless you can call respite a sleep over.

Delivery men always leave parcels for other people at your house as you are a virtual prisoner in your home with your child. Unfortunately your neighbours are rude enough to expect you to take them over - even though they have no children and could easily pop over.

when you keep getting asked to give "experience talks" at your local hospital/support group.

When you want to kidnap the only boy on the street that bother with DS and copes with his tantrums and patiently explains things to him without calling him a weirdo/freak

When you have tears rolling down your face when your 2 children actually speak to each other and can tolerate each other in a room for more than 2 minutes.

When you are so happy that your DS keeps tapping your back in public as you know its a sign of affection.

When all you and your DH can talk about is CDC,SALT,IPSEA,PP.

When your family stops coming to visit
When your friends stop coming to visit

When you stop worrying about your DS room being a tip as to tidy it would result in the biggest meltdown

When you start to wonder how on earth you and your DH are still together, how DH hasnt been sacked (yet) and how you still love each other to bits despite daily screaming tantrums etc

When you cant give your DH a hug without both children running up and shouting "no me me me"

When you cant have an argument as DS automatically thinks you are getting a divorce and starts screaming hysterically.

When you go to the hairdressers and he says, it looks like someone has been ripping your hair(DD,s obsession is with my hair)

There are funny sides to having an SN child as well.

DS can sit and recite every single episode of Spongebob to a stranger.

He always manages to get his home tutor to play a game of yu-gi-oh cards before starting any work!!

He is the most funniest,loveliest boy with a heart of gold you could ever meet and i wouldnt swap him for the world.

MrsF- lots of non sound effect Disney car pyjamas on ebay the other day (I had to find bNarnia though- only narnia or Daleks would do, and DS2 has Daleks which menas they would fight- but I think that's normal behaviour?)

Got two new ones yesterday, both nice:

• When your ds1 gives DS2 some chips wothoput minding, and you nearly want to cry

and - When ds1 goes into a full public meltdown and all the kids around him have gotten so used they don't mind, and just say Oh he's having his funny five minutes then!' and laugh. Oh I love those kids!!

Not so good one is when you have to threaten another adult to get him to take his hands off your child and get DH when said adult has decided he can sort DS1 out better than DH. Yet another apology to mkae sigh.....

This has made me laugh and weep !

I think you guys are just amazing and not having a SN child half of these thing would not have occurred to me in a million years.
You should make a poster for all school playground Mums to see with some of these things on.
Shiny's story about the birthday party started me off.

We will now invite the little one in DD1's class to her party. His mother shall decide whether he can come or not, not us.
Thank you, you have made me think. x

The party thing has happened to us today - my (so called) friend next door 'forgot' to invite my children to her sons birthday party for the first time ever and all the other kids on our cul de sac were invited. My eldest is upset by my autistic child doesnt realise and dd is still just a baby. I am livid. The card is in the bin and the pressie has already been opened and played with. FGS I think she thinks 'it' is catching.

Sam's only had one party invite all school year, yet all the kids do 'class' parties- hmmm. Even his 'girlfriend' who has an ASD brother forgot him.

It's probably one of the more hurtful things as it directly attaclks the kids rather than us, and it perpetuates attitudes into the next generation.

Perhaps we do need the posters.... for me, it would say

'Having a child with SEN means...... being sick of having to say sorry'

Peachy, I do wish you would seriously consider the posters!

If you said half the situations mentioned on here then I do wonder if it might give people something to think about.

As far as the party thing goes, I bet other Mums assume that an invitation wouldnt be wanted / or means the parent has to stay (which might not be their idea of fun).
I am sure that in many (not all ) cases its just ignorance not spite.

dd2 is starting to be excluded from parties now. Don't know how to handle it really, particularly when dd1 (2 years above dd2) gets invited to the party of a classmate of dd2, but dd2 doesn't.

I guess people worry how they'd cope with her or something - as if I'd just leave her.

No thats terrible!
What do you do? Do you tell them you cant possibly let dd1 go as dd2 would be gutted?

well, I let dd1 go - she's only 7 and would have been really upset to not be allowed to go to a party... dd2 didn't realise.

To be honest, I'm a really pathetic coward and would never confront another parent about exclusion from a party. The school my girls are at is tiny (80 children) and there'd be no way of avoiding someone in the playground.

geekgrrl that's terrible!

at that geekgrrl!

you can park on a double yellow line and just bugger off for three hours

you spend your life looking at other kids' footwear and trying to work out if you could get it on over AFOs

like the crocodile who swallowed a clock in Peter Pan, you can always hear where your child is because of the bashing of their walking frame; before the child comes into sight, your toddler turns round delighted at the sound and shouts 'sister!'

you have a wheelchair, a walking frame, tripod sticks, a special needs double buggy which doesn't fit on pavements, and a baby carrier. You want to go to the post office. How few can you take?

any less than three wins a prize