So fed up with having to stand guard over DS because other people's bloody kids are so bloody beastly!

[ShinyHappySchmooo]

It always gets like this in the summer holidays.. the parks and play areas are crowded and there is always that minority of little shites who have to be horrid to DS.

I was sitting on a bench in the play area at the park today (as opposed to hovering over DS to help him use the equipment because DD was with us and although she is the same size/weight as him, she is great at helping him!) and saw her having a conversation with a little girl and both of them looking at DS. DS had got his foot stuck so I jumped up to help him in time to hear DD saying hotly "He is my brother and he's NOT ugly!"

The kid was only about 5 or 6 but most five or six year olds don't seem to feel the need to be so horrible to him! It's just the odd few.. and this time of year it happens almost every time we go out somewhere like this. Why can't parents explain to their kids about disability and differences? Is that really too much to ask??

I found myself trying to be objective and asking myself "IS he ugly?" but I'm sure he's not.. his blonde, blue eyed, and cute.. even if he is 7 and still obviously in nappies (which tends to poke out top of his shorts when he's climbing!) and he wears a protective helmet, and dribbles. But surely that doesn't make him ugly! And even if he did have dysmorphic features, children ought to be taught not make nasty remarks!

I can handle questions.. "why is he wearing that hat? What's the matter with him..?" etc etc.. but not the beastliness. He wasn't aware.. but I was.. and so was DD!

And when am I going to learn to "rise above it all" like parents of SN children are probably supposed to! I seem to remember each and every incident.. from his being called "moron" and "stupid" to even being laughed nastily be parents! He is so sociable; he just goes up to people and says hello and fortunuately doesn't seem to notice when people are being nasty or rejecting him. But DD and I notice.

I bloody hate it!

Right. Rant over.

sorry to hear that, some kids are just plain mean.
Your son is not ugly. the children being nasty are the ugly ones.
Of topic ......why can't they make nappies that don't show over the top of trousers? drives me up the wall.

It annoys me as well. DS2 had his first comment about ds1 (from an approximately 6/7 year old) to field this holiday and he looked utterly floored. Little shits.

I do merrily tell people not to stare these days though.

Sorry to hear this Its not fair sometimes. I feel like this too in parks etc. Ive 2 kids with sn and know exactly how you feel. I was actually in tears a few weeks ago with something an adult said,when i had to take my son with autism to an appointment and hes non verbal and doesnt respond to his name.

I was standing up watching ds2 and he was running down to the wall he slightly bumped into a woman who was with her mother and she started shouting at me. I said it was an accident and he has autism as he didnt stop when i called him. She said i couldnt care less whats wrong with him so i said well i couldnt care less about you either. Adults can be nasty too. But i really do agree with you on that all children should be made more aware of disabilities. I wish they learned about them in school also.

Sorry you've been meeting some less than charming specimens recently. I have no idea why some people are so darn rude. And why they bring their children up to have no manners. Although I suppose the two are obviously connected.

It's horrible and especially when siblings have to deal with it as well.

I also get fed up when I take Ds1 (NT) to something e.g. dancing or football and have to wait with the other mothers and kids for 3/4 hour or whatever. So I take toys for Ds2 to play with or books to read etc. Which half the other mothers don't seem to do. They then settle down for a chat together ignoring their own children who are bored and decide to muscle in on Ds2's toys. So I end up running a creche and trying to explain why Ds2 has got his people upside down in the car and Ds2 has to share all his things. I know he needs to learn to share etc but I feel it's a bit hard on him that he should be continually having this lesson with children he doesn't even know, while already being trailed around to Ds1's stuff and just wanting to play quietly by himself in a corner.

Saker, you could say, 'No, these are X's things and HE wants to play with them by himself' if that's what he prefers. Sod the rest of them. Honestly.
Some woman came up to me in a park recently barking about ds shouting at other kids on teh slide ('Don't come down like that! You'll kill yourselves!") and I just said, 'He's autistic' and she backed off instantly. If she'd said 'I don't care' I can't honestly say what I would have done.
People can be vile. But they can also be lovely. And hooray for your lovely dd. Kids can also be vile to NT children. In France watched dd's little sandcastles being knocked down by a little bugger until ds (Aspergers) muscled (ha!) in to protect her.
On the ferry some HORRIBLE boys (very sure they were NT, just bored) were throwing plastic balls very aggressively and hard in the ball pit. they were far too old to be in there and they were scaring the little ones, despite being asked to be nice. In the end, I just physically took the balls away from one boy and said, 'You are NOT going to throw them." I was surprised at myself tbh! he didn't come back!

It is horrible & there is NO rule that sn parents should rise above nasty comments, why the hell should we.. our dc's have enough to cope with without us tolerating ignorance.

At a family christening a boy asked ds1 (7 nt) why ds2 was wearing those things on his legs(splints), ds politely explained that they helped his legs & elped him to walk without falling over. Then the boys says, anyway your brothers stupid.
ds1 shoved the boy over & said No your stupid.

Of course I told ds1 off but I was smiling to myself.

This is something I've found very hard to cope with this summer. Ds loves to sit at the top of slides and is oblivious to the queue behind him so I spend ages trying to coax him down or telling the other children that he won't mind if they climb past/over him. He also does other things like climb up the wrong way regardless of other children coming down or pushes past little ones as though they aren't there. All this means I have to supervise to make sure there isn't an accident and I feel it draws attention to ds. Sometimes children ask questions like "is he deaf?" and I don't mind as they are genuinely interested and I try to explain even though I usually curse myself afterwards for not making a better job of it! Some children are lovely like the little boy who told ds he could sit on his lap if he was scared to go down the slide . The incident that has really hurt me this summer was when I got to the campsite playground (after chasing ds who had run off up there yet again) just in time to hear a boy of about 8 say "but he's a retard". I hate that word and told the boy so in no uncertain terms (felt a bit mean afterwards because he looked very shocked) but for some reason it keeps coming back to me .

Also, when I took a few minutes to sit down on a bench like a 'normal' parent ds came flying backwards off the climbing frame. He was badly winded and very upset and I'm not convinced he wasn't pushed but of course he couldn't tell me .

that is crap and we don't have to take it. I am now the snotty mother - and tbh I have enough crap to deal with - without my dds having an unpleasant time thanks to other children whose parents have not taken the time to teach them to be accepting and tolerant of others sn or not.

Pixel - I think shocking them and addressing what they say and do directly is far more powerful than just removing your child.

My four year old was called a MORON by a revolting little shit at the playground the other day. he was aware of it, but luckily doesn't know what MORON means.

I muttered really quietly "He is Not a Moron, he is four. I bet when you were four, you couldn't say some words either."

And the child's big sister butted in and said "No he's NOT a moron, he is four, and you're being horrible, and I'm going to tell mum you are picking on little kids again, and she'll take your moonshoes away again, cos you're horrible."

And then she ran off, and the boy ran off after her shouting "No! No! Donnnnn't!"

And I sniggered.

But I understand. It is like an icicle through the heart to watch your child rejected.

Yes you're all right.. there was I thinking I had to rise above it but I don't do I.. so I won't! I too have "terrorised" children by telling them off publically and then watched them run to their parents only to see their parents turn their backs in order not to have to "deal" with the situation! If it was my child I would give them another public telling off and then bring them over to apologise!

What is wrong with people and why can't they think "there but for the grace of God..!" Nobody is "safe" from being potentially affected by disability.

And perhaps that's what they are afraid of. Not that it's any excuse.

You know, I love questions- questions show an interest, a chance of understanding.

I used tot hink you could always relate this cort of thing abck to the parents- until ds2 made a few comments about nto wanting to befriend X because he had a hearing aid (it turned out that X didnt wear ti much and ds2 has glue ear so they were struggling to communicate, which i think was it)- we also had a few racial comments though which are so NOT tolerated in this house! I was a bit to put it mildly (and it was immediately dealt with!)

Truth is, there sre some mean people out there, and some people react like this when they're scared- and some people get easily spooked by the tiniest difference. I was lucky- we ahd a lad with Cp in our class in Primary (in the 7o's!) so I learned early on that disabiltiy is aprt of our world and all that, some kids never seem to get tit hough.

Shiney.... I can absolutely 100% understand where you are coming from. This horrible but inevitable part of our childs life goes on and we can do nothing to stop it. If you ask me it should be tought as part of the cirriculum in all schools about acceptance of people no matter what. Disability only seems to be 'dealt with' in school when there is a disabled child in the class. And its amazing how many parents can be bloody rude and so thick when you can see that they themselves make snide remarks under their breath. Ds1 is also in nappies at 5.7 and is about to start full-time in ms year 1. I have always desperately tryed to hide the top but without success. He has already had comments from the other kids which I heard walking down the school path. I remember when he first started at ms in his split placement. I actually wanted to do a little talk to the class explaining about his disability and why he needs to wear splints and nappies etc, but was advised against it as the teacher thought it would single him out. Understandable but on the other hand, it would have educated the children and helped them to answer any questions they might have had.

My Ds1 is not aware of the staring etc at the moment (or so I think anyway). The trouble is he cannot talk and tell them to 'feck off' himself, so it will be a physical reaction from him which is more unacceptable than a verbal one these days. This is the cruelest thing for me, he can't even bloody tell them to piss off . So what happens when they are blatently slagged off to their little faces and they DO start to understand..........I dread this moment more than anything in the world . The thing is, all this isn't just a 'might happen one day', it is almost deffinitely going to happen and it is out of our control. LITTLE FECKERS!!!!!!!

Eidsvold, you're right of course but I've never been one to speak out before. I think that might be why I keep dwelling on this particular incident, because for once I did snap and say what I thought and I surprised myself. I did actually say what Shiny just said, about thinking himself lucky it wasn't him and it could happen to anyone. There were lots of open-mouthed children in the playground but it must have had an effect on some of them because the next day when we ventured in (rather nervously on my part!) they called "hello ds" and seemed quite pleased to see him. It's not something I'd like to be doing on a regular basis though, much too stressful! Plus, I'm not sure how much of it ds understands.

This summer has been SO difficult for me to watch my handsome, intelligent, compassionate 12 year old DS try to connect with other near-teens on holidy etc. Because he doesn't walk the same as other kids and his left arm doesn't hang the same.
Ive gone through every emotion and there is NOTHING more I can do, but really this summer has left me quite depressed and fearful for DS's future. It must be his age but it felt much harder this year.
My high spot was on a picnic to the park when 2 lads virtually dragged DS off to bowl for them. Their mother came over and apologised for their persistence - she had a third son who was severely disabled and was at that time in respite care and her two other children were very pro-inclusion! I hope that kids like these, and the OP's kids, and my own DD of 5 are the way of the future. It would be nice to think so.

Children who understand about disability go a small way towards making up for those who don't, don't they. The NT siblings can be fantastic. DS2 (SN) is 7 and DD is only 8 can often be a little madam but of DS she is fiercely protective. She never seems to completely relax in playareas once an 'incident' has occured and you can see her scanning the throngs of kids for those who might be starring of preparing to start on him.

My best friend's children are the same, having grown up "with" DS; any kind of disability in anyone, child or adult, is no grea shakes to them, probably because DS's needs are so complex and they have seem most of it all before. We have all recently got in touch with an old friend who now has two children and we have all been spending lots of time together over the holidays. Their oldest is 10 and has autism and she has fallen into such an easy, natural friendship with mine and my BF's DD that her mum can't believe it; has never seen it happen before. Our DDs find nothing odd or noteworthy about her speech patterns or "stims" even though she too gets grief from other kids when we are all out; we have experienced this several times already just over the holidays! Our girls have been defending her too!

DD and BF's DD (7) were also fantastic recently when BF and her DH had DS and they all went to a playcentre where DS unfortuntely performed the most horrific public "poo incident" (smearing). Thankfully the staff were great but other parents where mean to BF and her DH and inevitably children were queueing up to stare and comment on the "fall out" as BF and her DH and the staff tried to clean up (unsurprising with parents like that I guess!). DD and BF's DD formed a barrier and were heard saying to children "what's so interesting?! It's only poo! Have you never seen poo before??"

Bless em

pixel- I stopped going to busy playgrounds with ds1 as the sitting at the top of the slide stuff became such a problem (how old is your ds?). I have managed to seek out some 'nearly always empty' ones though which ds1 uses.

He's 7 gess. It's not been such a big problem before because normally we can just leave if it gets too crowded or I can persuade him to go on the swings or something. The problem this time is that we were on a campsite so it was almost impossible to keep him away! Plus after a couple of days the kids got to know each other and got a bit bolder I suppose, especially as their parents weren't in the immediate vicinity. It's the first time we've been on a site with a play area (and the last probably if I can help it) and the first time he hasn't been content to sit in the tent for short periods with his Gameboy. We ended up strapping him in the buggy just so we could eat our breakfast!
I feel really down about it because when we went camping at half-term he was doing so well with his walking and being so good that I wondered if we'd manage without the buggy by the summer holidays. Unfortunately he's now worse than ever and much heavier with it. Oh well, back to school tuesday! We'll see if his teacher has any good ideas.

LOL Fio.. well perhaps unfortunately, perhaps fortunately, can't decide.. all DS's many antisocial habits are saved for us.. (eg clouting hard round the face, over the head, hair pulling, pinching etc).. he is charm personified (dribbling aside!) to children he doesn't know!

And oh fuck.. I really don't know when DD is back at school.. am not at all sure of the day. How can I find out? I am not in social contact with any of the parents at her school (if you could see them you'd know why.. great school, huge minger factor!)