What would you say...

[deepbreath]

...to a group of school children aged 5 to 6 that have just pointed, laughed and generally taken the p*ss because they've seen my 4 y.o. dd being strapped into her Maclaren Major buggy?

"You're too big to go in there", "that's a baby's buggy" and so on

I took a deep breath (hence my mn name) and gave a general broadcast to the group. "(Dd's name) has to use this because she's got a poorly heart and poorly legs."

A bit rubbish really, and I could hear them laughing as they were led away. Dd went very quiet.

I am a bit miffed that they had an adult with them that said nothing... they were being collected to go to an after school club at a local nursery.

I don't want dd having the p*ss taken out of her for this at breaktime tomorrow... she has just started in reception

Poor dd

I think the best thing is to have a chat with the teacher and hopefully she'll be able to do some circle time work with them.

Aww ..bet that was hard
yes...i would do as dusty says. I would definitely go in and mention it.

Poor dd I'd go in and have a word with the staff. As dusty says they could do circle time about differences.

deepbreath - do you ever post on the Heartline message board Here? If not it would be nice to see you over there.

Thank you for your replies, they've really helped. I don't think I've seen that board before, SMBK. Thanks

We've had the odd comment from adults about the buggy before. We were given the choice of this or a wheelchair, and I opted for this because dd can walk a bit before she conks out.

I found this trickier to handle because there was about 6 children that were too young for me to say "you're being out of order, don't laugh".

Dd can be a bit volatile at times, so I am also worried that she'll swing for someone if they tease her. Bet she'll be the one that gets told off

The children were too young to know better, it should have been up to the adult with them to back you up.

I agree, the adult was remiss in not correcting the children.
Let me just tell you this one though - I was on the tram with DD3 who was in her major buggy (she very obviously has down syndrome and I use it cos sometimes she just won't walk and now at 7 is too big for me to carry), when some fuckwit woman says to me "isn't she a bit big to be in a pram?" I sighed, explained why I was using it, and she was then mortified. What business of her was it anyway, even if DD3 was NT?
There. Got that one of my chest

Oh poor dd. Lets hope the adult explained to them afterwards that they were out of order