Posting on this Board

[hels9]

I'd be interested to know what anyone else thinks, but I do find it frustrating and a real shame when people whose children blatantly do have special needs in the literal interpretation of the phrase feel that posting on this board might be inappropriate. Special needs are, so far as I'm concerned, special needs of any kind - whether related to health, physical needs, behavioural or general-developmental. And that is why I look to this board for advice and support from understanding parents. Plenty of parents have children with special needs in several or all of those categories in any event, and it really would be tiresome to have to post the same message on several different boards to get to speak to everyone you want to.

I will rue the day we ever get separate boards for different categories of special need. (Anyway, the whole argument about dividing special needs up into more specific sub-categories reminds me a bit of the witterings on the Gifted and Talented board by disgruntled mothers who feel that there are too many merely clever children's parents posting on there, so the board really ought to be renamed, or the offending parents chased off with their tails between their legs - albeit that the reasons behind fearing this is the wrong board to post on are far more noble and sensitive to others' feelings than those behind the G&T comments).

Well there are people who have experience of CF posting. Perhaps the experience is limited.

There is an allergies section - I post there if I want allergy related questions answered. I postr on health for eczema related questions.

I suspect you didn't get a response to the question about SN because we're actually just a group of people chatting rather than a formal support group with a mission statement

I don't think people on this board have to answer every question posted. Nor do I think they have to be here to offer support to every person who posts a thread. If there are enough people with similar problems then a conversation will flow. There are quite a few of us with children with severe learning disabilities. So we chat. So shoot us.

Oh dear Kerry, I'm such a freak, I don't particularly consider DS1's CF to be SNs, at least not in any way related to DS2's many and complex and SNs. Although that is maybe because I live and breathe the two separate scenarios at the same time. So I tend to feel that way. But surely that's up to me??!

I think your issues about posting on this board are you own, not anyone elses.

And I don't think the lady who started the thread asking about the possibility of a "chronic condition" thread was being in any way insulting to anyone who may or may not post on this thread.

But there you. I'm a clearly not at all normal.

which 'attitude' kerrymum? I am really confused

She always gets attitude over this issue. Imagines that people are saying her children's needs aren't serious or some such crap.. then gets really insulting until someone gets upset and stops posting. While she continues posting merrily!

Get over it Kerry. Post where you like! I'm sure you're more than capable of putting in their place anyone who you feel may have slighted you in any fashion imaginable.. (imaginable being the operative word here)

I'm going to repost (modified) what I've just said on the health board because this is just turning into stirring.

"I think parameters need to be set."

What for every section of the board?

Special needs is a group of people chatting. Not a mafia. Not a formal support group. Not a charitable organisation.

If you post and a question isn't answered it probably suggests that you're posting in the wrong section of the board because not enough 'relevant' people who are able to offer help/advice/support are reading your question. It doesn't suggest that people are making value judgments.

If I saw a question about CF or allergies or immune related issues in SN I wouldn't answer it because I wouldn't open the thread. I know nothing about it. I would open the one next to it about DLA, or the one next to it about PECS. I wouldn't expect someone dealing with CF to give me advice on PECS (or perhaps I could post something about PECS in education then get in a sulk when people don't reply- or perhaps I could do the sensible thing and post in a section where I'll find PECS users).

If having a chronic health section makes it easier for people facing the same sort of issues to 'find' each other on a busy board then it sounds like a good idea. BUt there's no value attached to that comment- just a practical one.

I'm a relative newbie, but if someone posts something thats needs an urgent reply or is very distressing and no one else picks up I will try and say something, rather than leave the poster alone!
Less urgent things or questions that need facts I cant provide ( very likely) I will leave to wait for a better poster!
I would have thought special needs means almost anything that means a child ( its a parenting forum) needs additional care, consideration or support. I'm sure this is a useless definition so don't all pounce at once!

oh magso i feel like you have been here forever but honestly i really dont care or notice how long anyone has been here at all

i know chocolaterockinghorse in real life and have known yurt1 for years so 'chatting'; is just normal and not meant to be seen as offputting or quichey

I don't think it needs defining as such. We could define it - but if the relevant people are still posting on other sections of the board then what's the point.

SN is pretty big now- it's defined itself. I used to read every ASD question. Now I don't read anything that's obviously about AS or HFA because a) I don't have the time so I select heavily and b) there are people far better qualified than me to answer.

I agree about sometimes saying something if a poster hasn't got many replies.

I can't believe you're new either magso. I would have guessed you'd been here years

I can't see a problem for myself. There are several different aspects of dd's condition, as with many disabled children.
If I want to discuss a medical problem (say dd's recent operation) I'll go to the health board.
If I want to cry on somebody's shoulder about the general situation of having a disabled child I'll come here- doesn't necessarily matter if your children have different conditions.
If I want info on applying for DLA etc I'll come here- doesn't matter if your children have different conditions.
If I want special information about dd's condition, I'll leave Mumsnet and go to a specialist forum, seeing that it is a relatively rare one.
If I have spoken to a particularly dim consultant, I'll probably end up in the AIBU threads.
I actually thought the new thread on chronic health problems was quite useful, as I got to meet other Mumsnetters whose problems I hadn't realised. Doesn't mean there is anything wrong or unhelpful with the current SN section, I'd have found the thread equally helpful if it had been posted here.

I open threads even with problems that are not my own, if I have the time; sometimes you do find you can make a contribution. Or at least you learn something new. But obviously time is limited.

I don't think that a child has to have a severe disabilty (intellectual or otherwise) to post on the SN board. My two boys are at the milder end of the autistic spectrum. They are also both very bright. I still post on here, even though their particular needs aren't as great as others with the same dx.

I don't think there's a clique either. I know some posters better than others, either because they too have been posting for years or they have children with similar SNs, or we just happen to post at similar times of the day to me.

If I spot someone on a different board who is worried about SNs then I usually point them in the direction of the SN board too. I'm not the only one who does that either.

I dont have a problem with there being a chronic illness section either fwiw I just dont know why people have to be so personal about other posters (not mentioning any names)

Like that is it! It feels like it sometimes!

I've posted on SN (slightly on and off it has to be said) since the very early days.

As many of the old hands will know, I have taken myself off it at times when I've felt that the SN in my family isn't sufficiently SN enough to justify me continuing to post. But that is entirely because I've felt like that, and not because any poster on SN has made me feel like that, iyswim.

And they have been very welcoming to me each time I've come back, which I've just done again .

But I would certainly support a chronic illness thread, without having anything to post on it, iyswim. I can see that it could be really useful.

KM - as far as I can see the mother who was hesitant about whether CF was SN or not was hesitant about the condition being appropriate to the SN boards, not the perceived horribleness of the many poaters here.

I am aware of your boys allergies, and thier intellectual advancements. Are there others you have raised on SN?

poaters Blu?

yes, poaters - have you not been invited into the special 'poaters' group? never mind - we can't all be special.

God I am just pleased that for the first time somone has accused me of being in a clique
I have always thought it sounded dead exciting and snotty.

A bit sad that the actual reality is that I just have a commononality of whinges with some similar mums.
Maybe next time it will be on the mulberry handbag thread in style - or the aston martin owners thread. Knowing my luck it will be in the fucking camping section ( discussing chemical toilets)

I want to belong to the camping clique

I'd like to belong to the 'fabulously wealthy' clique as well.

I wanna be a poater.

I just had a sudden flashback to deciding that ds1 'wasn't bad enough' to join the local NAS.

oh yurt1 dh still has moments of madness where he thinks dd isnt 'bad enough' for things