Advice for friend re older child not liking younger childs Major Buggy

[lottiejenkins]

Hi. You lovely people have helped me with advice for my friend before and i'm back again, her youngest ds[3] has now been diagnosed with impulsivity and severe dyspraxia as well as other things. She also has a son of 6 and older children of 15,17 and 20.
She got a Major Buggy yesterday for youngest ds and rang up to ask for some dutch courage before she took ds to school in it. She says that people will now know he has problems and was worried. Her major worry is that second ds[6] was embarassed by it and called it gay. Advice please.............

Bump............please

i've not been in this situation, all that comes to mind is to give the second DS an explanation he can give if anyone asks him about it? that might make him feel less worried about other kids responses to it?

IMHO mc Majors now don't look very differnt to other buggies, there is such a range of werid and wonderfull buggies out there they don't draw as much attention as they used to (in the blue and white stripey days).
Arn't 6 yr ld embarrased by every thing parents do in front of their school mates?
I suspect that loaded up with all her usual clobber plus six yr olds school bag no one will bat an eyelid.

lol, mine wouldnt even know what gay was lol lol

My ds is 6 too, and we have more problems dragging him and his mates out of dd's Major buggy. If dd has got out of it, someone else usually hops in for a lift! They think it's great fun. Dd is 5, and we use it for the school run too.

Other children have commented, or asked why dd is in a "baby's buggy". I've tried to answer why she needs to use it in a way that they'll understand. This usually stops the more unpleasant children from being nasty about it. Because dd is very tall for her age, she looks like a 7 or 8 year old in a pushchair.

Yes, having this buggy does highlight that dd is different to her friends. Several children at her school are wheelchair users though, so most of the pupils are used to seeing people in wheelchairs anyway.

Maybe your friend could explain to her 6 year old what could happen if his brother didn't have the buggy, that he is safer using it? Maybe if it was emphasised that it is actually more of a wheelchair than something "babyish"? Or would that trigger worse comments than what's already been said?

i've got a 4 yo that uses a major on and off for the school run, a 6 yo ds and 8 yo dd - they don't bat an eyelid and neither do their friends. 'gay' just sounds like he's aware that someone might notice his brother is different - so i'd be addressing that, rather than commenting on the buggy itself... make sure he's got something to tell his friends about this brother, rather than relying on him to make it up himself.

(incidentally, we have the 'can i have a go' with the wheelchair rather than the buggy - it's v popular in this house)

no-one at school has even noticed ours as an sn buggy btw - although one mum did come up and say 'oh, that's fab, it's huge, where did you get it?'
erm. wheelchair services?!