Other people's "brats" and my innocent son.....

[mamadadawahwah]

My son is just over 2 and he has a speech delay. A little boy started talking to him in the supermarket. My son didnt respond in the way this little boy liked (he was about 5) so he started screaming into my son's ear.

A few weeks back, a little boy being pushed in his pushchair spit in my son's face as I stopped for a bit to look at something in a shop.

Now in both instances, i could have caused a "scene", instead i glared at the parents of each of these kids, as obviously children that age must get this behaviour from parents or kids they associate with.

What unnerved me most is my wee son didnt know that he had been badly treated, thankfully. But i sure did. I just felt oh boy, here we go, life in the big world has started. My son is not a baby anymore and will have to take the tumbles that life shoves in front of him.

What would you have done/said to the parents of these kids? By the way, the mothers of both children saw what their kids did to my son and they were both the "hard and rough" types you didnt want to smart mouth, if you know what i mean.

Coppertop, that sounds like quite a good development, is it not? Realising that you won't know what his dad has said and so on? A pain, obviously, but quite a step forward I'd have thought!

In answer to the original question, when dd1 was little I too would have been muttering 'brat' under my breath.

Now I'm onto my third child I've realised that (a) may be unfair to the other child, as misdee points out and (b) doesn't actually address the child's behaviour.

We live on the edge of quite a rough area, and there are lots of kids who seem to inured to pretty harsh treatment from adults and other kids, and I suspect that attacking other (smaller) children is just a way of acting out what they've been used to themselves.

Rather than muttering to myself, I now tend to say, very mildly, something along the lines of, "Please don't throw sticks at dd2, it might hurt her." IME that approach is surprisingly effective -- mostly the offending child will turn and gawp at me, before wandering away. I think they're so used to adults kicking off at them, that making a calm, reasonable request really nonplusses them. It also has the advantage of being nonconfrontational and so less likely to make the parents want to have a go themselves (or feel like crap parents if the child's behaviour is a result of some kind of SN).

Tamum - The first few times he did it he asked dh for whatever it was while I was standing right next to him. Rather stupidly I explained that there was no point when I was standing right next to him and could hear everything. It's taken a little while but it's starting to sink in for him. Hopefully it's the beginning of developing theory of mind.

apparently autistics can understand TOM- in that other people have different thoughts to them. It's other aspects of the Sally-Anne test they fail (but don't question me too much on it yet )

Interesting as ds1 has some sort of theory of mind. For example he hides his favourite things so ds2 won't get hold of them.

Lol at you explaining to ds1 how he could get the better of you CT

Jimjams, there'll be no stopping you explaining all this soon, stats and all It's so complex isn't it?

tamum.

I'm not suggesting that it is anyone's job to educate others - but if a child screamed in my son's ear or spat at him I would expect an apology, either from the child or its parent... and if the parent's apology came also with an explanation I would understand that there was far more going on than simply some "brat" (of which there are plenty out there) behaving badly. I do realise that you guys have enough to deal with at times without having to spend ages explaining everything to strangers - just feel that if another child is hurt/upset then that explanation can only help. Otherwise you are left with a nt child wondering why a complete stranger has been "nasty" to them. Hope that makes sense.

I agree Willow. Well put.

And YES a SN child can be naughty.....very!!!!!! Ellie is!!! Just as any child is.

She pulls her Sisters hair, hits her and at times takes things she shouldnt be touching and legs it with a really cheeky look on her face!!!!

Of course, supose it depends on the severity of the SN, Some children in Ellies School wouldnt be naughty, unfortuantly they wouldnt be able to be

DS can be "naughty" but I really think that the reasons behind it and what he learns (or not) from it are deeply affected by his disability. So it does need much more careful and systematic response (in theory, sometimes I just yell ). More than once I have beenout with him and been very obviosly "managing" him, communicating with him with Makaton etc and even when people can SEE that there is some SN going on they still expect me to be able to control and manage him 100%. More than once I've said something like "oh sorry he pushed in front of you or grabbed something, he's autistic" and the response has been "but you're not, why don't you do something, get him in a program, deal with it?". After 4 years of the BEST intensive 1:1 program and then the BEST 1:1 school I found it rather hard to be told I wasn't doing well enough. So even being nice and polite and telling people, showing that you're trying really hard, it still isn't enough for some people. Mind you, very very often I see people looking at us smiling at how close we are and if DS gives me a hug they melt..... that does happen a lot more.

Davros. (at the hug) and hear hear to the rest of the comments as well.

Thanks for the responses.

Davros - I think that anyone who accuses you of not doing enough for your child should be WHACKED WITH A BRICK. Actually, if I had been standing next to you when it happened, I would have done it for you.

Thanks willow2, shall we go out mobhanded?
That has happened to me twice, when someone has actually said something in that vein, although I'm sure lots of people have thought it and I've seen people retreating more than once. One time it happened it was a snotty stuck up cow in St John's Wood who didn't want DS to sprinkle blossom near her little darling and the second was some wide chav in Budgens..... ignorance knows no class divide it seems!