Getting grief when you park in a disabled space

[beammeupscotty]

How do you cope when you park in a disabled bay with a toddler with cerebral palsy, who looks pretty 'normal' in his standard buggy?

My daughter expects to get one in 6 months time as DGS is on higher rate DLA, but we have heard from another mum that she gets non stop grief from people (mostly older people) and feels the need to explain that her DS is disabled. She also gets very upset and doesn't see why she should have to explain to these rude people.

We would like to be prepared with some answers that will put these ignorant people in their place but not to give them the satisfaction of knowing they have made us give them private information. Any good ideas?

"sorry, I don't see your uniform or attendant's badge"?

Yes my daughter has serious visual impairment and a blue badge however I rarely use it due the grief I get from people.
I also get grief parking in P and T spaces which are wider than disabled spaces at our tesco when someone saw the blue badge in my door.
I think 2 fingers often suffice when you've run out of words...

"If you think there's a problem, call the police"?
I guess it depends how you feel about being rude to them. You could always ask them about any illnesses or diseases they have. You definitely should not have to explain yourself and try not to if you can help it.

'Yes, i have a blue badge for my son, who is registered disabled. I don't have to tell you what is wrong with him, that's none of your business. Blue badges are not handed out like sweeties to anybody, and the people who gave us the badge are a tad more qualified than you are. So take your prejudice and go and bother someone else.' usually suffices...

I honestly find a hard stare puts off most comments. Have perfected a don't even ask look!

I used to ignore them(dd has cp and we went through the buggy stage) once she was ina wheelchair it was quite funny.
I would park in bay, put up badge, jump out(normal car then) and run round to boot...cue glares......then get her wheelchair out, i enjoyed that.
now we have a massive van, and I park and no one glares.(OH and if no disabled bays I would park in a P&t space even if she is 14)

Thank you all
will print out this page so dont forget the answers. Will use a variety depending on how we're feeling at the time!

Problem is, Riven, you need it again, so you can't shove it up far enough!

There you go. You need a long piece of string to attach to your disabled badge, for easy retrieval. Someone on ebay will sell them, I'm sure ...

I tend to wait to see what they say. Old people don't "get" that kids can have blue badges, because in their day any kid disabled enough for a badge was locked up 24/7 in an institution. So it's not usually that they think your child shouldn't have a badge. It's that they think you are the one "pretending" to be disabled. They usually approach you and say: "do you have a badge?" or "is that your badge?" and if you say: "no, it's my daughter's badge." they generally back down. It helps, of course, if you then haul your screaming 6 year old out of the car and balance her over your shoulder while trying to cram her kicking feet into the seat on the supermarket trolley. People tend find somewhere else to be fairly quickly after that.

come on people did you not realize that only old people are aloud to be disabled your not aloud to be born with a disability it comes with age silly!!!!!!!!!
we get the looks all the time my son has asd with no danger awareness and we are just waiting for our major buggy to arrive hopfully some of the looks might stop then

Here now they warn people to walk away if anyone approaches them at parking bays as people are being folowed and harrased to hand over their blue badges.

So just walk away is good advice

(and no, it's not me wanting to rant about how come they get one and not me LOL )

my 3yo DD has CF and I know that a lot of adults with CF get grief from people whilst they are parking in disabled spaces mainly because they 'look normal' but in fact are not able to walk very far without struggling to breathe.

anyway one of the best comments I heard from one of them in response to the accusation -'you don't look disabled' was to say 'you don't look ignorant but then it just goes to show appearances can be deceptive'

mintyneb love it!

Will memorise these, esp minty and ouryve. Dont fancy retrieving blue badges from dark holes tho. Thanks again

dh jsut says very loudly, 'yes he is disabled, what's your problem!'
I thought this guy was going to walk into the wall yesterday, staring and staring at the car. Not really sure what he was expecting to see!

Older people def are the worst. We also get funny looks when out with dh's family. 3 cars in convoy, and all of them have blue badges.

yes, it's very frustrating but I wouldn't let it put you off getting one. I got a blue badge sticker from Halfords that I stuck in the back window which has cut down on the direct comments. And yes, perfect "the glare" it has so many uses

just perfect the - come and have a go then and you will regret it stare - or completely ignore them - i use the blue badge from halfords as well so that people can see it as you park and before i get the real badge out ......

don't let them put you off - believe me this is one of the smaller battles that you will face .......

yep, we develop thick skins!

I must have perfected the stare too, we get lots of looks but noone has ever said anything.I sometimes wish they would so i could put them straight ...

Well, by the time you graduate to a giant WAV, nobody dares challenge you!