How does your child treat special needs students at school?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Does he/she try to get to know them? When he/she sees them eating alone at lunch, having no one to talk to at recess, do they shrug their shoulders and ignore or do they try to include them in a game or play? Do they speak kindly to them in group activities?

My child is special needs and after years of watching how he has been treated in schools by peers and teachers, I have come to realize that parents and teachers are not doing enough to show the value of special needs children. My child has been shoved in the hallways, is the only person at recess to not have anyone to play with, and is bullied by exclusion even in the classroom. Children will talk over his voice to discourage him from speaking in class. Children will ask other children to not speak to him. When my child tries to speak to other children, they pretend as if they don't hear.

He has sensory issues and likes to smell nice things. He once took his scented lip balm and rubbed it across his own sheet of paper so he would have something to smell throughout class. His AAP teacher came over to his desk, confiscated the lip balm as well as the paper and then kept him after class for 30 minutes to interrogate him about his unusual behavior. He was not permitted to go to kiss and ride and I was left wondering where my child is. My child suffers from ADHD and sensory issues.

Teachers have, unbeknownst to us, reduced his work load and changed his curriculum in certain subjects to help him get through material quickly so they can simply pass him rather than suggesting additional supports be placed within his existing IEP. His education this year would have been compromised had we not learned about this and quickly jumped in to ask for additional supports in his IEP.

At the age of 9, after enduring these assaults and insults every day in school, my child told me he wished he had never been born.

I am writing this in the general parenting forum to ask parents to speak to their children about how to treat special needs children. No matter what the special needs are, whether they are unmotivated or seemingly lazy in class, no matter if they have a tic, no matter if they make weird noises in class, no matter if they appear unintelligent, please ask your children to go out of their way to be kind and patient with them.

Making special needs children feel included is a reflection of our humanity.

Your child doesn't have "special needs"

Once you stop using that as a crutch, only then are you going to be able to help your child. Lots of kids have sensory issues. In fact lots of adults have them. They learn to control the impulse but your child with ADHD needs more help with impulse control. Medication and explicit instructions. "Don't sniff papers all during class. It's not acceptable classroom behavior." Kids with ADHD are often not pick up context or inferential clues. That's not a special need, it's lack of attention.

The social situation you describe -meh, happens to lots of kids labeled and not labeled by their parent. Approach the school counselor, teacher, and do work outside of school - arrange play dates, get to know kids and parents.

So ask my child who has challenges to change but not ask the children mistreating him to change? Excuse me? No. If my son smells his lip balm and can not control that urge a few times a day, it doesn't hurt anybody. Its his quirk and so long as it does not affect his concentration and does not harm anyone, the other students need to be taught to overlook petty things that sometimes distinguish childrrn special needs. The goal isNOT to equalize everyone. Its to teach tolerance of differences.

[Anonymous]

Its to teach tolerance of differences.

There is a difference between tolerance and being BFF.

I'm one of those people who cannot stand the smell of some of those lip balms. Has it occurred to you that it might be offensive to the others? Have you talked to your son about adjusting his own behavior? I understand that social skills may be difficult for him (I have a DD who has/had difficulty with social skills and was bullied, so I am not unsympathetic) but you cannot expect everyone to adjust to him. Tolerance? Yes. Are they really mean to him? Or, is it his perception?

Does he listen to others? You talk about others talking over him. Was the lip balm distracting him and others? Do you want others to be nice to him because they feel sorry for him--or do you want them to like him? Sounds to me like you think this is a one way street.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Its to teach tolerance of differences.

There is a difference between tolerance and being BFF.

I'm one of those people who cannot stand the smell of some of those lip balms. Has it occurred to you that it might be offensive to the others? Have you talked to your son about adjusting his own behavior? I understand that social skills may be difficult for him (I have a DD who has/had difficulty with social skills and was bullied, so I am not unsympathetic) but you cannot expect everyone to adjust to him. Tolerance? Yes. Are they really mean to him? Or, is it his perception?

Does he listen to others? You talk about others talking over him. Was the lip balm distracting him and others? Do you want others to be nice to him because they feel sorry for him--or do you want them to like him? Sounds to me like you think this is a one way street.

+1, I get bad migraines. If I see a kid using something scented, including hand sanitizer, we walk the other way. Scents are a huge trigger for me.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Does he/she try to get to know them? When he/she sees them eating alone at lunch, having no one to talk to at recess, do they shrug their shoulders and ignore or do they try to include them in a game or play? Do they speak kindly to them in group activities?

My child is special needs and after years of watching how he has been treated in schools by peers and teachers, I have come to realize that parents and teachers are not doing enough to show the value of special needs children. My child has been shoved in the hallways, is the only person at recess to not have anyone to play with, and is bullied by exclusion even in the classroom. Children will talk over his voice to discourage him from speaking in class. Children will ask other children to not speak to him. When my child tries to speak to other children, they pretend as if they don't hear.

He has sensory issues and likes to smell nice things. He once took his scented lip balm and rubbed it across his own sheet of paper so he would have something to smell throughout class. His AAP teacher came over to his desk, confiscated the lip balm as well as the paper and then kept him after class for 30 minutes to interrogate him about his unusual behavior. He was not permitted to go to kiss and ride and I was left wondering where my child is. My child suffers from ADHD and sensory issues.

Teachers have, unbeknownst to us, reduced his work load and changed his curriculum in certain subjects to help him get through material quickly so they can simply pass him rather than suggesting additional supports be placed within his existing IEP. His education this year would have been compromised had we not learned about this and quickly jumped in to ask for additional supports in his IEP.

At the age of 9, after enduring these assaults and insults every day in school, my child told me he wished he had never been born.

I am writing this in the general parenting forum to ask parents to speak to their children about how to treat special needs children. No matter what the special needs are, whether they are unmotivated or seemingly lazy in class, no matter if they have a tic, no matter if they make weird noises in class, no matter if they appear unintelligent, please ask your children to go out of their way to be kind and patient with them.

Making special needs children feel included is a reflection of our humanity.

It's not the kids - it's the school. They are allowing that to happen and most likely encouraging it unintentionally by not fostering an inclusive environment. We cannot tell our kids what to do in school when we have no idea what's going on there. And telling them in general to include others and be nice doesn't help. The people who are there have to make sure this doesn't happen, and they aren't doing that. Your school sucks. Period. Mine does too. Lots of them do. It's up to us to change things or get our kids out of there.

Do you invite other kids for playdates? Do you attend class parties and school events to meet other parents? Those things really help. It's not going to happen on its own, and other parents aren't going to do it for you. You need to make a change.

Yes. I was room parent one year to get to know parents better. I invited kids over for bday parties, asked for play dates, did all of that. What I found was, as he got older, they stopped asking for play dates in return, stopped inviting my son for bday parties, and their children began rebuffing my son in school. He is now in 5th grade. Kids do not do play dates in 5th grade. They "hang out." Nobody has shown any interest in hanging out with my son. In fact, they are mean to him when the teacher turns her back. And if I complained to the teacher over every unkind word I would be communicating with her every day. We have to pick our battles. So we complain over serious incidents, such as when a girl pushed him in the hallway, or his science group members made him feel as if he was invisible. He didn't learn from science labs sometimes because they did not include him. We had to complain.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Its to teach tolerance of differences.

There is a difference between tolerance and being BFF.

I'm one of those people who cannot stand the smell of some of those lip balms. Has it occurred to you that it might be offensive to the others? Have you talked to your son about adjusting his own behavior? I understand that social skills may be difficult for him (I have a DD who has/had difficulty with social skills and was bullied, so I am not unsympathetic) but you cannot expect everyone to adjust to him. Tolerance? Yes. Are they really mean to him? Or, is it his perception?

Does he listen to others? You talk about others talking over him. Was the lip balm distracting him and others? Do you want others to be nice to him because they feel sorry for him--or do you want them to like him? Sounds to me like you think this is a one way street.

+1, I get bad migraines. If I see a kid using something scented, including hand sanitizer, we walk the other way. Scents are a huge trigger for me.

At my sons school, lip balms are used by many children, particularly during winter months. My sons lips bleed if he does not use them. The school permits all students to use them. If another student is offended to the point of getting debilitating migraines, they move the students desks or seating so they are not near each other. They will notprohibit lip balms to stop the child with sensory issues from smelling his own lip balm.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Its to teach tolerance of differences.

There is a difference between tolerance and being BFF.

I'm one of those people who cannot stand the smell of some of those lip balms. Has it occurred to you that it might be offensive to the others? Have you talked to your son about adjusting his own behavior? I understand that social skills may be difficult for him (I have a DD who has/had difficulty with social skills and was bullied, so I am not unsympathetic) but you cannot expect everyone to adjust to him. Tolerance? Yes. Are they really mean to him? Or, is it his perception?

Does he listen to others? You talk about others talking over him. Was the lip balm distracting him and others? Do you want others to be nice to him because they feel sorry for him--or do you want them to like him? Sounds to me like you think this is a one way street.

Sounds to me you jumped the gun a bit in your assumptions. No one is mandating a utopian culture or else. This is a request for additional tolerance for children with challenges. The less tolerant our children are, the worse it is for
Society as a whole.

[Anonymous]

Sounds to me you jumped the gun a bit in your assumptions. No one is mandating a utopian culture or else. This is a request for additional tolerance for children with challenges. The less tolerant our children are, the worse it is for
Society as a whole

Maybe, but, as I said, DD was bullied unmercifully in fourth grade. However, you cannot make others like your child. You have to work with your child to be nice to others. We worked with the counselor and she chose the teachers who could better work with my DD and she also was careful which other kids were in the class. That helped.
The fourth grade teacher was a lovely person--but the bullying did not happen in front of her. Teasing, etc, occurred on playground, hallways, etc.

As far as the lip balm, it sounds to me like the kid was abusing its use. He may need to smell nice things--but it is distracting if it has a fragrance --and, he was probably playing with it. The mom totally defended its use. She should talk to him about limiting it. He was probably playing with the lip balm instead of doing his work.

[Anonymous]

All of these comments are where it really starts to suck for SN kids and their parents.

Lip balm? Really, it's okay for a teacher or peer to get bent out of shape over lip balm when SN kids are regularly bullied at a rate of 60%? I don't know what the answer is but when a nine year old kid (nine!) says he "wishes he had never been born" that is a crisis. That is heartbreaking.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:At my kids' ES, kids often volunteer during lunch to work with PEP and SCB. So it's actually part of the culture, which is lovely. My daughter tried, but she was beaten to it!

OP here. PP, this is the kind of school and the kind of students I would like my SN child to be around. May I ask - what school this is? I honestly would consider even moving to a district like this in the future. I have other children and would want them to be in this kind of school too.

As for the PP who said her daughter prefers smart, well behaved children and would likely not go out of her way to show friendliness toward SN kids, I'm happy that your daughter is neurotypical to enjoy such friendships. However, I would ask how you would want your daughter to be treated if she were born with CP, DS, ASD, any special needs that clearly distinguishes her from classmates. If she sat alone on a bench while 80 children her age played at recess daily, would you want others to go up to her and encourage her to join them? Or would you prefer she sat alone daily?

That's not reasonable to place that kind of responsibility on young kids to expect them to friend others and have them feel included. That is the teacher's job. Its great you are advocating for your daughter and if you do it at school it may help many kids but just to expect young kids to do it without guidance and support is unreaslistic.

It is teh parents job to provide that guidance and support (i.e. YOU). that is why the op posted.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Sounds to me you jumped the gun a bit in your assumptions. No one is mandating a utopian culture or else. This is a request for additional tolerance for children with challenges. The less tolerant our children are, the worse it is for
Society as a whole

Maybe, but, as I said, DD was bullied unmercifully in fourth grade. However, you cannot make others like your child. You have to work with your child to be nice to others. We worked with the counselor and she chose the teachers who could better work with my DD and she also was careful which other kids were in the class. That helped.
The fourth grade teacher was a lovely person--but the bullying did not happen in front of her. Teasing, etc, occurred on playground, hallways, etc.

The bullied shouldn't have to change to avoid being bullied. tolerance and acceptance. How lovely that would be. if my child ever socially excluded another child (you can't say you can't play) or worse, I absolutely would want to know. I also will raise hell if this happens to him.

[Anonymous]

this thread breaks my heart. special needs kids were bullied at my school in the 80s. Are we no better now, 45 years later. This is learned behavior.

[Anonymous]

if my child ever socially excluded another child (you can't say you can't play) or worse, I absolutely would want to know. I also will raise hell if this happens to him.

You need to keep your reaction in perspective to what happens. My child with SN has been excluded and told he could not play at times by certain kids. But many, if not most, kids are nice to him, and he has 2 or 3 good friends. It would not help him for me to "raise hell" about the kids that don't want to hang out with him - it would just draw negative attention to him. Better to focus on the kids who do like and tolerate him. If he was being excluded or picked on by most kids I would definitely raise hell, but as things stand, we are working on strategies for coping with the small group of meaner kids who exclude him and keeping a positive focus on the fact that his friends seek him out, and most other kids are nice enough.

[Anonymous]

if my child ever socially excluded another child (you can't say you can't play) or worse, I absolutely would want to know. I also will raise hell if this happens to him.

Okay, here's a situation: There's no more room at a table--Johnny comes and finds nowhere to sit. Are you sure your child would jump up and sit at another table with Johnny so that Johnny wouldn't be alone?

Another situation: Kids are in the middle of a game on the playground. Sophie doesn't like the game and asks a couple of the girls to play with her instead. They like the game. Sophie goes home and tells Mom that no one would play with her. It's true--but it is not the whole story. Mom hits the roof and comes to school and yells at the teacher--who knows nothing about what happened.

People, your kids do lots of things you do not know about. If you are concerned, then be sure you invite all the kids to your child's birthday party.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:At my kids' ES, kids often volunteer during lunch to work with PEP and SCB. So it's actually part of the culture, which is lovely. My daughter tried, but she was beaten to it!

OP here. PP, this is the kind of school and the kind of students I would like my SN child to be around. May I ask - what school this is? I honestly would consider even moving to a district like this in the future. I have other children and would want them to be in this kind of school too.

As for the PP who said her daughter prefers smart, well behaved children and would likely not go out of her way to show friendliness toward SN kids, I'm happy that your daughter is neurotypical to enjoy such friendships. However, I would ask how you would want your daughter to be treated if she were born with CP, DS, ASD, any special needs that clearly distinguishes her from classmates. If she sat alone on a bench while 80 children her age played at recess daily, would you want others to go up to her and encourage her to join them? Or would you prefer she sat alone daily?

That's not reasonable to place that kind of responsibility on young kids to expect them to friend others and have them feel included. That is the teacher's job. Its great you are advocating for your daughter and if you do it at school it may help many kids but just to expect young kids to do it without guidance and support is unreaslistic.

It is teh parents job to provide that guidance and support (i.e. YOU). that is why the op posted.

Thank you, pp. I am not asking for anything more than teaching children tolerance. One kind child can make the difference in another childs life.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

if my child ever socially excluded another child (you can't say you can't play) or worse, I absolutely would want to know. I also will raise hell if this happens to him.

Okay, here's a situation: There's no more room at a table--Johnny comes and finds nowhere to sit. Are you sure your child would jump up and sit at another table with Johnny so that Johnny wouldn't be alone?

Another situation: Kids are in the middle of a game on the playground. Sophie doesn't like the game and asks a couple of the girls to play with her instead. They like the game. Sophie goes home and tells Mom that no one would play with her. It's true--but it is not the whole story. Mom hits the roof and comes to school and yells at the teacher--who knows nothing about what happened.

People, your kids do lots of things you do not know about. If you are concerned, then be sure you invite all the kids to your child's birthday party.

There is no need to discuss all the what ifs. I am the OP, and I also happened to be school volunteer for several yrs. I witnessed the bullying and isolation. Even the principal once admitted he was being bullied. So no reason for me to speculate about what ifs. I know the truth and so does the school.