People love saying they’re inclusive of neurodiversity and disability. They’re not.

[Anonymous]

People are horrible. No, they’re not tolerant to anything different.

Look at the school teachers posting here on the forum how they only promote kids who are very social and vocal at schools.

I’m writing this even though I don’t have any special needs kids. It’s that obvious.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As the mom of DC1 with ASD1 and DC2 who’s not on the spectrum, the biggest room for growth I see is how other people treat me as a mom. Autistic DC is good at masking, but occasionally lashes out. People who met me through DC1 treat me with contempt. They assume I’m a bad parent and therefore a bad person. It’s worse than any bullying I experienced in middle school. It’s wild.

DC2 is sweet and charismatic. People who meet me through DC2 are eager to befriend our family. I’m popular among the kindergarten families, but a social pariah among the second grade families. Yes, we hide DC1 until they know us.

Liberal people who claim to be “inclusive” may be advocating for my child to get services, but are openly rude to me in the hall. That needs to change. You can be nice to the mom of a difficult kid and not invite that child to a birthday party.

I’ve had a similar experience. It can be really socially isolating. People absolutely assume I’m a bad mom.
I actually ended up sending my younger children to Catholic school while my ASD child remained in public where he has services. I’m probably overall more involved in the school where my oldest goes because I’m just there a lot with his stuff, but our social life and weekends are with the Catholic school parents who are nice to us.

I don’t think all people think ASD parents are bad parents. I was always very friendly with the ASD parents, as were the other parents in my child’s classes. But friction was always in the air, and I do think the ASD parents felt that. I reached my limit when coming out of school one day, every single child reported that the 10-year-old boy had thrown — not my child who was his age — but my 5-year-old on the ground and held him down. I was livid. Who was to blame? If I was struggling as an adult, he must’ve been really struggling. I didn’t want to blame him. But also, the teacher’s can’t isolate a child, they can’t prevent every incident. The parents were trying their best. No one was to blame for my 5-year-old being thrown down? Disciplinary measures were taken and additional preventative measures put in place. But I was still really upset. The parents stopped talking to me, and I didn’t go out of my way to start.

Probably the parents of ASD2 kids. ASD1 kids are often the kids who appear to be just jerks. People are really kind to a friend of mine who has a nonverbal child who tantrums. They can see the disability. Because people can’t see my child’s disability beyond misbehavior, they assume it’s just misbehavior.

But let’s do a thought experiment. What if my DC really was just a glass bowl? What if I was doing my best and he really was a sociopath? Would I deserve to be cut off from my community? Isolated? If we didn’t have DC2 as proof that we’re good parents, I’m not sure how we would make friends. And that’s discrimination. Even if we were bad parents—which two different providers at two different facilities have confirmed that we’re not—we are humans. We have feelings. People can chit chat with us without subjecting their children to ours. To exclude us shows that people are not inclusive, because we have done nothing wrong. That’s the point of the thread.

Most of people don’t become friends with because they’re good or bad parents. They become friends, because they find emotional safety.

People get turned off by what hurts them. I can get over kid things enough to separate parents from kids, but it takes much more effort to find emotional safety with parents whose kids keep hurting mine for any reason.

I can see this view. I am really not able to be close to parents whose kids tease, harass, exclude and are just generally mean to my ASD child. We won’t talk about the ones who have actually physically assaulted my child. All supposedly NT kids.

Remember, ND kids are much more likely to be victims than perpetrators. But they are different so most people don’t see/care.

Which is why parents of NT kids aren’t universally friends with everyone, and NT kids aren’t universally invited either. You don’t necessarily see or care about those kids either. People have to live their lives. Everyone needs people who get them, but no one’s entitled to demand someone be that person for them.

[Anonymous]

Posting aggressively with a "you need to hear this" message is not going to get you anywhere. It will only create an even larger space between other families and yourself, only this time not because of your child but because of how angry, unhinged, and self-centered his/her parent seems.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I am not on the spectrum, and I wasn’t invited to a ton of parties as a kid probably because I was a shy, chubby kid. I wasn’t mean or demanding, I was just super quiet. I don’t think it was because the other kids hated me, they just didn’t think of me when putting their lists together. Nobody owed me an invite. Going to birthday parties isn’t a human right. It’s just a bonus.

Life isn’t fair. There isn’t equality. My immigrant parents taught me that from a very early age. Don’t expect it and you won’t be disappointed.

Have you tried to make a community with other kids with disabilities? That is very much a community, and you can have the parties be as accessible as you all need—low lights, low music, etc. so your child can enjoy the party on their terms.

I’m not trying to say “you go here, we go there” at ALL. I’m just saying that if it isn’t happening naturally, instead of getting angry and resentful, you figure something else out. That’s what I’ve done when I’ve been left out and what I tell my own kids to do when they’ve been left out in the past.

You can get super resentful or get creative.

+1. I don't have any kind of diagnosis, but I'd definitely get tested if I were a kid today and I'm genuinely not sure what that would it would turn up. I acted weird and had bathroom accidents all through elementary. I definitely wasn't getting invited to birthday parties as a kid.

My own daughter both has a (non-ASD) disability and is a weirdo like her dad was. She doesn't have many friends. She doesn't get invited to many birthday parties, one a year is normal, and doesn't have that many people to invite when her birthday rolls around.

But that's all just natural. People who have trouble forming friendships have fewer friends. I'm not mad about it.

[Anonymous]

I didn’t realize DEI means everyone must be friends with everyone. I have a child who is not disabled but has struggled with finding a good friend group and is constantly left out. But sadly that’s just life.

[Anonymous]

Forget classmates. I have an old friend who has a severely disabled child. It’s a struggle for her — his mother — to always include him. Is it ok for her to leave him with grandma for his siblings’ birthday parties? Don’t her other kids get to have parties that celebrate them? Or is that morally bankrupt? But then every party ends up eventually turning into an event about him? And no matter what she does, she gets judged by someone for something?

Sometimes people are horrible. But also sometimes everyone’s trying to be well-intentioned but also it’s impossible to do right by everyone all of the time.

[Anonymous]

People like who they like. I'm not going to discriminate on picking an employee, but my body is not subject to EEO.

I don't have to associate with or date SN people in my personal life if i don't want to. That being said, i have SN folks in my family and I often hang out with them. Maybe I'm touched out for more SN people in my life

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I stopped including the autistic kid down the street after he slammed my kid’s head into the cinder block wall at school and on a separate occasion choked my other smaller child. No more play dates, no more invites. Not worth it. Not sure why your kid is being left out, but there might be a reason.

+1
I work with some autistic colleagues (science) and I usually stop inviting them to join us socially after the 3rd major insult to me or someone else publicly

What constitutes a major vs minor insult?

[Anonymous]

OP has made a good point that people can consider. Perhaps the biggest impact you could make is in being more inclusive to a real kid in your community. Just try considering that instead of immediately pushing back. I don’t think we need to hear everyone’s individual exceptions and circumstances.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP has made a good point that people can consider. Perhaps the biggest impact you could make is in being more inclusive to a real kid in your community. Just try considering that instead of immediately pushing back. I don’t think we need to hear everyone’s individual exceptions and circumstances.

This is screaming into the wind on a board where people post about what a huge imposition it is to be asked to drive another kid once or twice to soccer practice and consider helping a meal train a great burden.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Posting aggressively with a "you need to hear this" message is not going to get you anywhere. It will only create an even larger space between other families and yourself, only this time not because of your child but because of how angry, unhinged, and self-centered his/her parent seems.

You’re right. In your mind everything is equal for everyone regardless of disability status. The NT parents should stop making a big deal just like brown people should stop demanding more inclusion and equality.

If you can’t tell PP, you’re part of the problem. Sure, NT kids get left out too. But at the macro level we have a real problem with the way society treats brown people and people with disabilities.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP has made a good point that people can consider. Perhaps the biggest impact you could make is in being more inclusive to a real kid in your community. Just try considering that instead of immediately pushing back. I don’t think we need to hear everyone’s individual exceptions and circumstances.

This is screaming into the wind on a board where people post about what a huge imposition it is to be asked to drive another kid once or twice to soccer practice and consider helping a meal train a great burden.

OP here. Point taken, sir.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP has made a good point that people can consider. Perhaps the biggest impact you could make is in being more inclusive to a real kid in your community. Just try considering that instead of immediately pushing back. I don’t think we need to hear everyone’s individual exceptions and circumstances.

This is screaming into the wind on a board where people post about what a huge imposition it is to be asked to drive another kid once or twice to soccer practice and consider helping a meal train a great burden.

OP here. Point taken, sir.

You’re also on a board where many people struggle to figure out a meal for their own kids or struggle to get their own kid to soccer practice.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Forget classmates. I have an old friend who has a severely disabled child. It’s a struggle for her — his mother — to always include him. Is it ok for her to leave him with grandma for his siblings’ birthday parties? Don’t her other kids get to have parties that celebrate them? Or is that morally bankrupt? But then every party ends up eventually turning into an event about him? And no matter what she does, she gets judged by someone for something?

Sometimes people are horrible. But also sometimes everyone’s trying to be well-intentioned but also it’s impossible to do right by everyone all of the time.

I have a severely disabled child. And yes, I leave her with a childcare provider while we do things with our non disabled child. I definitely would not let my nondisabled child create a scene for my other kid’s bday party. I don’t think anyone judges me for this. But when my nondisabled child invites friends to go places, we aren’t hiding our disabled child either. For example, our youngest has 4 friends that come with us to our beach house for the weekend a couple of times a year. Everyone goes out to dinner together. My disabled child is a teen that wears diapers and a bin and drinks from a sippy cup. The thirteen year olds are sitting at the same table with her and none of them are jerks to her. But they aren’t volunteering to change her diaper — that would be ridiculous. Her father and I are there to care for her.

My oldest stopped being included around age 4 or 5 is peer related activities. I don’t blame anyone for this. She is welcome at all family friend/neighborhood type parties. But we still don’t bring her often because monitoring her is complicated.

It is actually easier with a kid that is so profoundly disabled that she doesn’t feel left out. As long as she can stay home watching Mary Poppins over and over, she is content.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What is a "reciprocated family invite?"

You invite a few families over to your house for a barbecue or whatever, and the next time those families get together they include your family.

Or maybe it’s just one family, and you host them doing something, then they reciprocate by inviting your family to do something.