Reply to Please share stupid things well-meaning parents of typically developing kids have said to you

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Dear friend,

I am so sorry that when you said your kid was speech delayed at 14 months I said, "I didn't talk until I was 3."  It is true and I kicked myself the moment it slipped out.  I know it was insensitive.  I have been kicking myself ever since and I am sorry if I made you feel bad.  I love your DS and you.  Please don't hold it against me.

Signed,
Well-meaning Mom, really.

So sorry for all these things you have heard.  Sometimes people like me blurt out inanities without thinking first.  If it makes you feel better, I feel remorse afterwards....maybe excessively so since I am still cringing months later.[/quote]

You should know that a lot of us are not very sensitive to this kind of comment. I am not saying it doesn't sting in the moment--it might, because it is a reminder that what for so many others was just a little hurdle for this kid could be a lifelong journey--but the main reason people are mentioning it is because these kinds of comments are extremely common. We hear them every day. So on top of everything else, a parent of a SN kid feels misunderstood and alone. But that said, I for one forget the well-meaning stuff immediately. If people are trying to make me feel better, even if they do not succeed, I would never hold it against them. You sound a nice person. I am sure that if you are showing that you care, your friend has long since forgotten.

The only comments that stay with me are the kind from people who truly know better: the family members who are intimately aware of our struggles and the details of our diagnosis, but who refuse to stick with my kid's very necessary schedule and diet, who will not provide basic supports, simple stuff like a five-minute warning before a transition or providing clear expectations, and who then lecture my husband for hours on end about how we have failed at raising our child. That stuff breaks my heart because I think, these are people who actually love my son and who have every opportunity to understand how tough he has it, what a rough hand he has been delt, and how hard he really tries--and in fact how very well-behaved he is almost all the time as long as [i]you provide the very simple supports he needs[/i]--and yet it always comes back to how we have failed as parents. That kind of thing makes me very angry and sad[/quote]

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