Blogger Widgets Ender-Chan's Thoughts: The "My Kid Got Attacked" Meme and Addressing the Issue

Thursday, June 4, 2015

The "My Kid Got Attacked" Meme and Addressing the Issue

Trigger Warning: Mentions physical/verbal assault
 
Have you ever seen comments about a kid with autism, Tourette's syndrome, ADHD, oppositional defiant disorder, or any similar disability or combination the above assaulting (verbally or physically) the commenter's child? These comments usually appear on inclusion posts and follow a similar storyline of the child being civil to their attacker and the aforementioned child's mom asking why the assaulted is refusing invitations to play dates and/or parties. The victim's mother (or father, but usually the commenter is the mother) making the "My child is the victim" comment describes the consequences of the "included" classmate's behavior in detail. The victim is presumably neurotypical  and fully able-bodied as the commenter makes no mention of the presence of a disability This is all I know of what seems to be a special needs blog commenting meme.

These comments are usually from an anonymous, Name/URL, or blogless Blogger user. The kids that are the subject of the post usually don't have aggression issues, which makes these comments irrelevant and distasteful. I don't want these stories to be the cause of denying inclusion to a child with no aggression issues under the false assumption that they do. I cannot verify any of these events as true of false.

Before you accuse me of whitewashing the reality of this issue, I will say that I have been the victim of someone else's behavioral issues. Both happened whilst playing soccer. On a new field, a boy pulled my hair because I stole the ball from him. I was in the fourth grade at the time. After crying for a while, he went home and I got back in the game. On my home field, another boy breathed down my neck (literally) and was plain creepy. He went to my school and my teachers told me to avoid him. My mom did not believe me when I described the latter incident until she saw it for herself. I quit soccer for two years because of them. As of now, I permanently stopped for other reasons. Since both occurrences happened within special needs leagues, I will consider whatever disability they had. I will not, however, excuse them from pulling my hair or breathing down my neck.

As stated above, I don't know if these events described are true or false for each individual. If even one of these comments is true, I'd like to address the effectiveness of these schools' inclusion methods. It sounds like they just dumped the kid in the room and provided little to no assistance. Providing an alternate outlet for anger would have been an effective way to keep this kind of thing at bay. I would have provided a foam block or stress ball for a student that had a low frustration tolerance. For someone who involuntarily screamed insults as a tic, I would have asked them to apologize every time the incident occurred. This is different from apologizing for one's disability because it helps to heal the wounds they cause and bridges the gap rather than creates one. As embarrassing as it must be to involuntarily yell insults that you may not mean, it must hurt just as much on the receiving end. If they were taught this, and apologized every time, it would help to bridge the rift between them.


2 comments:

  1. I am going to respectfully disagree with you here. I think expecting a child with Tourette's Syndrome to apologize each time they cause an inconvenience will not "bridge the gap". Explaining why would be better in "healing wounds" and not cause the child to feel guilty or ashamed. I have dealt with a somewhat similar situation having hearing loss. For years when I asked someone to repeat what they said I apologized. Slowly these constant apologies got to me and made me feel like an inconvenience, hurting my self esteem. Now I simply explain that I have a hearing loss to people who do not know and afterwards smile at or thank my friends.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Address the emotions before the logic. People cannot see order if their souls are chaotic.

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