You’ve seen it before. A mother standing in a grocery store while her child has a meltdown on the floor. Onlookers stare, their faces easy to read: discipline your child.
For parents of children with disability, supporting their child through the daily challenges associated with disability is made more difficult by ignorance and judgement from their community.
For Debbie Baker, the supermarket scene is all too familiar.
“There were times I felt I had to discipline my kids when we were out in public because I was being scrutinised, criticised or attacked by those around me. Some of those people knew me, and some didn’t,” says Debbie.
Owner of South of the Border, Vanessa Cranfield speaks to Mia Freedman on parenting a child with a disability:
Debbie’s three children have intellectual disabilities, and are now aged 20, 21 and 23. When her children were first diagnosed in the late 90s, invisible disabilities were still largely misunderstood and under-diagnosed.
“In my generation, hardly anyone was being diagnosed with anything. So when all three of my children were diagnosed, people just couldn’t process it,” said Debbie.
Top Comments
The way this article is written is kind of confusing.
1. Autism is not a disability! Sure, there are autistic people who are disabled, but it's not one and the same.
2.If someone's having a meltdown in public, there's nothing you can do. You can literally pick them up and throw them and the meltdown would continue. Why? Because autistic meltdowns are a result of sensory overload, and attempting to discipline someone in the middle of a meltdown just adds to the stress.
Please never mind people making comments like what you said: The older generation in particular tended to say, ‘you’ve given him too much sugar,’ or blamed his diet. I had a couple of people ask me if I drank alcohol when I was pregnant. It was really offensive stuff that is really hurtful when your child has just been diagnosed with a disability.” In some countries they remark- That's the consequence of Law of Karma. Many people ask many different types of questions and stare at the disabled children out of curiosity as well. So do not bother, just try to apply the behavior therapy to your disabled children if they so require. Best wishes.