Labelling children.

It's up to the child's parents to decide what is appropriate for their child's needs. Tough if it makes other people feel uncomfortable, the child is more important. I suspect the mum is fed up with people interfering with useful advice on parenting skills, she's probably relieved to have found out what is making her child be like he is at times and wants everyone to know it so they stop judging her and her son. The lanyard is designed to stop the judgement calls not for someone to query whether it should be used.

I am disabled, use a wheelchair but can walk a little bit, I have a blue badge and have had one for about 20 years. I still notice people will stand near car when we park in disabled bays to check out whether or not someone in the car should be using a blue badge. I don't need to be made to feel uncomfortable by people checking on me, they should mind their own business. I suspect the mum of that child feels the same way.

Mealybug just because a child has autism doesn’t mean they shouldn’t repect other people’s space . Your daughter should have just explained to the other parent then to her son what’s appropriate and asked for an apology for her son being called a weirdo.

I think it must be tough enough to raise an autistic child and if the mum finds it helpful then she’d get no judgement from me.

Mealybug I would have 100% been on the girls side. Audism does not override consent.

My Grandson is autistic and I definitely wouldn't like him wearing a badge or any other sign. People are so quick to judge outside. We took him to a local farm with a bouncy castle a couple of years ago and all he wanted to do was jump up and down and went to an older girl to hold her hand. She told him to go away you weirdo which upset his Mum very much. Her mother came over and made a big issue of it as my daughter just told hers not to talk to him like that. Not letting the matter drop she came over again so I intervened and told her she should teach her own children some manners and to be more accepting of others and stop making an issue out of it.

I’ve used this before ?

I won't even buy my grandchildren clothes with writing/messages on them. It has been difficult to find anything at all at times over the years..... Never liked labels: diabetic, schizophrenic etc. You can 'have' a condition but you are not 'it', you are so much more....

My twin boys now 16 yrs old and are on the autistic spectrum . A mother knows her child and the struggles best so if she feels this helps so be it . My twin boys have autism awareness cards and one of them also has Tourette’s so he has a Tourette’s card that they can show if they want or need to (“like when complete strangers feel the need to comment or judge in public)

Just because the child looked fine going around the supermarket doesn’t mean it hasn’t taken a lot of prep to make that supermarket visit and the last thing you need as a parent is a member of the public to ruin hours of prep and rote learning etc
It just makes people aware and so Mum doesn’t have to say for the 1000th time to some tutting , glaring , comments ‘my child is autistic’ . It’s wearing .

My husband wore a small badge, supplied by the charity Parkinson’s UK which said that he had PD. This proved useful when he was struggling with articulating. Only problem was that it could have been a little bigger to make it easier to read.

Maybe the difference is that he chose to wear it?

Maybe this is a cause gransnet or another group could take up. I understand that parents with children with special needs must have to put up with not only 'helpful advice' but a lot of negative responses from the general public, which can sometimes harm the child not only mentally but physically. Could there be a badge they could wear which would be universally understood to signal that the child has hidden special needs? It could be some kind of cartoon character or animal?

I had to think hard about this. When my autistic child was ‘drawing attention’ to herself (40 years ago) I sometimes wished I had a big sign over my head to tell the tutting adults that it was not my fault or hers but I still would not have wanted her to wear a label whenever we were out. I didn’t want her to feel labelled and I feel sure her older siblings would not have wanted that either. Autism is a spectrum of course and there may be some children more at risk of running off than others but I used a wrist link to keep her with me in supermarkets etc.
I think I would have had her wear a wrist band to say she had autism and how to contact me had mobile phones or silicon medical bands been invented in those days, like the one I wear now to tell the ambulance crew what might be the reason the old lady is on the floor and out for the count.

I agree with MissAdventure, my grandson is autistic and non-verbal. He is 9, and if he became separated from my daughter, he wouldn’t be able to offer any clues to police/hospitals/shop employees or public trying to help. Perhaps a bracelet similar to diabetes alerts would be better but it is all about sensory triggers with autism, and if they don’t like the feel of something they tend to remove it.
Sometimes they have outbursts especially in crowds, and are hypersensitive to noise, we do tend to get disapproving looks, as if, control that child.
Sometimes forewarned is forearmed.
Very difficult sometimes, I can see both sides of the debate about this

Some children with autism have unpredictable meltdowns in public and are judged by others who assume it's just bad parenting. There are varying degrees and different behaviours and maybe the child's mother feels that if her child wears the lanyard and he/she has an episode then people can see at a glance the reason for it. One of my family has a child with Asperger's and has various problems, and unless you understand from family experience or being a qualified professional in this field then it is too easy to make judgements. Life is never easy for these families at the best of times.

I think EllanVannin must have been getting confused with ADHD. While it's not a cure-all and shouldn't be used as a shortcut to a quiet life, I have known three "difficult" children in my teaching career who were given Ritalin or the equivalent and totally transformed into model students - very bright, cooperative, creative.

AND both of my adult daughters, never having had a problem in school, were diagnosed with adult ADHD in their 30s and put on medication, and both have described it as "magic".

There's a saying "Mum knows best" and each mum knows her own child better than anyone else so I am sure the lanyard was meant to be helpful to her child not anything else based on her personal experience. Lots of adults with autism choose to wear a badge, which are readily available online, so that other people are aware and more understanding. So long as it's not pity.

@GabriellaG54
Would people who are deaf, dumb, have ADHD or autism like that sort of labelling? I think not......I have never, in my lifetime, known society to have such a range of unseen disabilities and mental health issues which generate a plethora of acronyms. I wonder why.
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It’s clear from your post that you have no personal experience of people with a range of mental disabilities, but rather than admit your ignorance, you’d rather infer such things didn’t happen in your day and that it’s just a modern fad.

Do you not remember children being berated for being left handed, or children who struggled to read and write and made to feel they were stupid, when you were at school?

Were the teachers correct to treat the children as less intelligent?

Or do you think that being left handed is perfectly ok and not a failing?

Do you think it’s more likely that the children struggling to read and write were actually dyslexic but no-one really understood what that was and so didn’t have the expertise to help them?

If you genuinely believe that modern disability labels are just a current fad rather than a result of increased research and knowledge, then you’re probably the reason why some parents feel it necessary to make their children wear labels around their neck.

Thanks for all you input. Certainly has given me something to think about.
No it wasn't a big supermarket it was a quite small one actually, really quiet, i hate big supermarkets myself.
The child was about 10 i think and certainly wasn't non verbal he was having fun telling his mum what was in her trolley, I actually hate the word disabled its a label in itself.

Just Google hidden disability lanyards and you'll see there's a large market for them, many people find them very useful, sainsbury's are trialing a system where they can offer more support or assistance to people wearing the lanyards. It really is none of our business how others with disabilities choose to deal with them, child or otherwise.
It may save the child a load of grief, there will be a reason why mum has turned to giving her child this lanyard, perhaps an experience where strangers knowing that the child wasn't neurotypical may have been useful. If this child is of a certain age people may assume, if the child has been separated from mum, that they're out on their own. The lanyard will indicate this isn't the case and child may not seem phased or isn't asking for help but needs to find mum.

I agree lemongrove medication is not given or needed. Children with autism need to get out into society and be encouraged to socialise appropriately. As a grandparent of a DGS with autism I know this doesn't come easily! Social communication skills need to be worked on. My DGS doesn't wear a label but I often say to people, " Sorry but he is autistic" when he behaves in a bizarre manner or shouts. This is usually because he is anxious and overcome by sensory stimulation, e.g. over loud noises, too many people near him. People are usually more understanding when they realise there is a reason other than "bad behaviour". Life isn't easy and these children, their parents, siblings and grandparents need all the support and understanding they can get.

@GabriellaG54 my friend's DD is completely deaf. She wears a big badge that says "I am deaf", as do some of her peers. People immediately know why she appears to be "ignoring" them, and that she can't vocalise her coffee or food order, or why she isn't responding to the cashier and may need to see the price she needs to pay as opposed to being told what it is.

A reason for labelling like that could be that the child may behave inappropriately sometimes, which has been distressing for the child and person with him. Someone I know put a badge on her son saying he wasn't naughty, he had aspergers, as he was prone to lying on the floor and screaming in shops. It was helpful. People didn't 'tut' and condemn as they had before.

Hideous idea. Poor kid.
But - yes - as some above have suggested - maybe we should all join in. It might have come in useful when I was menopausal. Labeling aint great any time but literally labeling a kid by hanging a sign around his neck seems barbaric. Maybe she could ring a bell and walk in front of him shouting 'unclean, unclean' FFS

It's sad we live in such a judgmental world that children need to advertise the fact they are different maybe the lesson is to all be more tolerant and show a bit of kindness. I have been in the position of both my own DC when they were toddlers having a meltdown and also when taking children out on day trips in my work as a special needs nursery nurse and the stares and head shaking have mainly been from the older generation and younger people have been a bit more understanding hopefully we are becoming better educated about autism and other hidden disabilities

One of the reasons is so that if the child seemingly misbehaves but actually not naughtiness but rather a feature of his condition - people are understanding rather than judgey

But the mother is judged in any scenario it appears

In this situation I don't see a problem with the "label"
I assume Bopeep14 is talking about a large supermarket company that hands out lanyards for autistic children and adults - it's not a label, it's making staff aware that they may need a bit more help and how they should be approached and helped. I mean, would any of us realise a person is autistic just by looking at them? They don't have to be experiencing a melt down to be affected.
EllanVannin - I am appalled that you even think that way ! Suggest you educate yourself more about autism before much longer ! (angry)