Today my neighbour asked if my child is going to the local mainstream school for primary 1, I said no he’s in a specialist nursery just now as he needs a lot of support and he will be attending a specialist school where his needs will be better met and she said your sons only borderline autistic look at him he looks like a wee angel. She then said Hopefully primary 2 he will go to the local school as you want him in mainstream.
I responded with your either autistic or your not autistic you can’t be borderline. She then went on to say maybe if he took his dummy out he would talk better. I responded his dummy is a comfort to him. She then said to my son take that dummy out your mouth and he then immediately took his dummy out and just stood there staring.
I felt rage and wanted to tell her to *** off. Obviously I didn’t as I’m not that type of person and I don’t want to cause friction with my neighbours but I don’t want to be questioned over some idiotic woman in her 50s who has clearly no experience of autistic individuals.
I trip up over my words and almost get stumped at times when people ask uncomfortable questions my mind almost goes blank and I can’t get an appropriate response out to put someone in there place politely.
Can I ask how you handle people like this.?
