A difficult morning.

Mornings are usually quite bad for children with mental disabilities.  If they take drugs to help regulate their anxieties, they are usually without anything in their systems to help them when they wake up.

If anyone, and I mean anyone annoys them, they are likely to blow up.  Actually, they can blow up without anyone annoying them, but any raised voice, firm tone, or wrong step can make them completely lose their ability to control behaviour.

I'd love to see people try using Jo Frost style stern waggy finger on these children pre-meds.  They'd likely get their waggy fingers bitten off for the audacity of being in any way negative at all.

This morning, faced with the school bus being 15 minutes late was enough to put Stressy Boy into a meltdown of epicness.

I'd also forgotten to lock the front door and slip the key into my back pocket when Mr Teen Boy left to catch his school bus.

Sadly, the result was the car getting a kicking, the garage door taking a hit, and when I got hold of him to take him inside, he managed to get out of my hold.  The kitchen units took a bit of a bashing, and I am completely surprised that they actually held up and didn't smash.  I do have to say that these kitchen units have been very Stressy Boy proof thankfully.

Getting angry with him would only be likely to get something else of mine broken as he took it out on anything that I would treasure.  The only way to stop him was to use my weight to get him to sit down on the floor until he calmed down.

No amount of reasoning, parental "behaviour programming" or positive reward is going to change the path of the outcome of this type of meltdown.

I'm not one of those under trained and lacking in knowledge of what will cause stressy kids and what won't.  I don't have a Stressy Boy who's only fault is that their mum doesn't love them enough.  I have a Stressy Boy because his birth mum made him that way and his brain doesn't work in the same way that ours does.

I've breathed a sign of relief now that he is off to school, and just one more to get ready for the school gates.

Look below the surface before judging.

It's actually quite amazing how disagreeing with some well known bloggers about their small mindedness when it comes to disability should make me such an ostracised character in those smaller circles.

I know that there really is nothing to worry about by the fact that people seem to think it's ok to jump right down the throat of anyone who seems even remotely different from anyone else, but how that can possibly be sensible, fun, or worth a full day of debate and angst is completely against my better nature.

I don't miss the Twitter conversations with those who were vociferous in calling a child they don't know lots of names and also call the parents all sorts of bad for having the audacity to have an issue that nobody really knew existed at all.

I resisted blogging about this on the blog where I am more well known, as I don't think that standing up for the unknown family did me any favours at all.

Should I care?

In this space, I can say what I like, but on the other one, I have to be more politically correct and say the right things.  It shouldn't be like that, but it is.

My own special needs child who needs both constant supervision and is difficult to live with could well have me responsible for doing something that I shouldn't.

This post is pretty much dedicated to the small minded of our population who automatically assume that just because a child is badly behaved and the mother is frazzled, that there could well be far more going on below the surface that you realise.

Please look below the surface before judging.