“Not bullying” disabled kids isn’t enough to make them feel included

[NotesFromTheTexasPanhandle]

THIS IS SUCH A BIG Thank you for talking about this!

[daniellemilligan]

Well said, and so freaken sad. In elementary school exclusion is a form of bullying, it's like being a bystander and watching someone get bullied

[michaelsmyth]

I dig that. I purposefully sat with and befriended those left out. Compassion and empathy have led to meeting cool people. Lot of folks have anxiety over how to behave, what say...
Just be yourself, be kind.

[urielcastro]

damn i felt that in my core.

people are nice to him, they’re never mean to him, they don’t bully him, but nobody tries to be his friend.

pretty much describes me growin up till i was in college

[katiekyle]

This! And the worst part is you don't even have to have a disability for it to happen. Just "different". Maybe it's a physical difference or it could be that your hobbies just aren't mainstream enough for other kids to care. It was like that for me growing up and it hurts to say the friends I've had the longest were originally only my sisters friends. Because of this passiveness I don't even know how to make friends now and keep everyone at arms length because I expect them not to care enough to make an effort to want to be my friend. It sucks when your willing to go that extra mile never to see that effort returned to you.

[Isimpoverfictionalmen]

My friend group in school is just me and a bunch of other autistic kids lol. We also have a wonderful friend who has a hearing disability so their speech is harder to understand but since my brother has apraxia of speech I understand them and their face was glowing when I started having full conversations with them :)

[doctordeath.]

I had kids in my special needs class when I was in school that have cp ms ds and other disabilities and we all became friends in Elementary school and middle school in high school.I have special needs all my life.

[The_wifeys]

Aw I would be his best friend I feel so bad ❤❤❤ btw treat others with respect and kindness

[Gaaabblurr]

That’s so sad. I will be his friend! I have to disable friends and they are some of the coolest people I have ever met. And I wish people would just except disabled people they are so nice, cool, and kind

[mlmj]

I have recognized this too when it comes to teens with CP

[benjaminalexander]

Yeah that's definitely an important thing. And very well said. I wouldn't say just as damaging but damaging in a different way. Because I'm sure if you asked them they would say yeah it hurt but they would rather be seen and left alone than actively bullied. And if you ask anyone who had been bullied They would have preferred to have had very little but positive engagement then all of the negative engagement they've had for people.

[BrunaBOss]

It reminds me of a stand up I saw a while ago, where one of the artists started to make a lot of jokes about this one guy who was an amputee in the first row. Someone in the audience started saying that it wasn't ok to joke about (they were teasing him about both the fact he was an amputee but also about other random things), but the actual guy was almost rolling on the floor. No one (apart from the artists, who were his friends) bothered to ask him if he was ok with the jokes.
At the end of the show, another guy (also an amputee) who was on the back went to the front and thanked both the guy and the artists, because he felt like he could have hope of having friends that accept him, because he saw someone like him with actual friends who accept him.

There's obviously a difference between friendly joking and bullying, and if you can't joke with your friends, it's clear you aren't 100% accepted 😢

[samallisonhiller]

In middle school one of my friends had autism. He was once in a group of mine for a school group project. The entire group faked being his friend and talked to him like he was a baby and when he was gone to get something I mentioned how I was genuinely his friend and they looked at me like I was crazy and it made me so mad.

[Diesel-ship]

That’s sad that this kid was excluded from friendships because of a disability.

[hazbinotakusimp]

I grew up being a convenient friend. Like the kid you talked to when your friends were stuck somewhere else. Lunch time was the worst for me because I'd have to find a corner where I wouldn't bother anyone. Senior year I just started hiding in the bathroom close to my next class. Got in trouble for it once though wtf

[larkhampton]

My mom refers to this as classmate vs class pet. They are an accepted part of class but they arent seen as an equal

[Starlightdreamer]

Oh yeah I have cerebral palsy too. It's freaking impossible for me to make friends. People are nice to me but they see the chair and they don't know how to react

[samanthaflynn]

We triwd to befriend some of the kids that were disabled and their parents called the school to tell us to stop. They literally thought we were making a mockery and really we just wanted to show love to the entire spectrum.

[ChristianTiktoks-sgg]

My brother is disabled. He had Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy. (It’s basically when you loose ability to move your muscles.) And he also has epilepsy. And thankfully in my small town everyone wanted to be friends with him. Everyone says hi, everyone wants to know how he’s doing, and he’s a very cool kid, he loves talking with people a lot. And when he went to high school all he wanted to talk abt was how the people sat with him at lunch and talked with him all the time.

That was 8 years ago and he still talks abt it every single day. ❤

[taylormahkuk]

See I Have Had 2 Brain Tumors Since I Was 9 Years Old, I Got Bullied By 2 People In Grade School, This Girl In My Class Wanted All The Attention That I Got Every Time I Got Back From Surgery, Then There Was A Guy That Bullied Me, Well He Would Make Me Cry Everyday, Until One Of His Friends Had Enough Of Watching Him Bully Me & So Did The Rest Of His Friends, Then I Was Bullied By 2 Guy’s In Jr. High, Well One Had to Switch Schools & The Other One Went To The Juvenile Detention Center, And I Think In My Final Year The Girl That Bullied Me Got Her Karma, She Was Female Class Clown…