Apologies for not blogging for a little while as a result of a combination of sickly children with colds and life in general. Thanks to everyone who was kind enough to respond to the ludicrous situation regarding our daughter’s therapy provision in her school, we have a meeting planned with our MP soon and will bring these comments along to help back us up. It seems that we are not alone and that such discrimination is a national disgrace. One thing that is very evident is that we have to be very vigilant about the way our children's statements are written and that all the relevant information is included in the appropriate sections so as to apportion responsibility. Further information will be posted about this soon. Regarding our daughters provision, the current situation is that all parties are talking at present although I do not feel that there will be an instant solution. Despite the very good intentions of those involved, it seems that they are fighting the creaking institutions of health and education and, of course, the fact that the books have to balance at the end of the year. All well and good but then as usual it is our children who are suffering in the meantime. Will carry on fighting and will keep you updated.

On a different note, I read a really interesting article by Damon Rose on the BBC Ouch website in which he discusses the issue of disablism, Now, we are all aware of racism etc, but disablism is a rarely used term. In fact as I am typing, disablism has come up as an unknown word on my spell check! Damon defines this prejudice as

"Deciding, rather than asking, is disablism. Thinking that you're being nice but not consulting is disablism."

Discussing the reaction of housemates in the Big Brother house if Stephen Hawkin had entered, he continues,

"How then would disability prejudice have been displayed? Probably with softened faces, cute words and louder voices. Maybe with subtle little things like: "let’s not fill the professor's mug up as much as ours because he might spill his tea." Or: "let’s wait to play spin the bottle until Stephen has gone to bed". Or "we'll keep the alcohol in a higher cupboard because the disabled fella is bound not to drink"."

It does make you think, doesn’t it! I know that before we had our children, my attitudes towards disability were very different, largely due to a fear of the unknown and a nervousness about doing the wrong thing. However, now I see things from a different perspective, that of a parent and not even an impaired individual, I do often get frustrated. Whilst of course kindness is preferable to cruelty, we as a society have to be wary of our own arrogance in deciding what is needed by those who are impaired and also the signals that this smugness sends out. As I heard recently, how often do you see a condom machine in the disabled toilets?