Those Parents (the ones who are not raising a disabled child)

In all my years of working with families of disabled students, I have never once encountered "that" parent people warn about. I have never met the aggressive one, the unreasonable one, the demanding one who just wants too much. What I have seen, over and over again, are parents who arrive at the table already bracing themselves to be seen as a problem.

That parent who is careful with their words.
That parent who apologizes for asking for support that their child is legally entitled to.
That parent who tries to make themselves small so they are not perceived as “difficult.”
That parent who loves their child fiercely, yet feels lost in a system they were never taught how to navigate.

I have sat beside that parent whose child was described with words like manipulative, defiant, confrontational, unsafe, too complex, too challenging, too much. I have watched those words land in their bodies. I have watched the way they swallow them. I have watched the way they look down and question themselves.

I have watched that parent feel shame for asking the school to understand their child.

And in those same meetings, I rarely heard conversations about unmet needs, inaccessible learning environments, overwhelmed staff, lack of training, lack of accommodations, or systemic failure. The problem was always framed as the child. The family. The disability. 

That parent.

So many times, I sat there muzzled, unable to say what was true:

This is not a parenting problem.
This is a systems problem.

But then there were the other parents. The ones who truly were aggressive. The ones who stormed into offices demanding meetings, who argued that their child was unsafe because a disabled classmate existed in the same space. They never used the word disabled, but everyone in the room knew who they meant. Those parents tracked down other parents online, demanded removals, demanded punishments, demanded exclusion. Some even came to school to "supervise" the playground themselves.

While their child deliberately excluded the very child who was struggling to belong.

Those parents are not defending their child. They are defending a world that only works for some children. They are passing down the belief that difference is threat, not humanity.

This is where inclusion breaks.

We say we want empathy, but not if it requires us to give something up.
We say we value diversity, but only if it does not inconvenience those at the center.
We teach kindness as a poster on the wall, not as a practice in community.

Inclusion is not failing because disabled students are too much. Inclusion is failing because we do not challenge the logic that some children are more deserving of space, safety, and belonging than others.

We are not teaching children how to live alongside differences.
We are teaching them how to fear it.
We are teaching them that exclusion is protection.
We are teaching them that community is conditional.

And it is parents who model this first.

Those parents are not the ones advocating for disabled children.
Those parents are the ones teaching their own children to exclude them.

Children are always watching us. They watch how we respond to distress, struggle, and difference. They notice who we comfort and who we avoid. They learn which children are allowed to have big feelings and which ones are labelled a problem the moment they do.

We expect children to have behaviour. Every child does. It ranges from crying quietly to shutting down, to yelling, running, or lashing out. Yet notice that those parents do not complain about the child who cries all day. We choose who we extend empathy to. And children learn from that choice.

Not all stress is trauma. Stress becomes trauma when there is no space to pause, reflect, understand, and reconnect. Supporting children through hard moments does not mean excusing harm. It means creating the conditions where repair, empathy, and growth can occur.

Students can witness a peer having a hard time and still feel safe when we teach them the difference between someone struggling and someone causing harm. This is how children learn compassion. This is how we teach the better side of humanity.

Community care means we do not treat difficulty as something to eliminate or exclude.
It means we show children how to stay in relationship, even when things are hard.
It means we choose understanding over punishment.
It means we practice belonging, not just preach it.

There are those parents who show their children that when someone is different, uncomfortable, or hard to understand, we push them out.

When we teach exclusion, we teach that some humans are disposable.
We teach that some students can quietly disappear.
We teach children who is worth staying for, and who is not.

And then there are the parents of disabled children. The ones who don't have a choice in how their child is perceived or treated. Their children are judged from the moment they enter the room. Their behaviour is scrutinized, pathologized, and punished before support is ever considered. That parent does not get to choose how the world sees their child. They are simply trying to help their child survive it.

We need more parents who show their children that when someone is struggling, we make room. We offer support. We practice compassion. We stay in community.

One way teaches exclusion.
The other teaches humanity.