Help with SN new acquaintance

[maryanne]

At one of the activities my dc and I attend there is a girl who is maybe 5-7 years old who attends as a tag along with an older sibling participating in the activity.  I'm just getting started getting to know the family so I don't know any specifics of the girls special needs.  Last time we met, the girl spontaneously came up and hugged me, and my heart just melted.  I don't think of myself as especially huggable.  Anyway I asked her name and she told me her name was <nickname>, but her mother who was nearby told me "no her name is <firstname>. <Nickname> is just how she says <firstname> because she can't say it correctly."  Think Maggie vs. Margaret (not her real name).  Now I'm in a quandary about what to call her.  Do I use the name that she told me or the name her mother told me?  If I ask the little girl which she prefers and she can't say her real name then she is going to answer with her nickname even if she prefers her real name to be used by others right? But if I ask the mom, she is she going to tell me which the little girl prefers or which she, the mom, prefers?

[PeterPan]

Ok, my ds (almost 7) has verbal apraxia, which affects his intelligibility.  His name happens to include some letters he cannot say clearly, and if he were to say his full name (which has a bunch of his hard letters), he especially would not be completely intelligible.  Linguistically, it's normal for names to have a diminutive or pet form (Margaret to Maggie, that kind of thing).  So if my ds made up a diminutive form of his name because he can't say his complete name, and if the name was linguistically acceptable and age appropriate (like if the girl said Hi, my name is Mags!) would I care?  No, absolutely not.  The mental health of the child with a disability is WAY more important than pickiness about the name.

 

So I'm sorry, and maybe this will sound like I'm in a mood, but the mom is a whack job.  She's in denial about her kid's issues, embarrassed about the speech problem (and probably whatever else additional is going on that she's not fessing up to), so she's out in public correcting her child's speech.  You just don't DO that to kids, kwim?  Now if the girl is coming in saying something totally different, like My name is Fred, and her mom pipes up Oh, her other name is Margaret (wink), that's fine.  But just to correct Maggie vs. Margaret (versions of the same name), that's really sensitive, kwim?

 

Me?  I'd make some really grand beautiful compromise, like using her preferred name or even making it MORE grandiose, and I'd stick beautiful titles on the front:  Good morning Princess Margaret, Most Beautiful of the Mags!  That's what I'd say.  Her disability should not be an embarrassment to her.

 

I think any diminutive form, said with affection, is pleasing.

 

PS.  Fwiw, you can also skip the name entirely and go with Friend.  Good morning, friend!  That works.  Or if you have a southern flare, you can call girls Chickadee.  But Friend is pretty neutral and works really well.  It's what the music therapist calls my ds at the ASD charter school.  The director there calls him by name, but the MT calls him Friend.  I think it's really intentional, and it seems to work well.

[Crimson Wife]

I would call the child by her real name. My little one christened herself with a nickname but it's really dumb (think wanting to be called "Cutie-patootie") so her ABA team trained her to answer the question with her real name.

 

[Plink]

The mom is obviously working with this child to use her proper name (whether or not she does so nicely or well isn't for us to judge). I'd use the proper name with a smile, add lots of cheery conversation, and enjoy those hugs.

[Ravin]

I'd respect the child's preference. I might ask, "Do you like other people to call you (nickname ), or would you rather I call you (name) like your mom does?"

[MomatHWTK]

Man, I think parents working with a SN child have enough problems without a stranger undoing what they are attempting to remediate.  I can't imagine having to explain to everyone we encounter why we do what we do because they think they should get to judge whether I'm being too hard on my child or not.  That ranks up there with all the well meaning people telling my dairy allergic kid he'll starve without milk.

 

I also can't imagine letting an adult near my child again if I found out that the adult had decided they were just going to go against my wishes and do whatever they wanted with my child.   (Except one relative who finally pushed too far...)

[Ravin]

Man, I think parents working with a SN child have enough problems without a stranger undoing what they are attempting to remediate. I can't imagine having to explain to everyone we encounter why we do what we do because they think they should get to judge whether I'm being too hard on my child or not. That ranks up there with all the well meaning people telling my dairy allergic kid he'll starve without milk.

 

I also can't imagine letting an adult near my child again if I found out that the adult had decided they were just going to go against my wishes and do whatever they wanted with my child. (Except one relative who finally pushed too far...)

I would agree if the child's preference was something ridiculous or inappropriate. In the described case, it is not. I tend to treat children as autonomous human beings with feelings. The analogy of this to food allergies is a poor one. A nickname is not going to make a child sick.

[PeterPan]

We're assuming on the ASD thing and that it's a preference, quirk thing, but the op specifically said that the *mom* said it was because of a speech problem.  

[maryanne]

Wow! Ok. I didn't know I was asking such a controversial question.

 

First, a little more information: The nickname is very cute and seems appropriate for the real name, but neither the real name nor the nickname are quite as common or standard as Margaret & Maggie. A speech impairment is not the only SN this girl has, but I don't know if the speech issues are in addition to other SNs or a symptom of a larger SN or if it even matters.

 

Would it be ok if I start using the nickname with her and waited to see what, if any, reaction the Mom has? I want to treat the little girl right, but don't want to disrespect the Mom either. I usually am content to call people what they tell me to call them, but this seems trickier to navigate than some random kid who says "call me Joe, not Joseph" (or vice versa).

[Storygirl]

I think I would just be direct and say to the mom, "I know your daughter has her full name and her nickname. Which one does she prefer to be called?" And then go with that.

[KSinNS]

I agree with StoryGirl, but funny story. My niece has a common name, that is typically shortened (imagine Margaret and Maggie, though it is not). Her mother loved Margaret and hated Maggie but went with Margaret anyway. Well, when Margaret started school, she came home and told everyone her name is Maggie. So, all her friends, most of her family, her face-book and everything else calls her Maggie, except her mother, father and the minister at church, who firmly call her Margaret. She's well into her 20s now, and married, and yet it continues........ It's a tough situation. We all call her Maggie, but I try to remember to say Margaret when talking to her mother. :-}

[OneStepAtATime]

I think I would just be direct and say to the mom, "I know your daughter has her full name and her nickname. Which one does she prefer to be called?" And then go with that.

I agree.  Personally, I would prefer to go with a nickname the child is happy with, as long as it isn't inappropriate, but the mom may very well have specific, necessary reasons for people to call her by her real name.  I would ask.  The last thing I would want to do is cause discord or harm and I applaud you, OP, for questoning what to do.  Some wouldn't even think about this or the well-being of the family.  

 

I must admit, though, that I am sad about how this was brought up, unless I am missing a big piece of the puzzle.  It just seems hurtful for the mom had to be so blunt in front of the child regarding the child saying the other name because she has a speech problem.  That can be really undermining to a child.

[beaners]

I wonder if the child is really trying to say the full name but it comes out sounding like the nickname? Does that make sense? There are a lot of words that my kids with speech disorders say that I can distinguish but other people (even SLPs and special ed teachers who are used to kids with different speech) have trouble making out. Did it sound like she meant that her daughter was trying to say the full name but it was hard for her to make those sounds? Or that her daughter had latched onto the nickname but her mother calls her by her real name?

 

I could see myself trying to explain in a hurry that even though my kid sounded like he said one thing, he was really trying to say another because we are working on his speech. It would be less undermining for *my kids* for me to say, "Hey, this is what he is really saying," than for another adult to continue on with something they couldn't understand him saying. Actually, in the case of one of my boys, an adult not understanding him and thinking he is saying one thing when he is saying another would lead to a full out meltdown because that is what happens when he feels like he can't communicate his needs. Another of my kids would act helpless and shut down if he thought he wasn't being understood. And the third with speech delays would try to take advantage of you not understanding him to find a way to do something he is not allowed to do. Haha I could definitely see myself trying to nip any of that in the bud for the benefit of someone new to my child.

[kbutton]

Man, I think parents working with a SN child have enough problems without a stranger undoing what they are attempting to remediate.  I can't imagine having to explain to everyone we encounter why we do what we do because they think they should get to judge whether I'm being too hard on my child or not.  That ranks up there with all the well meaning people telling my dairy allergic kid he'll starve without milk.

 

I also can't imagine letting an adult near my child again if I found out that the adult had decided they were just going to go against my wishes and do whatever they wanted with my child.   (Except one relative who finally pushed too far...)

 

I agree, but I have also been on the end of "I'm not sure what this kid's SN is, and every time I am friendly, I do something apparently wrong that gets this kid talked to on a behavioral level." Then my choices are, ignore the kid and talk to the family or ignore them all. That's also not something SN families really like either. Typically, this is more of a problem with older special needs folks (particularly ones that are adult still living with intensive caregiver parents). I think some of them had more rigid therapies in decades past, and it's not how things are done now. 

 

One family I know used to kind of narrate their way through situations like this to kind of guide their son to a different response (usually calmer behavior, esp. if he was a not-calm excited way vs. agitated--if he was agitated, they would just talk him down quietly), and it also cued the person who upset the balance (so to speak) that they were okay to talk to her son and her family even if spontaneous conversations were unsettling in some way.

 

It's hard. OP, you get a gold star in my book for asking, and I think as long as you are kind, asking is okay. if it doesn't go over well, it's probably the mom's issue, not yours. 

 

And FWIW, I don't think there is anything wrong with treating a child like an individual whenever you can. It's just a little tricky to do so in some circumstances, and the reason may be totally unapparent. (I just had a discussion with our behaviorist about this--we were talking about the word please and the problems that can stem from that one little word, especially when adults say things like, "what's the magic word." I've known that to be a problem with neurotypical kids, and that's a "socially acceptable" thing to do.)