Little One is just 1 & honestly right now one of his favourite things is excitedly trying to pat Ava in the face with both hands. We are supporting him to understand this isn’t ok. We’ve been modelling “gentle hands” & setting boundaries around Ava having space in her bed. 2/

And yes consistently using phrases like “Ava likes gentle hands. Ava is resting we leave her alone. Ava is working she can’t play now” is working very slowly. Little One is tiny but does understand if he biffs Ava in the face & doesn’t listen, we move away or Ava leaves 3/

I have also experienced over the last year how capable very young children are when it comes to understanding boundaries if they’re explained in an age appropriate way. At playgroups our rule is everyone leaves Ava alone until the end & then her harness comes off for cuddles! 4/

Have we experienced over excited kids interacting with Ava? Yes I’ve talked about it a lot! But excited kids are always going to exist. In my experience kids have much better “listening ears” than parents & it’s about what parents model & how they support the child. 5/

It does grind my gears when an adult encourages their child to interact with Ava or uses Ava as a source of entertainment. “Say hi to the doggy!” It also annoys me when parents can see an interaction happening & assume I’m ok with it. “She can pet the dog right?” /6

The risk of using an assistance / service dog as entertainment & ignoring the do not pet signs & not asking for permission is that it sets a confusing precedent for kids. Yes Ava is incredibly safe around children. But she’s a highly trained working dog who won’t react badly 7/

Ava is trained to ignore distractions & as a guide dog when she’s not walking me around her job is to snooze. But other assistance / service dogs are constantly on duty in public & letting your kids interact with the dog could put the handler at risk of a medical emergency. /8

So teaching children, yes including very young children, not to run up to strange dogs, even if the strange dog is a highly trained working dog, is an important parenting job. It is important for your children’s safety & the safety of the disabled person. 9/

And no, the disabled person doesn’t owe you the teaching moment. You can educate yourself & your child. I don’t mind explaining Ava’s job most of the time. But I’m also a Mum who might just want to get the shopping done or sing nursery rhymes with my child. 10/

Parenting is hard, I’ve barely slept for a year 🫠 Every day is full of new terrifying scenarios! But there are conversations & situations we can anticipate, like disabled people with assistance / service dogs existing in the world. Talk about disability with your kids. 11/

If you’re in the UK I recommend Dog Squad on CBeebies. It features Ava’s colleague @Kika_GuideDog If you know of any books or shows for kids featuring working dogs reply below! 12/

It’s a source of great pride for me that every day Ava is doing the work of teaching so many small people about disability, about being safe around all dogs & also about boundaries. By holding boundaries which does involve saying no or stop, we also model asserting our needs 13/

For me it’s not dog vs child, because for my family it’s both! We’re a unique team, navigating together & supporting each other. And yes, it’s still chaotic. Like last week when I tried to take a cute photo but Little One sat on Ava’s head instead as I sighed “gentle hands” 14/

@BlondeHistorian I think that's what bothers me about the whole discourse: the original post was the dog-owner setting a boundary, and the *parent* acting like the child was too young to understand, rather than attempting to, you know, parent. then OP's snark was in response to that.

@oldenoughtosay Yeah, it sounded like a difficult interaction. I just live it constantly so wanted to share my reflections.

@BlondeHistorian What bugs me is: 1) that everyone thinks 3 yr olds can’t understand boundaries at all. Most can when they’ve been guided on boundaries by a caregiver. 2) everyone attacking the OP and her service dog. And saying the dog should be put to sleep etc; it’s disgusting.

@FloRoberts93 Yeah really nasty escalation. It was the whole “you don’t know you’re not a parent” rubbish. So yeah here I am as a parent who experiences this every day.

@BlondeHistorian honestly my biggest problem with the original post was OP comparing the child to a dog and making a joke about putting them on a leash, apparently later admitting to physically putting their hands on a child who approached the dog, and making ableist comments about how +

@catherinesclaws Tbh the leashing comment is very complicated because I will be using reins with my own child for safety! But yeah the other stuff is unacceptable

@BlondeHistorian What pissed me off about the whole situation was how the person talked about the kid, like by all means have an issue with the parents not parenting in the moment, should never have directed their ire at the kid by dehumanizing her. Then again they hit kids so I'm not shocked.

@OpaliteW Yes I think the choice of words was unfortunate. However as my thread goes on to explore a child distracting an assistance / service dog can be a serious risk to a disabled person. It also could be the 15th time it’s happened that day. Sometimes we don’t choose the right words