Question - special needs children..

[kristine]

At my DD's school there is a girl who has some kind of special needs thing, not sure what it is though. She is not in my DD's class (she's two years older, DD is 7), but they go to the after school care together, and it is a small school (104 students in total), so they spend a lot of time together there. This girl can be a bit difficult, and often she will hit the other kids for no reason. The kids have been told, according to my DD, that there is something not really working in her head that the doctor's can't fix, and she finds it hard to know right from wrong sometimes. They haven't told us anything about it, and often my DD will come home and say this girl hit her, and she doesn't understand why, and she will have lots of questions. I find it really hard to answer when I don't know what is going on.

The family lives up the road from us, so I know the mum in a "hey, that's my neighbour kinda way", but not very well. Would it be OK for me to ask her about her daughter's problem so I can explain it to my DD a bit better? She gets kinda upset about it, because they have been told they need to be nice to her, and when they try to include her they just get hit, and she finds it difficult to understand. The school is very clear on their no-bullying policy, and they have a rule that if someone is on their own the other kids have to include them in the playing (unless the kid wants to be alone), so my DD is trying to follow these rules, but finds it kinda confusing with this girl. At the same time, I find it hard to explain to her why things are the way they are when I don't know anything, but I don't want to offend the girl's mum by bringing it up. The girl has been around our house to play a few times, and most of the time it has been ok, and her mum has never mentioned anything.