English (en)
Why “Just Treat Them Normally” Can Become Harder: When the Helper Role and “Don’t Laugh” Rules Break Natural Relationships
5-second answer: Bringing disabled and nondisabled students together is not the problem. Peer-based inclusion can help. The problem begins when a student who was naturally getting along with someone is assigned a moral role: “You are good with disabled students, so you are the helper,” or “Because this person is disabled, you must feel and react in this approved way.” A reciprocal relationship can then turn into “helper versus helped,” making something natural feel staged.
30-second overview: In middle school, one student got along easily with almost everyone, including students receiving special support. Adults praised this as unusually admirable and later sent that student, with several others, to take part in an exchange activity. That praise changed the relationship: what had felt like ordinary conversation suddenly felt like a job. At a school festival, the same student once laughed because another student’s unexpected movements were genuinely funny. A teacher reacted as though laughing itself proved cruelty. The student’s immediate thought was almost the reverse: if the exact same behavior becomes “forbidden to laugh at” only after learning someone is disabled, is that not another kind of special treatment? Years later, after becoming older than that young teacher had been and checking the research, the original discomfort still holds up surprisingly well.
1. At first, there was no theory—just people talking to people
In middle school, the social circle was broad. There was no strict divide between “my friends” and “everyone else.”
Students who received special support were simply part of the school environment.
If there was something to talk about, people talked. If something was funny, people laughed. If someone asked a question, someone answered.
There was no internal manual called “How to Interact Correctly With a Disabled Person.”
There was a person, so the person was treated like a person.
That may have been the most natural state of inclusion.
2. The moment adults praised it, a job title appeared
Then an adult offered praise along these lines:
“You are really good at interacting with them naturally.”
Soon afterward, the student was sent with several classmates to an exchange activity.
That created a distinction that had not existed before.
Ordinary classmate → talk normally.
Student receiving special support → I am now the person who is supposed to interact well.
A job title had been installed without anyone formally announcing it.
“Am I still allowed to just talk?”
“Is there something I am supposed to watch out for?”
“Am I required to be extra kind?”
A compliance review appeared between impulse and conversation.
A behavior that had been natural became harder precisely because adults classified it as a special virtue.
3. Research describes the same trap: becoming a helper instead of a friend
A recent study asked nondisabled students about friendships with classmates with intellectual and developmental disabilities. Students themselves identified a problem: peers can slip into being helpers rather than reciprocal friends.[2]
The helper role is easy to understand. Help, guide, be kind, do the correct thing.
Friendship is messier.
Friends help and get helped. They joke. They get annoyed. They tease. They disagree. Sometimes they argue and make up.
The study argues that authentic friendship is more likely when students can interact as peers with equal status, rather than remaining permanently in the role of the nice helper.[2]
So there is a strange failure mode:
A school wants friendship, assigns a helper role to produce friendship, and accidentally makes the relationship less like friendship.
Good intentions, reverse thrust.
4. This does not mean schools should stop creating opportunities to interact
Creating opportunities for disabled and nondisabled students to spend time and learn together can be valuable.
Japan’s education ministry promotes models in which disabled and nondisabled students learn together and schools become more inclusive.[1]
A large review of peer-mediated interventions summarized 43 reviews covering 357 unique studies. Positive outcomes appeared especially in peer engagement and the initiation of social interaction.[3]
A separate systematic review and meta-analysis that focused on friendship outcomes found small-to-moderate overall intervention effects.[4]
So the conclusion is not:
Stop arranging interaction.
It is:
Do not confuse creating opportunities with assigning one child a permanent service role.
Teachers can build the stage without writing every line of the relationship.
5. Then came the school festival: “I can’t believe you find that funny”
At a school festival, a student receiving special support was playing a drum. At moments, the student made unexpected movements and loud sounds.
It was genuinely funny.
A few friends laughed hard.
A teacher responded with the equivalent of:
“I can’t believe you can laugh at something like that.”
But the laughter was not based on “disabled people are inferior.”
Something visually unexpected happened, and it was funny.
If another student had done the same thing, the reaction probably would have been the same.
So the middle-school objection was simple:
If the exact same behavior becomes impossible to laugh at only because the person is disabled, are we not changing the rules based on the label?
6. Laughter is not one thing: ridicule and ordinary amusement are different
None of this means all laughter is harmless.
Pointing at someone, repeatedly imitating something they cannot control, continuing after they are distressed, or using a group to humiliate one person can clearly become ridicule or bullying.
But a systematic review of humor in the lives of people with intellectual disabilities found both sides: humor can be a source of stigma and harm, but it can also support relationships, shared enjoyment, and more equal interaction.[5]
A 2024 study focused directly on the difficult line between laughing with and laughing at disabled people. Its central point is that the line cannot be decided by disability status alone; the structure, context, and power of the interaction matter.[6]
So a school should not ask only:
“Did someone laugh while looking at a disabled student?”
It should also ask:
- What exactly was funny to them?
- Was the person being placed beneath everyone else?
- Did the person appear hurt or uncomfortable?
- Was a group using laughter as a weapon?
- Would the same behavior be funny if anyone else did it?
“Laughter equals discrimination” is an easy rule to administer.
Human relationships are not that easy.
7. “Never laugh” and “always be kind” can become another form of exceptional treatment
Trying to prevent discrimination can overshoot.
“Never laugh around this person.”
“Always be extra kind.”
“Never get angry with them.”
At that point, the disabled person is no longer being included in the full range of ordinary social life.
With ordinary friends, people laugh when something is funny. They say “that bothers me” when something bothers them. They help when help is needed. Sometimes they receive help themselves.
If disability changes the rules to:
No laughter. No irritation. Maximum kindness at all times.
that is not necessarily equality. It can become another category of treatment.
Kindness matters.
But when kindness becomes a fixed role, it can create hierarchy.
8. Growing up also creates more cases of “That’s hilarious. (completely straight face)”
As a child, the sequence can be simple:
See → funny → laugh.
As an adult:
See → funny → is it okay to laugh? → could someone be hurt? → how will this look? → that’s hilarious. (straight face)
People learn social rules for when to display or hide what they actually feel.
A study comparing elementary-school children, adolescents, and adults in Japan and the United States found that, in situations where honest expression could hurt someone, endorsement of masking increased with age in both countries.[7]
A 2025 experiment also showed that deliberately suppressing laughter-related facial activity can reduce visible expression without necessarily reducing how funny something feels to the same degree.[8]
In other words:
Not laughing does not automatically mean not being amused.
Sometimes the adult brain has simply hired Legal, Communications, Human Resources, and Compliance.
One caution is necessary. A specific experiment directly showing “children laugh at a disabled child while adults do not” was not identified in this review. That exact claim should not be presented as established. What is supported is the broader developmental point: social regulation of emotional expression increases with age.[7]
9. The teacher was young. Understanding that does not make prescribing feelings correct
Years later, the former student is older than the young teacher had been then.
That makes the teacher’s side easier to understand.
A teacher sees students laughing hard while watching a student receiving special support. It might be bullying. Someone might be getting hurt. The teacher may have seconds to decide whether to intervene.
A simple safety rule—“Do not laugh at disabled students”—can be tempting.
That is understandable.
But understanding the shortcut is different from saying it was the best lesson.
“Do not humiliate someone” is a rule about behavior.
“I cannot believe you could find that funny” is a moral judgment about a student’s internal reaction.
Those are not the same thing.
10. The middle-school discomfort was less wrong than expected
Back then, there was no vocabulary for inclusive education, reciprocal friendship, or social display rules.
There were only two strong reactions.
Act normally around disabled classmates → adults assign the role “exceptionally kind nondisabled student.”
Laugh because something is funny → adults assign the role “cruel person laughing at disability.”
In both cases, the adult interpretation became larger than the meaning the student had actually experienced.
Years later, the research provides language around that old discomfort:
- Fixed helper roles can interfere with reciprocal peer relationships.[2]
- Peer-supported inclusion itself can produce positive social outcomes.[3][4]
- Humor can be ridicule or a shared equalizing experience, depending on context.[5][6]
- Social regulation of emotional expression tends to grow with age.[7][8]
Which produces a satisfying delayed exchange:
Middle-school brain: Isn’t that kind of discriminatory in reverse?
Adult brain: We should probably check the literature before saying that.
Literature: Actually, that concern is very much part of the discussion.
A remarkably slow fact-check.
11. If schools teach anything, three rules may be enough
1. See the person before the category
Do not automatically turn disability into “helpless,” “must be protected,” or “a person nobody may laugh with or around.”
2. Help when needed, but do not appoint permanent child helpers
Creating opportunities is not the same as assigning a service role.
Teachers, peers, and systems can share support. Friendship should not become homework.
3. Judge harmful behavior, not forbidden feelings
Do not stop at “someone laughed.”
Ask whether it was ridicule, shared humor, unwanted imitation, humiliation, or bullying.
That teaches respect without requiring children to wear a special facial expression around disabled people.
Conclusion: “Treat everyone normally” becomes hardest when adults make normality into a performance
An inclusive school is not one where every disabled student receives a permanently assigned nice child.
The goal is a school where disabled and nondisabled students are members of the same community, learn together where possible, and receive support where needed.[1]
That is why this sentence is more dangerous than it looks:
“You are so good with those students. You should be the exchange helper.”
It adds a service identity to a relationship that may already have been working.
And this sentence is dangerous in a different way:
“I can’t believe you could find that funny.”
Stopping ridicule is not the same as prescribing emotion.
At first there were simply people dealing with people.
Then adults added labels: helper, helped, kind person, vulnerable person, person you must never laugh around.
Soon, a conversation that once happened automatically must pass an internal review board.
If the goal is natural inclusion, sometimes adults need to teach less about the “correct way to interact” and do more to create conditions where ordinary relationships can actually happen.
And today, when a repetitive physical gag appears that would once have caused uncontrollable laughter, the response is often:
That’s hilarious. (straight face.)
Not a major moral transformation.
Probably just boredom.
References
[1] Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, Japan. Inclusive School Management Model Project. https://www.mext.go.jp/a_menu/shotou/tokubetu/mext_03177.html
[2] Rossetti, Z. “Not Sure How to Approach Them the Right Way”: Nondisabled Students’ Perspectives on Friendship With Peers With I/DD. Remedial and Special Education. https://doi.org/10.1177/07419325231221215
[3] Bowman-Perrott, L. et al. Peer-Mediated Interventions for Students with Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities: A Systematic Review of Reviews of Social and Behavioral Outcomes. Developmental Neurorehabilitation 26(2), 134-154 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1080/17518423.2023.2169878
[4] Friendship interventions for children with neurodevelopmental needs: A systematic review and meta-analysis. PLOS ONE (2023). https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0295917
[5] Chadwick, D. D., & Platt, T. Investigating Humor in Social Interaction in People With Intellectual Disabilities: A Systematic Review of the Literature. Frontiers in Psychology 9, 1745 (2018). https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.01745
[6] Kulick, D. “Laughing with” or “laughing at” people with disabilities? Love on the Spectrum and Derek. HUMOR 37(3), 307-328 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1515/humor-2023-0162
[7] Wice, M., Matsui, T., Tsudaka, G., Karasawa, M., & Miller, J. G. Verbal display rule knowledge: A cultural and developmental perspective. Cognitive Development 52, 100801 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cogdev.2019.100801
[8] Mitschke, V., Ziereis, A. C., Manivasagam, S., & Schacht, A. Laughter regulation in solitary and social contexts varies across emotion regulation strategies. (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s44271-025-00368-6
