As parents, caregivers, doctors, teacher and anyone else that comes into regular contact with special needs kids, its important for us to take note and pay attention to the childs or persons situation. Often we can feel sorry for the child because of their condition, but most people with special needs who grow older don’t want you to feel sorry for them. They want to be accepted into modern society and accepted as a human being just with some funny quirks. But of course kids don’t always do as they are told, they don’t always behave, and even more behavioral issues arise when you have a special needs child to take care of. The pressure can be intense for any parent or caregiver, even a therapist can feel the pressure if they feel they are getting nowhere with the child.
Always try to put yourself in their shoes, you grow up as a small child learning your way through the world and one day it dawns on you that you are different from most people. Not just a funny eye or a mark on your cheek but in a BIG way different. Not even on the same wavelength as most people. You try to make friends and they dont even understand you, they look at you in pity or disgust or sometimes even turn away from you. They try to make conversation but this lasts a few seconds then they give up and pretend you’re not in the same room.
For special needs kids this usually happens between 5 and 10 years old, they suddenly realise that that they are different! Its like waking up in a hospital bed after having a stroke and people start talking to you like you are from a different planet. Whats worse is they talk about you in front of you like you are not there. But here is the problem, I would take a calculated guess from all the special needs kids that Ive come into contact with, that 99.9% of special needs kids, no matter how extreme their conditions are fully aware of what people are saying about them, pretty much most of the time. Its becoming more clear with modern assessments that autism, dyspraxia, down syndrome, cerebral palsy or any other condition on the spectrum is a problem for the child to express themselves rather than them struggling to comprehend whats going on. The person who can not talk does not mean they are stupid, it just means they can not talk, that’s it!
So the next time you are talking to a child with any kind of disabilities, just put yourself in their shoes. How would you feel if you woke up one day to find the world just was not how it used to be. I think its quite daunting and scary to think how you could realise one day that nobody understands what comes out of your mouth, despite you shouting and screaming and yelling. Perhaps it would frustrate you? It would frustrate the hell out of me, in fact I think I would probably try to kill myself after one week of this torture. I think most people would be on the verge of suicide, but then again if your hands didn’t work properly due to motor skill deficiencies you couldn’t do that either. Killing yourself would not be an option if your fine motor skills were so poor.
Now I am not saying that life as someone with any kind of disabilities is torture, please dont get me wrong in any way, what I am saying is that one day these kids wake up to realise that things are not as rosy as kindergarten, some of them dont have happy childhoods because they are tortured from the sounds and sensitivities of life around them and they can be highly sensitive to touch, noise or even smells.
We have to put ourselves in their shoes, we cant simply take it for granted that they will accept themselves for who they are. They must be frightened to death, as they get older, questions like, am I going to be like this forever?
My daughter often gets frustrated as she is at the age where she fully realises she has a lot of problems, she works so hard at her different programs with such little results and small progress that it sometimes crushes her. She can cry a lot and her frustrations are echoed in my mind.
