This morning, as Ellie, Nina and I walked to school, I saw a group of second-grade girls gathered around, talking, and looking at Nina. As we approached the group, I overheard one say, "She was born that way."
I was not sure how to respond. I was not offended, it didn't bother me. At that age, kids are learning about their world, and what makes us all different. And yes, Nina was born this way. There is nothing about her Cerebral palsy she can change or make different. Yes, she was born this way.
Last Friday, I sent a letter to all the parents that have kids in Nichole's class talking about her Down syndrome. Last year, I even went to her school on Down syndrome day and gave a school wide presentation about Down syndrome. I also sent a letter home with all the students.
I had already talked to Nina's teacher about coming to her class, and reading a book to her classmates about Cerebral Palsy. This is the time I am planning on sending our "introduction" letter. But the experience form this morning is making me think I need to go to all the classrooms and talk about disability, and Cerebral Palsy. Because yes, Nina, and Nichole, were born this way.
Awesome.
ReplyDeleteOver the years I have talked to my children multiple times about how people can be born being different and how we are all different in some ways. Recently, my children watched Paralympics on tv and found it very cool and even more interesting than the ordinary Olympics, and that really encouraged their thinking that being disabled doesn't necessarily stop you from doing things. We had a really good conversation about it afterwards, and we talked a lot about how we are all more alike than different. Since it's apple picking time, we talked about how some apples look different in their shape or how they might have a mark on the outside, but how inside it's a perfect apple (this was to make my littlest understand more) and my children all smiled and I really felt that this somehow silly comment made them all understand better. Maybe you could bring a basket of apples to class when talking to the children? However, this won't work if you're dealing with children who unlike my countryside children have never picked apples themselves and who think that an apple must look perfect to be good.... :-)
ReplyDeletePlease forgive me if I explained this inappropriately somehow. It's not so easy when you are not a part of the SN world to know which words to use!
Milena, I LOVE this idea! it is perfect! I actually think we are going to do this very thing, thank you so much for sharing that. Stay tuned, we are going on Friday!
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