"Invisible Children" was republished here on able2able with Danette's permission and as part of a guest blogger post exchange. You can read my post When Tug-of-War isn't a Game: Fighting Stimming in Autism at Help! S-O-S for Parents. I'm looking forward to working with Danette again in the future, when I will review and giveaway a set of parent guides from the Rescue Series at S-O-S Research.
The special needs addressed here on Help! S-O-S for Parents and by S-O-S Research are virtually invisible. You can’t see them. A child with ADHD, anxiety, or social skills deficits looks like her peers. A child with Aspergers or high-functioning autism looks no different than his friends. These children can run, dance, speak, and laugh. But they are picked last for a team, they rarely get invited to a birthday party, and many have never experienced a sleep-over.
I have experienced situations where people have not understood my daughter and their responses have been rude or unsympathetic. But my daughter has experienced probably ten times as many of these situations. She is young and her heart is still tender. It can be hard for a mother to watch.
Shouldn’t Preschool be Fun?
Preschool should be a time of pure fun for young children. But I had a difficult time finding a preschool that would open their doors. During that short period of my daughter’s life, she experienced three different schools. She was accompanied by an aide, so the school was not being asked to do more. But the “more” they didn’t welcome was a child that looked perfect but came with an aide. It was out of the norm.
At one preschool, the kids were being required to sit quietly so that they could be dismissed one-by-one for lunch. My daughter was about 4. At that time she had a lot of motor coordination issues and still does. Having spent the first 18 months of her life living in a crib in a Russian orphanage, her muscle tone was poor and her core was not strong.
She would sit on the floor with her legs in front of her in a V-pattern. This helped her balance, but was not the “correct” sitting position. She was told to sit criss-cross. She complied, but to obtain balance she leaned back on her hands for support. Not acceptable! Her hands needed to be folded in her lap. She complied, but whoops, her legs came out in the V-pattern again for balance. I think you see the problem. As you can probably guess, my daughter was dismissed last for lunch because she was “uncooperative.”
Where’s the Compassion?
Soccer turned out to be a fun team sport when my daughter was younger and the game was noncompetitive. When she was about seven we were at the park on a day that she had two games. She was between games, so I let her play on the playground. From a distance I saw a woman yelling at her. I approached my daughter but she was confused and could not coherently tell me what happened, other than that the woman was angry with her.
I calmly approached the other mother and asked her if there was a problem. Very angrily she proceeded to tell me that her daughter’s team had their soccer balls in a pile. My daughter ran by and started playing with the balls. This mother followed behind her and yelled for her to stop. My daughter continued to play with the ball, refusing to turn around and return the soccer ball!
I was shocked at the amount of anger coming from her. I proceeded to tell her—very loudly so that other parents from her team could hear–that my daughter has special needs and her response was not in defiance. The mother retorted that she also had a child with special needs and knows all about it. My response at that point was “No, you don’t. Any mother with a special needs child would have much more compassion than what you just displayed.” If she had a problem with my daughter, take it up with me. As her mouth hung open, I walked away.
Don”t Teach if You Don’t Like Kids
My daughter attended a private school from 1st through the beginning of 4th grades that had a special program for kids with learning disabilities. The teachers were specially trained in the Slingerland method and my daughter had experienced quite a bit of success. Her 4th grade teacher though, was older and approaching retirement. She did not genuinely like the kids and could actually be quite cruel.
This teacher would single out selected children and make their days miserable. My daughter would be chastised for looking out the window or standing up at her desk. The teacher would stop her lesson, call to my daughter and ask her to look around the room. Was anyone else looking out the window? No! Then why did she feel the need? You can imagine how good this was for my daughter’s self-esteem.
Never Being Picked by Classmates
As typical in many classrooms, in 4th grade different children were selected to be helpers on a weekly basis. The teacher would allow the helper to pick another student to help them with their task. I was working in the classroom when the teacher asked the kids to raise their hands if they wanted to be picked to help. I noticed that my daughter was the only child not raising her hand. On the drive home I questioned her about this. Her response was “No one ever picks me. So I’m not going to raise my hand and give them the chance to not pick me.”
These experiences, if taken one at a time, may not seem that bad. Who of us as a child can not recall some embarrassing or mean experience? The problem is that the hearts of these invisible children are twisted and torn by these experiences over and over again. They slowly lose a part of themselves as they feel constant defeat.
I ask you to remember that most children do not want to stand out and be different. They do not want to get in trouble or to not have friends. When you see this, the odds are it’s not poor parenting. There’s something else going on.
But every parent of child with special needs also knows that there are invisible heroes—those people who have touched our children’s lives and left their permanent mark. Every parent thanks God for these invisible heroes and they never get enough recognition. Next Friday’s post (Visible but Silent Heroes Deserving of Lottery Dollars)will honor them.
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