Public Awareness of Children With Special Needs

As I have mentioned before I am a firm believer of support groups for parents with children with special needs.  Yesterday I had a meeting with one of my support groups for "moms with special needs children".  We have been asked to do a short presentation at a luncheon to spread awareness of children with disabilities.  Many of the people attending this luncheon will have no concept of the vast spectrum of special needs.  Many times when a person hears that a child has a special need, they may automatically think, "Oh, he must have ADHD," or one that I have heard personally, "She goes to a special class, she must be retarded."  But in truth, these can be misconceptions, and there are far more categories of special needs that affect children in our society ranging from autism to learning disabilities, from muscular dystrophy to down's syndrome.

According to the U.S. Census, there are more than 54 million Americans with disabilities in the United States--that is almost 20% of our population.  However, most of those special needs are not visible.  The child looks just like every other child.  Our support group is trying to take baby steps to spread awareness of these wonderful, special children.  We would like for people to realize that things may not always be as they seem...that the child that is "misbehaving" during the sermon at church, continually knocking on the pew despite his parents attempts to make him stop, is not being disrespectful--he has autism.  Furthermore, his parents are not lacking in parenting skills, they more than likely go above and beyond each day to be sure their child is afforded each service he needs to accommodate for his disability.  And that child who is in fourth grade, but her parents still point to the words in the hymnal to her as the congregation sings, she is not stupid, she has a visual processing disorder and actually has above average intelligence.  These two children look just like all the other children.  Sometimes, it makes their disability even harder to deal with.  It can also make life challenging for their parents.

At my meeting yesterday, I was reminded of a story that I first saw when I was teaching some 15 years ago.  When you are a parent of a child with special needs, it is so hard to put your feelings, thoughts and emotions of raising your child into words.  This story, written by Emily Pearl Kingsley, does a beautiful job explaining the emotions of having a wonderful  child with special needs.

                                                   Welcome to Holland
                                                 by Emily Pearl Kingsley

I am often asked to describe the experience of raising a child with a disability to try to help people who have not shared that unique experience to understand it, to imagine how it would feel.  It's like this:

When you're going to have a baby, it's like planning a fabulous vacation trip to Italy.  You buy a bunch of guidebooks and make your wonderful plans...the Coliseum, Michaelangelo's David, the gondolas of Venice.   You may even learn some handy phrases in Italian.  It's all very exciting.

After months of eager anticipation, the day finally arrives.  You pack your bags and off you go.  Several hours later, the plane lands.  The stewardess comes in and says, "Welcome to Holland."

"Holland?!", you say.  "What do you mean Holland?  I signed up for Italy!  I'm supposed to be in Italy.  All my life, I've dreamed of going to Italy!"

The stewardess replies,"There's been a change in the flight plan.  We've landed in Holland and it is here you must stay."

The important thing is that they haven't taken you to a horrible, disgusting, filthy place full of pestilence, famine and disease.  It is just a different place.  So, you must go and buy new guidebooks.  You must learn a whole new language.  You will meet a whole new group of people you would never had met.  It is just a different place.  It is slower-paced than Italy, less flashy than Italy, but after you have been there a while and you catch your breath, you look around and you begin to notice that Holland has windmills, Holland has tulips, Holland even has Rembrants.  But everyone you know is busy coming and going from Italy and they're all bragging about what a wonderful time they had there.  And for the rest of your life you will say, "Yes, that's where I was supposed to go.  That is what I had planned."

The pain of that will never, ever, ever go away because the loss of that dream is a very significant loss.  But if you spend your life mourning the fact that you didn't go to Italy, you may never be free to enjoy the very special, the very lovely things about Holland.



I so love Holland....G.