I LOVE articles like this because when I’m in a quiet moment I feel like I could handle a moment like this pretty well but throw me into a busy day with a demanding child and I have no clue how I’d react. I love having these examples and I’m trying to desperately program it into my brain cells so when my kid asks me about someone who moves differently through the world, I know what to say that’s respectful to everyone.
Kudos to the people who can just initiate conversation with a stranger, but I am not that person! I really like the idea of talking about access or the lack thereof. Going to try to look for opportunities to do that.
I usually go with something along the lines of "I don't know about that person's situation, but there are lots of reasons someone might be in a wheelchair," and deflect until later when we can have a fuller conversation about the range of those reasons. I do often relate disabilities to the disabled people my kid knows -- in particular we have a teenage neighbor who has a number of disabilities and whose guardian used to babysit my kid, so that's someone he's spent a lot of time with and has a sense of his life: X likes to play with putty, he likes to get Alexa to tell him facts about the states and he memorized the state capitals, he is largely blind but he can see big changes in light and dark so he loves to watch my kid jump off the little retaining wall across from his patio. But also the person who owned our condo before us, whose parents still live in our building, is in a wheelchair but she can stand and walk a small amount, and we'll talk about how just as people are in wheelchairs for a lot of different reasons, there's a range and it doesn't necessarily mean they couldn't stand up at all.
In the case of autistic kids in his life, my language is that different people's brains work differently, and those kids' brains have a specific type of difference and he should understand that that's why sometimes they react to things in ways he finds unexpected.
I LOVE articles like this because when I’m in a quiet moment I feel like I could handle a moment like this pretty well but throw me into a busy day with a demanding child and I have no clue how I’d react. I love having these examples and I’m trying to desperately program it into my brain cells so when my kid asks me about someone who moves differently through the world, I know what to say that’s respectful to everyone.
Kudos to the people who can just initiate conversation with a stranger, but I am not that person! I really like the idea of talking about access or the lack thereof. Going to try to look for opportunities to do that.
I usually go with something along the lines of "I don't know about that person's situation, but there are lots of reasons someone might be in a wheelchair," and deflect until later when we can have a fuller conversation about the range of those reasons. I do often relate disabilities to the disabled people my kid knows -- in particular we have a teenage neighbor who has a number of disabilities and whose guardian used to babysit my kid, so that's someone he's spent a lot of time with and has a sense of his life: X likes to play with putty, he likes to get Alexa to tell him facts about the states and he memorized the state capitals, he is largely blind but he can see big changes in light and dark so he loves to watch my kid jump off the little retaining wall across from his patio. But also the person who owned our condo before us, whose parents still live in our building, is in a wheelchair but she can stand and walk a small amount, and we'll talk about how just as people are in wheelchairs for a lot of different reasons, there's a range and it doesn't necessarily mean they couldn't stand up at all.
In the case of autistic kids in his life, my language is that different people's brains work differently, and those kids' brains have a specific type of difference and he should understand that that's why sometimes they react to things in ways he finds unexpected.
We talk TO people, not ABOUT people. Love that!
Thanks for reposting. Great idea on getting books from the library. I wonder if there are any book series with a main character with disabilities?