Category Archives: special ed

he hears you, he understands you

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A few years ago, our family circus found ourselves at our kids’ high school football game because that is what we have done in support of our daughter, Abby, while she would cheer for her high school. It was always guaranteed to be a fun Friday night because the cheer squad was awesome, the band was great, the Wolf Pack was spirited and our high school team was pretty good…they still are pretty good. Seated behind us, at this particular game, was a group of high school aged boys engaged in conversation that included calling one another stupid retards, the visiting team’s uniforms retarded, a particular teacher  was most definitely a retard…and on and on.

At one point, Daniel turned to me and pointedly asked me, “Am I a retard?“

I replied asking him what did he think that word meant. Thinking for a minute, he answered that people he knew used it to talk about stupid people and sometimes people called him that at school so he was wondering if he was a retard.

“No, son. No you are not. You are a very bright, hard-working, amazing kid. Anyone and everyone who knows you would agree. No, you are not stupid.“

Daniel sat there for a moment pondering what I just told him. He hugged me and then asked if he could go and hang out with Abby’s boyfriend.

“Of course, Daniel.“

Yes, my heart broke just a little during our conversation. How could it not? I looked down at Daniel hanging out with Jon and smiled and waved. Must maintain a happy, strong face I told myself. How else could I support my child against such attacks, even if they are indirect? It was then that my thoughts were broken by the boy directly behind me laughing over his friend tripping and spilling food everywhere. “Dude! You are such a fucking retard!“

I whipped my head around and looked the kid square in the eye and asked him, “Is he (the friend) really mentally retarded?“

“What? No!“

“Do you see that little boy down there?“

“The one standing next to Jon?“

“Yeah. Do you know Jon? So do I. He’s a good friend of my family. He happens to be friends with that little boy. That little boy who just so happens to be developmentally disabled…a retard as you put it…that little boy is my son.“

“I wasn’t talking about your kid…“

“No? Then what did you mean by that word when you called your friend that?“

The kid started to say something, then stopped, then started again, then stopped, then he muttered his apologies saying that he didn’t really mean it and had no idea that it would hurt someone like my child.

“Perhaps next time you say it you will realize and you will get it.“

After our exchange, the boys got up and slunk off to the snack bar. Later on during the game I spied that kid hanging out with Jon and even talking to Daniel. I won’t pretend that my conversation with him made too much of a difference because, after all he was just a smart-alecky kid; but I’d like to think that watching the game and interacting with Daniel made him appreciate all the more just how awesome and even normal a kid like Daniel is. I can only hope that that kid would get it.

Anyone who has read this Adventures in Juggling of mine for any length of time knows that I do not like the usage of the word “retard”. Anyone who knows me even more closely perhaps gets why…I am the mother of a child living with cognitive and developmental disabilities. But, truth be told, I have never cared for the use of the word “retard”. In my opinion, there are more better ways to articulate when one finds a situation, a thing or even a person to be frustrating, stupid, foolish, dense, futile, idiotic, inane, ludicrous, clumsy, pointless, irrelevant, simple, slow, sluggish, thick, trivial, ignorant, vacuous….and on …and on. I am so much smarter than to resort to the use of one word when describing anything or anyone I find to match any of the above words. At least that is how I see it. Add to that belief is the fact that through the years, long before I became Daniel’s mother, I saw how a word like that used so casually could hurt someone. I have known many families with children living with physical, developmental, cognitive disabilities. I saw how people’s words and attitudes hurt. I got it…or at least I thought I did. Then through that short conversation with my child I realized all the more just how hurtful it really was. Whether people use that word to my son’s face or not it hurts…pure and simple, it hurts.

I get it.

Do you?

Everywhere around me, I am surrounded by people who use that word with seemingly no thought at all…at the mall, at the football games, at the dance studio, at school, at the tae-kwon-do studio at the coffee shop, in polite conversation with me…everywhere. No, I don’t believe that most of them would ever intend to hurt my child…yet they do…every time they use  that word.

He hears you.

He understands you.

Today is Spread The Word To End The Word Day, part of an ongoing campaign against the r-word created by The Special Olympics. Close to 250,000 people have signed a pledge against the word “retard.” Today I call everyone out who uses that word who reads this blog…who knows Daniel, whether personally or through this blog.

Ellen, writer of “Love That Max and mom of Max, wrote today, “People would never call a kid with cognitive disabilities a “retard” to his face (and if you are a person who would do that, step away from this blog and go search for your soul). If you wouldn’t say the word to my child because you know it’s offensive, you should avoid using it elsewhere, too. Either way, it’s demeaning. Either way, it hurts my child.” Ellen also created this amazing video that explains in the simplest of ways what is wrong with this word…you know, for the kajillion more or so out there who don’t get what is wrong with it.

Think of Max.

Think of Daniel.

Think Respect.

And don’t say it.

Thank you.

crafty as I want to be

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You say crafts I say “Meh!” I don’t see myself as a crafty-type person. Sure I love to take pictures. I have dozens and dozens of photo scrapbooks (last count 78). There is this blog. I love to paint walls. Truth is I get so much joy from putting blue tape all over the place before I put the paint all over the walls. I’m actually nearly done with my bannister project and having fun with that. It’s the painter’s tape I think…or perhaps it is the lacquer fumes. But that is about as crafty as I can get. I think of being crafty and I see yarns and ribbons and threads…bits of paper, modge-podge, sewing machines and crochet hooks. That is so not me.

Not.

At.

All.

You should have seen me last night sewing a simple hook and eye on one of Jodie’s competition costumes last night. Comical and sad all at the same time. At least it holds together her lyrical costume.

But Valentine’s Day is coming. Daniel has class parties to attend and exchange Valentines with 50 of his fellow students. Yes, fifty thanks to his Special Day Class, speech and his mainstream class. I cringe. Daniel rubs his hands with glee just thinking of all the sugary-sweet, ooey-gooey, chocolate-ly Valentine’s treats he will receive. I could have taken  the easy way out and bought a few boxes of those cheap-assed Sponge Bob Valentines at Walmart but…LAME! Only babies give those away my 10 year old tells me. They certainly won’t impress a certain girl.

That’s right fans of Daniel. There’s this girl… Our little man is growing up!

So now to get crafty but keep it cheap and simple.

Hello Pinterest!

So easy!

Get Daniel to pose with his outstretched fist.

Check.

Add a little message with Photoshop.

Check.

Order some 4 x 6 prints using a coupon so I only have to pay 7¢ per print.

Check.

Using sharp scissors cut a small slit at the top of the fist and the bottom of the fist in the picture.

Check.

Insert a tootsie pop and secure on the back with a little bit of tape.

Done!

Oh yeah! I am so crafty!

ornaments

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a paragraph by Daniel, third grade:

Today I hung my Christmas ornaments on the Christmas tree. I have twenty six ornaments. Mom keeps them in a box for me. My favorite is an airplane.

Every year for Christmas I give each of the kids an ornament to add to their own collection that someday they can take for their very own Christmas tree in their own home. Added to that collection are other ornaments they have received as gifts and ornaments they have made through the years. For Christmas 2008, I gave Daniel an airplane ornament to remember his very first ride on an airplane. It was magical, very magical.

At school every week he is expected to write a paragraph of three or more sentences about any subject that he wants to write about. He pretty much always struggles with coming up with a topic…and then sentences. Sorry, but writing definitely does not come to him easily like math does for him! But this week, after hanging his ornaments on the tree, he had no trouble at all deciding what he wanted to write about.  Just like his first ride on an airplane, it was magical watching him write this paragraph. Almost as magical as it was to watch him admire and remember all twenty six ornaments that belong to him…magical! Almost as magical as he is.

Magical!

He is!

hitting with my best shot

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I say DODGEBALL.

What do you say?

A couple nights ago on Glee, the character Kurt Hummel said:

Although she knows it to be true, my opponent Brittany has stated that my face was used as a template for Hasbro’s successful line of My Little Ponies.  Well, I refuse to be bullied.  In fact, I refuse to let anyone be bullied.  Today I want to take it one step further.  I would like to hereby pledge to ban dodgeball at McKinley High.  Since it’s invention in 1831 by Silas W. Mangold, dodgeball has been used as a schoolyard instrument of suppression.  It’s violent.  It’s painful.  It’s humiliating and I believe it’s an equivalent to modern day stoning.  Let’s end dodgeball at McKinley High and send a strong message that violence isn’t okay.

For me dodgeball brings back a lot of memories… good, bad and little ugly sometimes. As an old high school friend stated on my Facebook page, it was indeed “a ‘legal’ way to get back at the nasty kids” but then again it was just as acceptable for the bigger, stronger kids to pound us back if we weren’t fast enough. I usually wasn’t fast enough. Oh sure, I would put a good fight but I wasn’t a dodgeball winner. One time I definitely was a dodgeball loser when I ended up suffering torn ligaments in my knee and found myself unable to stand much less walk. Even the PE teacher mocked me a little that day. She later apologized when I returned to school a few days later on crutches.

Oh well!

After all it was “just” dodgeball and it was definitely part of growing up.

Right?

I’m starting to think perhaps not.

Today I came to pick up my son from school to take him out to lunch before his scheduled teacher conference. I was smiling thinking of our anticipated lunch date together. Then I saw him…limping towards me. As he got closer I could see that he was crying…no, he was sobbing. I ran to him and hugged him close to my body. Before he could try to tell me what was wrong, a teacher came up to me and explained that he got hurt during a “friendly” game of dodgeball in their PE class.

A “friendly” game of dodgeball?

Friendly?

Dodgeball?

Dodgeball is friendly?

It turns out his opponent hit him hard when his back was turned to the kid and he fell down hard on his knee. The actual hit didn’t hurt but slamming his knee on the blacktop did. I looked at the teacher and grumbled, “I’m sure that game was just as friendly as a modern-day stoning.” She laughed at my Glee reference. But I wasn’t laughing. There was nothing to laugh at over this. With the exception of one other student, Daniel’s classmates in his mainstream class are nearly twice his size. So it is perfectly okay for a kid who is over a foot taller and about 45 pounds heavier than Daniel to pound him down in a friendly game of dodgeball? Then I guess it would follow that it is okay for someone like me who is 7 inches taller and about 80 pounds heavier to pound that kid down with a dodgeball?…Probably only if I was playing a “friendly” game.

I decided to wait to discuss this later (when I was not feeling so murderous) and walked Daniel to the car where I could comfort him privately. After he calmed down we went out to lunch.

Nothing like your favorite cheese pizza at Chilis to help chase away the trauma of dodgeball.

Later, back at school for the teacher conference, I enjoyed glowing reports of my son’s academic successes. He has a solid A in math and a B in spelling in his mainstream class. He remains below grade level in reading but that is why he has an IEP and spends a good portion of his day in the Special Day Class. But his teachers are very pleased with his work and with him as a part of their classrooms. His teacher proposed that perhaps he is ready to to increase his time in the mainstream classroom with science and social studies. Very good news which I agreed to so after a formal IEP in a week or two, Daniel will take on 3rd grade level science and social studies. It was then that I asked about the mainstream PE class Daniel participates in. The teacher reports that he is challenged with it but the Adaptive PE instructor is still checking on him as he transitions. Size does matter she concedes. Yes it does, I agree…especially when the kids are playing a “friendly” game of dodgeball.

I’m still working on what I want to say to the school about this because right now the only shot I want to get in is to the back of a certain kid’s head…I know…inappropriate and definitely not friendly.

all about him

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Back to school time means time to fill out questionnaires and create “all about me” posters for the classroom so that the teachers might get to know better the boys and girls in their classrooms. That would be Daniel’s homework project for this week.

He carefully decides what is his favorite color…his favorite book…favorite song…favorite sport…favorite book. He also must consider what he is really good at and what he wishes he could do better. There are many questions to ponder and he has put great care and consideration into each one because this is, after all, how people at his new school will get to know him better.

I thought I knew him pretty good. I am his mom. I should know my own son…one would think. His favorite subject is math and that is what he is good at. No big surprise for me there. Pizza would be his favorite food. But of course! I even knew that he wishes for more Hexbugs because the one mom brought back from BlogHer was not enough. I also know that more than anything in the whole wide world he wishes that he was big…sigh!

As he continued to work on his “All About Me” project, I smugly thought that I already know all that there is to know about my son. Yeah, I was pretty confident. But I don’t know as much about him as I thought I did.

I just don’t.

His favorite color?

Pink.

Considering how he surrounds himself with blues, greens and browns I was surprised, very surprised.

There’s much more that I am learning about my not-so-little boy as he continues to work on this project. But one thing remains the same even though he is quickly growing and changing and that is he is special because of the wonderful things that he does everyday. Yes, that was part of the questionnaire and yes, that was his answer.