Taboo

Warning, this post contains adult content.

No matter how beautiful, amazing, or smart a child is, they will grow up.  In what seems like the blink of an eye, a small child grows and ages until they become teenagers (screaming in your head “oh, no, not teenagers”).

Suddenly, your wish that your child had experiences like a child without a disability will come true.  They will become a hormonal, moody, grumpy, irritable mess.  Also, you child will respond physically in more adult, hormone driven ways.  They will experience all the discomfort of growing older.  It is now that they need your assistance the most.

Most of us, when our body started to change, wanted to hide as our body responded to the opposite sex outside our control.  I remember panicking that everyone knew I was having my period and young boys that I knew struggled to hide any physical reaction becoming masters of the well placed book, backpack, or hat.  Not all children want to hide.  For some children, they want help and will seek to understand what is happening to their body.  We need to teach them to ask us questions in private.  We need to teach them not to share or show anyone else while at the same time, helping them understand the new hair, smells, and physical reactions are normal.  Despite your discomfort, your child will need factual information and guidance. They need to know, what to do, when to do it, and where.  Teach your child specifically about new routines such as: how to adapt daily hygiene, including the addition of deodorant, pimple cream or skin treatment, or the use of feminine products.  Let them know that they can explore the new shape and curves of their body, which is normal, but that it is a bathroom or bedroom activity when you are home, not at school, the mall, or with friends.  Teach them that they can like boys or girls, but how to greet or talk to those you find attractive appropriately.

Yikes!  Finding someone attractive means they may want to date!!!

Yes, they may want to date and that is a fantastic, scary, and typical reaction to finding someone attractive.  Dating is normal, explaining and preparing for the date is the difference for an individual with a cognitive delay.  I realize that some people would rather an individual with a cognitive delay or developmental delay never date, but I do not believe that is a fair thing to wish.  As scary and difficult as dating was, it is also empowering, exciting, and the path to finding your best friend, mate, and partner.  I want each child I know to grow up, date, fall in love, and find someone they love and care for who loves and cares for them. 

Yes, that includes kissing, and hopefully, when in love and older, sex.  Prepare your child to love themselves so they can love another.  Teach your child that kissing is okay with someone you know and who respects you.  Teach your child about sex, and support and love them while they look for that special love that can lead to a healthy, typical, sexual relationship.

Puberty, hormones, kissing, love and sex are a natural and normal part of life.  We should celebrate when the ”typical” life we have hoped for becomes a reality for those we love, whether or not they have a disability.  While the conversation may be taboo, growing up isn’t.

Think College

www.thinkcollege.net 

Have you heard?  College IS for everyone.

I have spent the great majority of my teaching career at the elementary school level, teaching students ages 5 years to 13 years old.  Kindergarteners are so young, small, and far from adulthood that it is easy to plan for today, not for their adult life.  And yet, if schools are really doing right by students, we are planning for their transition to adulthood from the minute they arrive until their graduation day.

What happens after graduation?  Researchers have been carefully taking demographic, longitudinal, and census information for years to determine the effectiveness of the public school years for individuals with disabilities.  After all, it isn't about a grade, a project, a course, a final exam.  What schools really are charged with doing is preparing future adults to excel at a job of their choice, be connected to each other through friendships and relationships, and be meaningful participants in society.

Sadly, the data indicates that for individuals with disabilities, we have a long way to go to effectiveness.  You see, for individuals with an IEP, less than 1 in 3 will have a job, part-time or full-time, attend post-secondary schools, or vocational training.  Their life becomes a life of seclusion, days on the couch with little to no contact outside their home. This is not a life I would wish for anyone.

Think College is a bright star of possibility.  Grants and funding options help to make this affordable, and at many schools, free, including housing and food.  Students experience the social, academic, and independent living experiences available to all individuals attending college. I recently went to an event for a Think College program near me and was able to hear from both a student in the program and her ambassador.  It was clear to all, they were not an individual with a disability and a non-disabled peer.  They were friends.  Inside jokes, secret giggles, and looks of genuine compassion flowed easily between them.  As I watched, I made my wish that all who want to,

Oh the Places You'll Go

 

 

Graduation season has once again come to a close.  I am overcome each year with fond memories of my graduation and excitement for those I love as they begin their journey.  I look back at that moment and remember just how grown-up I felt.  The minute I walked across that stage, I was an adult.  Granted, by law it would be almost 6 more months before I was the magical 18 years old that truly makes one a "grown-up," but I felt as though, going forward, I would be making decisions that adults make.  Where would I live?  What job would I have?  Where would I go to college, if at all?  Who would I date?  What would I eat and when?  You see, when you are 17, those are big thoughts.

But for some, graduation is not full of excitement.  For many, particularly those with significant disabilities, stress and depression sets in.  The routine and support of the school comes to an end.  The time with peers is no longer routine, but forced.  There is a lag between school services and those from other government agencies. 

It doesn't have to be this way.  Communities, employers, and colleges do want all people to be welcomed and valuable members of society.  ALL people.  Granted it may take more planning and thought and the participation may look different but it is possible.  You see, Dr. Seuss wrote his book for everyone.  Let's all build a dream together and make his words come true.

What do you think?

Soaring to New Heights

I tried something new this week, as the school year ended and we reflected on all the growth the students made, I also wanted to look forward, and up.

I had my students design their own goals for themselves and the coming year.  They each choose their own goals and lead themselves forward.  We wrote the goals on balloons filled with helium and let them go, to new heights.

As I watched each balloon, I also let go. Now each of the children I love can soar, to their own height.

That’s What It's All About

As a Special Education teacher I spend my days planning, teaching, and advocating for a future.  Not my future, the future of my students.  We all talk about, “one day when they are older” or “when they go to  high school” but do we really think about what we want.  I know, you are saying, yes, I think about the students job and living arrangement.  Their social group and how their family will support them.   But do we consider the little things, the moments that we all remember from our high school days but see as small moments.  I have to say, that I forgot the little things. 

Or at least I did until a young man, whom I have been fortunate enough to have in my life the past 12 years reminded me what really mattered.  He is an amazing young man who happens to use an augmentative communication device and wheelchair.  But please, remember, he is a young man.  He has crushes on girls, passions, and hopes just like everyone.  One of his hopes was fulfilled by a cousin who saw what I didn’t;  the little things matter.

reproduced with permission from their mom's and the young woman

Yes, I am talking about prom.  He went to prom, complete with two beautiful dates who danced with him and enjoyed it along side him.  His younger brother fit his chair with a camera and he shared the expeience later with his family in film as using the talker is more tedious.  At one point, as the juniors and seniors all circled around while individuals danced in and out of the circle, the young man’s classmates made room and had him join the center for his few seconds of dance solo.  Yes, one night of prom matters, and to a young junior, it is a highlight.  Prom wasn’t a single night.  No, it was a lifetime of memory.  I will always be grateful that he was my teacher as to how to plan what matters most in a person’s life.  I will carry this lesson with me the next time I start a sentence with “One day….”

Thanks, all three of you!!!

Tr*ns!t!@n!!!!

“Transition” is the word that I have often heard said as an explicative as well as through tears. It is a simple word really.

 Transition: noun --the process or a period of changing from one state or condition to another.

However, “transitioning” is not so simple.  A parent of any child worries from the minute they first hold that small miracle until, well, forever.  This is true for all parents.  But when they child’s still being alive is a miracle, when the worries are about tube feedings, immune deficiencies, upcoming surgeries, and seemingly insurmountable communication delays, the worries are magnified. 

How can the next school or teacher possibly know everything they need to know for my child?  Will they learn how to use their communication device?  How to tell the difference between the in pain cry and the tired and sick cry?  Will they know how important it is that they get 10 minutes of sensory input before being asked to sit?  Will the teacher or school communicate with me?  How will they?  Will I know what my child is doing during the day?   How will I know if my child is getting their needs met?   Will the IEP be followed or changed?

This cycle of questioning starts at the beginning of the year of transition and continues until the next year and into the fall.  The teachers such as myself ask very similar questions as we are also attached to the child we have taught, laughed with, calmed, cried with, and loved.  Knowing the professionals at the next site always makes it easier as the questions are answered, and yet, for me at least, I still know that my class will change.  Each child brings their own personality and those personalities combine to create that class. 

As I prepare for the changes, the families, students, and next school or teacher are also preparing.  I watch the families I have spent hours and many emails talking to struggle and wish that I could ease their fears.  What I have learned is, the professionals receiving the child are all good and wonderful people with various levels of experience and various philosophies but they are good people.  They will love the child as I have, but in their own way.  The thing that the parents and I can do is make certain the current setting a welcome place for visiting and collaborating.

I recently had an Eligibility (Triennial) IEP for a student who I have been fortunate enough to work with for the past 6 and ¾ years.  The special education teacher and speech pathologist for the middle school came to the meeting.  Additionally the teacher and I had collaborated on ideas for the goals prior to the meeting.  We were a team and so, the transition was in some ways, already completed.  It was a small step but it gave everyone who has worked with this student this year the chance to ask questions, think trough possible concerns, and, most importantly, begin talking to each other.

Did this stop the parents’ questions?  Of course not! Their child hasn’t stopped growing, changing, trying new things.  There will always be questions, but at least now they have someone to ask for answers.  It is a small thing, but something.

In the end though, I am still going to cry after the last day of school.  Tears of joy.  Tears of hope.  And selfish tears that I will not have this student with me each day.