[blindkid] Advice needed about school incident

[Richard Holloway]

I appreciate your feedback--

Your story is interesting, in particular the notion that a blind child  
would possibly think that one grows into having vision, and especially  
so since I have heard virtually the exact same thing from other adults  
who were blind since birth. There is definitely a tale of caution  
there. One never knows what a child (vision notwithstanding) is going  
to assume. For the longest time (as a sighted young child) I had  
reached the seemingly obvious conclusion that "white milk" came from  
the predominantly white cows and chocolate milk from the brown or  
black ones. It made total sense to me. I think I had even worked out  
that cows with a good mixture of light and dark patches would dispense  
both kinds, depending on the "spigot" used. I never really asked  
anyone, I just intuitively "knew" this. Fortunately for me, there was  
no longstanding impact from my misguided assumption in this case.

We never try to withhold information of that nature and we don't  
withhold much of anything at all. In fact I can only recall  
withholding things that seem not to be age appropriate except in that  
we all (I would assume) sometimes try to give out information only as  
quickly as our kids can process and deal with it at times-- For me,  
this is generally related to knowing how things work-- Kendra wants a  
full and complete understanding and sometimes it takes a while to  
build enough foundation to get to the particulars of how a certain  
machine might work, for example. Kendra would, I think, like to  
understand a lot more about how and why electricity works sometimes  
(especially as related to audio recording), but I have yet to work up  
to a clear explanation of electrical theory for ANY first graders, so  
that really has little to do with blindness-- How do I "adapt"  
something that does not exist to begin with?

Thinking of not discussing the stolen food is the only thing I believe  
we have given serious thought to avoiding and that was, again, mainly  
because it was hard to see the benefit of her learning so far away  
from the actual event. Besides, it is my nature to try and protect  
anyone I know (child or adult) from hurtful things that are sometimes  
said or done in life; something I have never quite worked out in life  
in general.

Kendra absolutely knows it is respectable to be blind, though I guess  
I tend to use the words "fine" or "okay" more. She understands that  
some kids can see with their eyes and some cannot and the same is true  
for adults and that is fine, just like some kids cannot hear with  
their ears or walk with their legs. In fact one thing we have really  
liked about her current and previous school is that some kids there  
use walkers or wheel chairs-- things that Kendra can notice without  
any intervention so SHE can initiate a question like why a classmate  
us in a wheelchair.

I have not tended to focus on the ratio, but she knows for example  
that she is the only child who cannot see with her eyes at school but  
that at other places like the Center for the Visually Impaired, many  
people there are blind an she sees sighted and blind kids away from  
those places at times also. We remind her to use her cane "like Anil"  
when she is not touching her cane back-and-forth as she knows Anil  
Lewis quite well and that he is also blind. She is aware of the  
distinctive sound that he as an NFB cane user makes as he travels so  
it is a great reminder for her. (Sometimes her cane tends to "hover" a  
few inches off the ground otherwise...)

We absolutely want Kendra to know not only that it is respectable to  
be blind, but to grow up knowing successful blind adults that she  
encounters just like any other "grown-ups" from time to time.

Richard




On Nov 5, 2009, at 9:09 AM, trising wrote:

> I had similar things happen as the only blind high school student.  
> Someone took food, ate part of it, and had the whole table laughing  
> when they put the french fry back on my tray and I ate it, not  
> knowing it had been bitten off of. This was a painful experience for  
> me, as I was the social outcast that no one would eat with at  
> school. After the incident I described, I was almost relieved to eat  
> alone. As to being told I was totally blind and others had vision, I  
> think at age six I thought adults could see, because my parents  
> could. This meant they could drive, read using eyes instead of  
> hands, know colors and read my temperature on a glass rod when I was  
> sick. I thought kids read Braille and went on a small bus to school.  
> I got told in no uncertain terms by another little girl that I was  
> wrong. She rode on a bigg bus, rode a bike with two wheels, had 26  
> kids in her class and was learning to read with her eyes. The way  
> she said it made me feel inferior. It took until I was out of school  
> and found the Federation and my husband who is also a part of the  
> Federation before I realized that it was respectable to be blind. It  
> was sure grand to realize our techniques were not inferior, but just  
> different!
>
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