[blindkid] Help with PT and OT Meeting

[Richard Holloway]

Okay, sounds very much like our daughter, only Kendra is 9-1/2 already. Your daughter is at the age where she is probably just about to explode into action. I suspect you will see huge change and progress very shortly, especially if you can get your "team" a little better on board with your situation. It can be a challenge, but it is very possible, so don't panic!

The NOPBC conference is part of the NFB conference:

http://www.nfb.org/national-convention

Hotel rates are super-cheap, as in the $60's per night and if you register before the main hotel fills up, the Hilton in Dallas is an absolutely beautiful place to stay. This will be our 4th convention in Dallas, then we're back to another gorgeous place in Orlando in 2013, where we'll keep going back each year until something like 2017 as I recall. Our family has been going every year since 2004 in Atlanta and the conventions have since then been everywhere from Atlanta to Kentucky to Detroit to Dallas to Orlando (Orlando was last year, what a great place to have a convention and take your kids!)

NOPBC registration is separate, and generally I think we start a day before NFB? (Laura? Carol?) More info will show up soon. I don't know where the NOPBC link is yet, if it has been posted. This is a convention with scores, if not hundreds of blind kids and their parents and literally thousands of blind adults going about and doing their own things. The entire convention is for the blind and run by the blind, except that if you're the parent of a blind child (sighted or not), you're allowed to participate fully as well. Actually there are many sighted people there too, but you will often feel you're in the minority. All sighted people-- friends, family, etc., are completely welcome at conventions, but generally speaking, apart from the parents' division, all the officers of various divisions of the NFB are blind, for example.

If you're curious to see more info., email me off list and I will point you to some more convention links from the past with lots of photos, etc.

If you want to discover a realistic and positive future for your child, this is the best place to ever go and get a "sneak preview" of what she can do as an older child and ultimately as an adult... which is pretty much whatever she wants to do. 

The first few conventions, we periodically stopped and just sat in awe and wonder, watching all of these blind people come and go, unassisted to and from their hotel rooms and various meetings. Until this time, (I now feel foolish to say) my impression of blind people was they needed handouts and assistance to live and function. Still, that does make a little sense, because the blind people I knew of then were mostly not "NFB" sorts of blind people. There are blind people (as there are people in general) who do just want a hand-out, and those are the ones who stick out in your mind. It is much easier to notice the blind guy outside the ball game selling pencils from a cup, as opposed to the blind lawyer you passed on the street as he was heading to his office earlier that same morning. 

If a bright future doesn't seem believable right now, give it some time. Here are a few articles that may help you believe it, but the articles won't do even a tiny fraction of what a week at an NFB convention can do for you!

My wife wrote this first one. It relates to much of what you are dealing with now:

http://nfb.org/Images/nfb/Publications/fr/fr29/2/fr290213.htm

This next one (also by my wife, Stephanie) may offer some perspective on the future for your daughter. It discuss our daughter and a friend of hers who come to conventions each year.

http://www.nfb.org/Images/nfb/Publications/fr/fr29/4/fr290416.htm

Here is one I wrote on our daughter, Kendra's story as well.

http://www.nfb.org/Images/nfb/Publications/fr/fr28/3/fr280305.htm

Again, feel free to ask any questions you may have on list of directly. 

Hope you get a chance to join us at the convention!

	-Richard

On Mar 26, 2012, at 6:14 AM, Sarah Dallis wrote:

> Ellie is completely blind with no light perception. Thank you for your help! I must have missed the conference email. Is there a link? 
> 
> Sent from Sarah's iPhone