[blindkid] Those Amazing Inspiring Blind People

[Richard Holloway]

Arielle,

You make some interesting points. Our daughter, age 10, seems to object especially strongly to "amazing kid" comments herself, even when well deserved (and often entirely unrelated to blindness). The challenge is, she is particularly gifted in certain areas, so she is going to amaze people, and some people are going to tell her they are amazed or impressed. She is quite musically talented, for example. Some really unique abilities showed up for her around age three-- things even many adults can't learn to do with any amount of training. 

She so dislikes the praise and positive response that she basically shut down doing anything musical for most of the previous 4 or 5 years. She is only just starting to resist this less, which is good, because all students in her class next year are expected to participate in band (5th grade). I'm sure they wold make an exception in her case, if needed, but band exceptions are generally for other reasons, like sound sensitivity. She has actually had a bit of sound sensitivity issues in the past, but has largely outgrown that. It would be a shame to have that become the "excuse" to avoid band when in reality, she is probably just concerned that someone will praise her if she does well.

The oveerall concern goes well beyond musical ability. In general, Kendra (on her own) expects to excel in all areas, and is very upset if she fails to do so, but at the same time, wants ZERO praise for doing well. Often even simple acknowledgement of accomplishment will frustrate her. If we say, "I see you did well on your test, you got a 100!", most likely she would reply, "No, I didn't.", or perhaps simply "I don't want to talk about it!"

I suspect a great deal of this all ties back to excessive praise, especially as a very young child, for doing things that really aren't so amazing after all, like pushing a button, or finding her own shoe in the floor. Silly stuff like that. The question remains, however: How does one remove al the excessive praise from a blind child's environment? If your child is out and about in the world, some of that is going to sneak through, and surely we don't want to keep our children in a protective bubble either.

It is complicated and frustrating...

Richard




On May 28, 2013, at 11:22 PM, Arielle Silverman wrote:

> Hi all,
> On the NFB student list we have gotten into a discussion about how to
> handle comments from the public about how amazing, inspiring, and
> courageous we are for doing ordinary things. I shared some of my
> experiences with this growing up and how it made me feel  about myself
> and my abilities, and wanted to repost my remarks to this list as
> well, since it might be informative for parents. I don't think my
> parents realized how these kinds of well-intentioned comments affected
> me.
> 
> Hi all,
> I think some great points have been made here. When someone tells me I
> am amazing or inspiring or courageous or whatever, I don't like it
> because it implies a lower standard. There's always part of that
> compliment that goes unstated: "You're amazing......For a blind
> person". It's really a backhanded insult to other blind people, even
> though it may not be intended that way. Also, I don't like being told
> that I must have overcome great obstacles or that I must have great
> perseverance and passion to get to where I am today, because I don't
> think that's true. My blindness hasn't interfered much with my
> educational achievements and compared with many others my life has
> been over-privileged. When people make these assumptions I feel they
> are judging me based on blindness without knowing much else about me,
> my upbringing or anything I've done.
> I also think that the "amazing" comments are particularly tough on
> blind youth who also happen to be high achievers. It's hard to know
> how to interpret these comments and when we are truly amazing vs. just
> exceeding people's low standards. And sometimes, being an inspiration
> is just too much extra pressure when our lives are already filled with
> a lot of internal and external demands.
> When I was growing up, I got used to these accolades because my
> parents had many friends who would marvel at my accomplishments. When
> I was young I was often asked to show off my Braille reading for
> company and this just completely blew people away. Then as I grew I
> was a high achiever in school and won some awards for spelling bees
> and things like that. They deserved recognition, but probably not to
> the level that I got. One night when I was ten, I wrote down some
> musings about how I felt about blindness and dealing with sighted
> kids. My mother ran across my writing on the family computer and
> through a random string of events, what I wrote got published in our
> local paper. Then when I was eleven, a magazine editor read the
> newspaper article and was so amazed and inspired that she asked me to
> write a column for her magazine. This of course only compounded
> people's awe and amazement in what I could do, since not only was I
> blind but I was also famous. It took several years, but I eventually
> realized that I wasn't an amazing writer. I was a decent writer, but
> not particularly outstanding at it, and not good at fiction or poetry
> at all. The only reason people were so impressed with my writing was
> because I wrote about blindness and that was a topic that intrigued
> people. I had to get a lot of painful criticism on my writing before I
> eventually realized I wasn't as outstanding as those folks made me out
> to be. Around the time I came to that epiphany, I also began to resent
> all the accolades. I remember thinking, at the age of fifteen, that
> "adults always treat me like I'm five and fifty at the same time. But
> I just want to be a normal 15-year-old girl!" I felt like on one hand,
> I was being held to an impossibly high standard--expected to be an
> amazing writer, an inspiration to all--and on the other hand, held to
> an extremely low standard--expected not to be capable of basic
> independence. People would praise my writing but then worry about my
> ability to walk across a room. I just wanted to blend into the crowd
> of teenagers and gossip about boys and clothes (well, mostly just
> boys) instead.
> Then, at the end of ninth grade, I "accidentally on purpose" failed my
> algebra final and earned my first B on my report card. There were some
> problems on the final that were hard and I didn't feel like answering
> on the last day of school, so I skipped them. I didn't intend to
> fail--I think I just got a little overconfident about my ability to
> earn straight A's. But I also wonder if on a less conscious level, I
> bombed the test so I could prove to myself and others that I was a
> human being and I was capable of screwing up--and not always an
> inspiration. Just a week before that final exam, I remember my algebra
> teacher admitting that he had doubted my ability to pass his class at
> the beginning of the year, but that he was totally impressed with my
> performance. I remember being angry at him for assuming I wouldn't
> succeed in his class just because I was blind. And so perhaps,
> ironically, I failed his test to try to show him I wasn't amazing, I
> wasn't a superhero, I was just a normal teenager doing the best I
> could to succeed in school.
> OK, enough rambling about my childhood, but I do think that the
> unnecessary recognition we get from the public can be just as damaging
> as true discrimination, especially when we are young and trying to
> figure out where our true talents are. None of us should be forced
> into the position of inspiring others. As first-class citizens, we
> have the right to achieve at the level we wish to achieve at, and we
> have a right to accurate feedback about how well we're doing at
> something. Fortunately, as others have stated, there are sighted folks
> with high expectations who are willing to hold us up to rigorous
> standards and to give us a true picture of our strengths and
> weaknesses.
> Best,
> Arielle
> 
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