[blparent] Question about parenting with blind children

[Bridgit Pollpeter]

Kate,

It makes complete sense, and very cute, grin! Thanks for the response,
advice and cute antidotal stories.

Sincerely,
Bridgit Kuenning-Pollpeter
Read my blog at:
http://blogs.livewellnebraska.com/author/bpollpeter/
 
"History is not what happened; history is what was written down."
The Expected One- Kathleen McGowan

Message: 6
Date: Thu, 29 Dec 2011 15:17:53 -0500
From: "Kate McEachern" <kflsouth at gmail.com>
To: "NFBnet Blind Parents Mailing List" <blparent at nfbnet.org>
Subject: Re: [blparent] Question about parenting with blind children
Message-ID: <3261F8040E3E4A3FA1921F5ADDB9A252 at katiepc>
Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed; charset="iso-8859-1";
	reply-type=original

hi.

I had some sight but still found it helpful to touch things to learn
more 
about the item. My parents were sort of modern for their time so my
brother 
and I didn't have the "don't touch" rule at home. Most of the time for 
decorating the tree my Mom would bring the ornaments from the basement
and 
open the boxes, then she would give us all an area of the tree that was
ours 
to decorate. We had ornaments that we each liked including my parents so
the 
box or the ornaments we were given were age appropriate.

I don't know how they got this idea but we loved it and now do the same
with 
our children. I did notice that now that my parents are older the grand
kids 
get the "don't touch just look" rule but I think that's because there
just 
tired of things being broken.

Also, even though I had a lot of vision I hated driving around and
looking 
at Christmas lights they were just too far away and even though I could
see 
the light it drove me nuts to be able to make out that there was more to

look at but I couldn't see it.

Yes, my family was the one who would walk on to your well decorated Lon
and 
touch your standing Santa's and rain dear. Also my Mom once told me that

when I was like four or three I thought the smell of pine was only
around at 
Christmas and she had to ex plane to me once that the pine tree smell
was 
just from every day trees on the side of the road and not from a
Christmas 
tree farm.

OK, I'm not going to ramble about this any more but that's what my
parents 
did and how I felt about it. Sorry if this makes no sense but I tried.

Kate