[blparent] How do you start to explain people's unfounded fears to your children?

[Jo Elizabeth Pinto]

My sighted daughter just turned seven years old a few weeks ago.  Hard to believe.  Anyway, we’re having one of the first really beautiful sunny spring days, so she asked me to take her to a nearby park.  She invited a neighbor boy her age to come.  His parents said no, there had to be an adult along.  She told his parents her mom would be taking them.  The dad said no, he meant an adult who could see.  She came home really confused, of course.  She said we go to the park all the time, which we do.  So I tried to explain that some parents don’t feel that their kids will be safe supervised by a blind adult.  Her next natural question was why.  I told her some parents worry that their kids will get hurt if no one is watching them.  Her answer was that we’ve been to the park millions of times and she hasn’t gotten hurt.  Also true.  She’s a smart girl.  I told her some parents haven’t ben around blind people much.  The odd thing is, the neighbor boy’s mom is one of the higher-ups in the special ed department with the local school district.  So I’m just wondering, is there anything in particular you have said to your kids that has helped make sense of nonsense?

Jo Elizabeth

Truth is tough. It will not break, like a bubble, at a touch; nay, you may kick it about all day like a football, and it will be round and full at evening.--Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.