[Nfbf-l] behavior and cane use

[Mark Tardif]

Hello, Doreen,

Happy New Year to you too on this warm Saturday in Martin County.  Sherri 
Brun and I are visiting and we bounced a few ideas off each other.  I think 
first of all, your daughter needs to know first and foremost that tripping 
someone with her cane, for whatever reasons, is most certainly not 
acceptable, it is a form of bullying and she needs to know that she could 
really hurt someone, and that will lead to all kinds of other problems.  I 
personally also think that she needs to be understood, that this behavior 
may very well be sending a message, and she needs to know that it is okay 
for her to express her feelings about the cane directly and verbally to you, 
not in this potentially dangerous way.  I also think it is very normal, 
whatever that means, to not want to use the cane if you have a fair amount 
of usable vision.  We talked about possibly providing a reward system, maybe 
if she uses it correctly and without tripping anyone for a certain number of 
days, she might get some sort of reward that she would like.  It might also 
be appropriate to have her come to one of our meetings with you and feel 
free to ask us questions about how we do things, our attitudes about 
blindness, etc.  She may not be ready for that, but I think giving her that 
option as in invite, no pressure involved, especially since we meet and have 
dinner, well perhaps that might provide an opening.  Between you and me, I 
really wish she were getting more than 30 minutes of O&M per week, I just 
don't think that's enough.  Anyway, I hope some of that helps and I would 
invite both of you to come to our January meeting, Friday, January 13 at 
5:00 at the Southern Pig and Cattle restaurant, a rather nice barbecue on 
Federal Highway, where Perkins used to be.

Mark Tardif
Welcome to my planet
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Doreen Franklin" <doreenproverbs3 at bellsouth.net>
To: "NFB of Florida Internet Mailing List" <nfbf-l at nfbnet.org>; "Blindkid" 
<blindkid-owner at nfbnet.org>; <Blindhomeschooler at yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Saturday, December 31, 2011 1:12 PM
Subject: [Nfbf-l] behavior and cane use


Posting this in hopes someone can give me some advice for our 7-yr old/1st 
grade daughter who is VI. She is still in denial of her vision and hates her 
cane (that is another LONG story). I have been told by her teacher that when 
she uses her cane at school, numerous times she will "purposefully" trip her 
peers by putting the cane under their feet. My "take" on it is that she is 
trying to get me to take the cane away because of her misusing it. She is 
getting only 30-min of O&M time and she doesn't do that while with the O&M 
instructor. And she does not do it with us, so this was very "new" to us!

Can anyone suggest what to do so that she will use the cane correctly and 
not try to trip her peers? ALL suggestions are welcome!!!

Thank you and Happy New Year to all!!!

Doreen
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