[stylist] Chris Kuell article in Braille Monitor

[Bridgit Pollpeter]

This article is in this month's Braille Monitor by our very own Chris
Kuell. Chris addresses being a parent with vision loss. It's a great
article that will resonate with many of us. Chris is a great dad, and I
find this article very informative and valueable as I work on being a
better parent myself. Congrats, Chris.

 

Just Their Dad

by Chris Kuell

>From the Editor: The following article appeared in the Winter 2012
Minnesota Bulletin, a publication of the NFB of Minnesota. It is what
all blind parents hope for as we seek to raise our blind children and
influence them and those around them about our capabilities. This
article begins with the editor's note from the Bulletin:

Editor's Note: This is the winner of the 2011 Metro Chapter essay
contest.

I received a great report from my daughter's kindergarten teacher this
morning. Not that it was a surprise, but good to hear nonetheless. The
teacher came over to me as Grace was busy putting away her coat and
backpack in her cubby. She said, "Grace is such a great kid. Her reading
skills have just skyrocketed in the last month. She is really getting
it. And all the kids love her. I'll be sad when she moves on to first
grade."

Beaming with pride, I thanked her, made some small talk, and hugged
Grace before walking my son to his third-grade class. There was a
rousing "Hello Mr. Kuell!" as his teacher greeted me. "Did Nick tell you
he was the Multiplication King?" the teacher asked. I informed her that
indeed he had, and then I gave him a hug and was on my way.

Heading down the long hallway towards the door, I heard a small voice to
my side say "What's that?"

Hearing no other response, I assumed the kid was talking to me. "This
thing?" I responded. "This is my cane."

"What's it for?" asked the inquisitive voice.

Knowing I had only a minute before reaching the exit, I gave the simple
answer, "My eyes don't work. I use the cane to feel where I am going."

"You can't see anything?" came the astonished youngster's response.

"Nope, nothing," I answered.

"Oh" said the child. A few steps later, the kid gave me a cheery "Bye."
I bid him good-bye, and then headed out of the school into the fresh
air.

When I lost my sight four years ago, I never could have envisioned such
a pleasant drop-off. Amid the anxiety of losing my sight, my job, and my
career, I felt helpless regarding raising the children. When my daughter
was born, I was blind in one eye but the other could see what a beauty
she was. By Christmas that same year everything was a blur for me; I
couldn't really make out what gifts were what. For the first time I
couldn't see the joy on my kids' faces as they opened their loot. My
vision was really going downhill. I needed surgery on my better eye a
few months later, and, while I was hopeful, there was still lingering
doubt. On the day before the operation, I tried to hold my daughter
still, and I got about four inches from her face to try to see her as
best I could. Being a kid, she thought I was playing, so she squirmed
and rolled, and I never did get a good look at her. My son had just
turned five at the time, and he was a little more cooperative. That was
the last time I ever saw my children visually.

So how does one move from this heart-wrenching melodrama to the nice
morning I had today? How can a blind parent help to educate his or her
children and give a positive impression to others? It's not that hard.
The answer is through persistence, creativity, and a positive attitude.

You have to believe you can do it. This is fairly logical--thousands of
other people do it every day. You have to work at the essential blind
skills; they are necessary to do what you want to in life, plus
mastering them will build your confidence for tackling new stuff. And
you have to be creative. Unless you have a blind friend at your side
24/7, you are going to have to figure stuff out on your own. Remember,
necessity is the mother of invention.

My wife and I both worked with our son to teach him the alphabet and
basic phonics, and at age four he was beginning to read simple things.
Now he excels at all his schoolwork, which we attribute to his early
reading. So, when Grace turned three, I tried to figure out a way that
we could give her the same head start. I took some old business cards
and wrote a letter in bold marker on the back of the card. I used my
slate and stylus to make the letter in Braille, so in effect I made
blind-friendly flash cards. We used to play games in which she would
memorize the letters. After she got the upper-case letters down, we did
lower case and started working on sounds. This took a while longer, but
soon she caught on. A year or so ago I started making word cards,
emphasizing families of sounds. For example, at, cat, bat, rat, and sat
are the "at" family. We also worked on the basic, much-encountered words
like the, and, but, you, etc. In time she developed a good sight
vocabulary. My wife and son often read with her, and together we
listened to books on tape. As her teacher said, in the last month
everything has really started to click, and she is reading.

I taught both my son and daughter basic addition and subtraction at the
kitchen table and in the bathtub. I started by having them learn to
count-fingers and toes, crackers, whatever. Then in the kitchen I'd give
them a few grapes, have them count them, then give them some more and
count again. This quickly evolved into an addition game. After that came
subtraction. If I gave them twelve cheese doodles and they ate seven,
how many were left? This stuff was reinforced during bath time when I
quizzed them with problems and they tried to answer both correctly and
quickly. My son is very good at doing math in his head, while Grace is
still relying on her fingers a lot. But that is OK; she understands the
concepts and can do problems more and more without manipulatives. By a
combination of a lot of innate intelligence and bathtub grilling,
Nicholas has memorized the multiplication table and now reigns king of
the third grade.

Finding games to play with kids takes a bit of imagination and a lot of
patience. Playing with cars and trucks, setting up blocks and bowling
them over with a tennis ball just came naturally for me. Doing arts and
crafts is a little trickier, but I have a sighted memory of most things,
so with a pad of colored construction paper, some scissors, and white
glue we can create just about anything. Both of my kids and I love
playing cards, which is possible using Braille playing cards. I don't
know too many card games, and I soon became weary of Go Fish. So at a
very early age my kids learned to play poker, which provided a natural
opportunity to work once again on their math skills.

The possibilities for learning and having fun with kids as a blind or
visually impaired adult are limited only by your desire and imagination.
My kids are well adjusted and smart and overall just great people. They
bring me a great deal of pride and help me in many ways to become a
better person. I honestly believe I would not have come as far as I have
if not for the challenge of being a good dad to Nick and Grace. To them
I'm not a blind guy or the man with the long white stick; I'm just their
dad, and a very lucky one at that.

 
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