[blindkid] kids away from home

[SUSAN POLANSKY]

I have always been more comfortable sending mine off to camps with blindness professionals and/or blind chaperone's than sending him off with a group of sighted individuals. That being said we have still sent him off on youth conventions with the Church, he leaves on one again tomorrow for his third year in a row. The first year they were a little nervous even though they had known Jason his entire 10 yrs of live. We did a quick in-service, explained how he did things, what help he should have and what help he should not have,demonstrated sighted guide, etc. As he gets older he is more able to advocate for himself. This year when at diner and all the other kids receive their drinks in regular glasses and he is handed a child cup with a lid I am sure he will politely tell the wait staff that he should have the same type of cup as his peers. 
Jason is planning to go on our Churches youth work camps when he is old enough, they are already fretting over how to manage that but we will come up with a way and I am sure they will supportive of it. 
Also sending him off with professionals in blindness has not always worked out either, it depends on the attitude of the blindness professional. This year Jason went to Space Camp, most of the chaperone's were from our state School for the Blind. They would not let him walk independently [using his NFB cane of course] through the airports and some other places, They expected him to go sight guide with a student who was low vision and did not use a cane. Jason later found out this kid has really very little vision and himself should have had a cane. He was most confident he could have done better job of it alone. He also had some very interesting cane type conversations with the O&M's that went along although has not yet made a convert out of any of them - he does keep trying especially with his O&M who learned in preK that we choose the cane and the height and there was to be no discussion about it [it helped that we provided the canes and not the school
 system]. A few times I was called to the princibles office to sit down and be told by the O&M that all changes in type and or size of cane needed to go through him. I agreed only to let him know in advance when we had obtained a longer cane. He was not Jason's teacher from 2nd thru 5th grade but was back again last year. Jason made it clear that as a big Middle Schooler he would decide on his cane height and he was not expetected to be questioned on it. They have now established a rapport where they can joke about their differences instead of it being an argument.  Jason is now negotiating city streets [needing to be taken there once a week for lessons after out growing our small town] with supervision only and doing mini-drop offs with great success. Three weeks ago I went on a lesson, we went downtown to the nearest city, he had not been in that part of the city since last July yet was able to follow an 8 to 10 step instruction from the O&M guiding
 us through town to a coffee shop for a hot drink then back to the car. I was lost, good thing I had my blind 12 year old along to tell me where we were and where we where we were going. 

Susan 



________________________________
From: Andy & Sally Thomas <andysally at comcast.net>
To: blindkid at nfbnet.org
Sent: Thursday, November 20, 2008 8:14:53 PM
Subject: [blindkid] kids away from home

At what age did you let your kids attend overnight activities that were not run by blindness or disability centered groups without you?  I'm sure it depends on the maturity of the child as well as the type of group.  I must say that I worry about my son either being babied or left behind somewhere.  I'm not sure if the "age appropriate behavior" idea applies or not since I would have to rely on others--not just my son's abilities.  He's pretty independent but sometimes I think he may be too independent to ask for appropriate help.  And it seems to me that most people are pretty clueless about blindness.  I know I could talk with them about it but I'm still a bit nervous.

He's attended several away from home activities at the school for the blind and the Louisiana Buddy Program but I'm not as comfortable sending him to church retreats.  Am I being too cautious?

Sally Thomas
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