[blindkid] alternative parenting guide
Mike Freeman
k7uij at panix.com
Tue Jul 20 03:48:55 UTC 2010
MMM ... is Sherry asking about parenting a blind child or about parenting a
child as a blind person? If the latter, I don't see much difference from
parenting as a sighted person. If the former, just love the heck out of the
blind child, show him/her as many things as s/he can stand (hands-on) and
describe everything.
You'd be surprised how much comes out not much different from parenting
other kids.
Mike
----- Original Message -----
From: "Richard Holloway" <rholloway at gopbc.org>
To: "NFBnet Blind Kid Mailing List,(for parents of blind children)"
<blindkid at nfbnet.org>
Sent: Monday, July 19, 2010 8:43 PM
Subject: Re: [blindkid] alternative parenting guide
>I agree with Jim on this. In our house, we treat our kids the same as
>much as possible and we expect from all of them basically the same things,
>at least on an age-appropriate basis (our kids range from 4 to 16 at this
>point with our blind child falling in the middle at not quite age 8). This
>is our goal unless there is a specific and compelling reason not to do so
>on a particular issue.
>
> In our case, the most likely thing to "excuse" something from our blind
> daughter is that she didn't have the information or the number of
> reminders & cues which her sighted siblings had to such a point that she
> could not be expected to be held to the same standard and that is
> generally a short-term excuse. The long term remedy to that is to provide
> the needed information. That is the one case where I think parenting is
> to be modified-- In fact that is for me the most frustrating part of
> parenting a blind child but it also means there is generally a cure. The
> real challenge as the parent of a blind child is to convey the
> information she needs or perhaps that she deserves to have is a better
> way to put it. Off the top of my head, blind kids are way more likely to
> eat a meal while facing away from a table, for example. Why? Sighted kids
> watch people sit and face a table as they eat from birth. They have
> experienced this hundreds, or in fact probably thousands of times before
> they are ever expected to do this "properly" on their own and they also
> have a built-in reason to do so; they're looking at the food they plan to
> eat. Socially, blind kids are not going to fit in if they face away from
> the table or sit sideways at meals, etc., but how are they going to know
> this is what everyone else is doing? We have to tell them, right? At lest
> we do if we want them to fit in socially in a world where there is an
> awful lot of sighted bias...
>
> If you have ever seen an audio described movie, where they tell you what
> is happening with a voice-over when the actors are not speaking, that's
> what a lot of our lives are like with our daughter (we are the describers
> in this case). Here's another simple example: WIthout our giving our
> daughter extra information, a drive to the store or across town or across
> the country is a very different thing than it is for a sighted child. To
> balance that out-- at least to the degree possible, we try and tell
> Kendra what is happening outside the car. The windows are generally up so
> few sounds come in. The air conditioning is generally recirculating
> mostly so smells aren't very meaningful. I don't do this all the time,
> but at least sometimes, I point out that we are passing houses about this
> fast-- then I count them off: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5... and now there's a 7-11 on
> the left and a bank on the right. Then on another trip, I discuss cross
> roads, or traffic lights we're passing, or phone poles and power lines as
> I count the poles. The list is nearly endless for driving alone because
> as those of us who see as we ride or drive know, there are new things to
> observe on most every car ride even of we've driven the route 1000 times.
> (Also, now and then a drive with windows open helps a little.) This
> brings up much dialogue and many questions. Likewise, when you walk into
> a room, there can be a quick briefing as to who and what is there and
> what is going on.
>
> Longer-term, I presume there will be more and more of a building of a
> knowledge base where fewer and fewer things will need detailed
> description all the time. At least that has been the trend so far in some
> areas. When our child is not being successful, the first thing I try and
> put to the test is what information did my child not get as compared to
> her sighted peers and how can that most reasonably be provided, and
> further, do we need to provide that or is there a reasonable way for her
> to get that on her own?
>
> Say that she is missing a toy that was misplaced. If I know she had it
> last and put it somewhere, she needs to try and locate it on her own
> before I go on a quest for it, just like with the other kids. On the
> other hand, if I know that her little brother moved something to a
> completely different room, then she is at a considerable disadvantage so
> yes, at age seven I'm likely to help a lot more quickly in that case. I'm
> sure there are many examples which are far more to the point but
> hopefully that will be at least slightly useful. In this case, I want her
> to learn to solve things on her own but not to get so frustrated that she
> gives up. She should try to remember where she left something but her
> guessing where a 4-year-old hid her doll is unreasonable.
>
> In our particular case, it seems like the school does a little better
> with filling in academic gaps than social ones but missing information
> causes problems in all areas. One final example possibly worth a mention:
> On a practice exam question, when asked, Kendra decided that of the
> following three items: 1) People, 2) Dogs, and 3) Elephants, #1, People
> would be the largest. How could this be? Well, she's seen and experienced
> people and dogs. Clearly, people are larger. She's seen elephants too--
> only all she has seen is a little toy elephant and somehow, nobody ever
> thought to tell her that an ACTUAL elephant is quite a lot larger that a
> plastic toy. Think of that example and expand on it. Imagine that all you
> have ever seen between a tiger, and elephant, a whale and a dinosaur is
> handheld plastic models or toys of each. Which is lager? Which is softer?
> Which is most brightly colored? Which likes the water? Again, the list is
> nearly endless. This is my primary parenting challenge in a nut shell.
>
> I'm probably belaboring to excess the point as I am prone to do but
> honestly, almost every blindness parenting challenge I have encountered
> can be tied back to at least some degree to a lack of the information
> that my daughter gets from the missing incidental visual learning which
> her sighted siblings and peers all enjoy every day. It is up to the
> parents, the teachers and technology at hand to fill these gaps as well
> as well as possible.
>
> Richard
>
>
>
> On Jul 19, 2010, at 9:50 PM, Jim Beyer wrote:
>
>> Hi Sherry,
>>
>>
>> I don't know if there is such a book. If there was, we probably would
>> have
>> all read it when our kids were toddlers as well.
>> In my opinion, blind kids don't need alternative parenting techniques;
>> they
>> need what all kids need...good parenting.
>> Our basic rule was that we would treat our daughter and hold her to the
>> same
>> expectations that we had for her sighted brothers. Only if she proved
>> beyond
>> any doubt that she was incapable of success in some area would we offer
>> assistance/accommodation.
>>
>> My humble opinion
>> Jim
>
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