[blindkid] talking to a child about blindness

[Marie]

I LOVE this! Simple yet very relevant for the cane user. 
Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

-----Original Message-----
From: Carol Castellano <blindchildren at verizon.net>
Date: Thu, 11 Mar 2010 12:19:11 
To: NFBnet Blind Kid Mailing List,\(for parents of blind children\)<blindkid at nfbnet.org>
Subject: Re: [blindkid] talking to a child about blindness

We've explained why sighted people can see out in front and to the 
sides by comparing the way eyesight works to the way a cane 
works--out in front and side to side.  We say that eyesight is like a 
much longer cane!
Carol

Carol Castellano, President
National Organization of Parents of Blind Children
973-377-0976
carol_castellano at verizon.net
www.nfb.org/nopbc

At 10:18 AM 3/11/2010, you wrote:
>Though she has always been in mainstream classrooms, for the last
>several years, our daughter has gone to school with a good number of
>other special needs children. Being completely blind, she is probably
>less aware than most kids of signals that many other children might
>get-- signals telling her that other kids are indeed physically
>unique, and of corse the school is legally forbidden from
>acknowledging which kids have IEP's. They talk about differences more
>in generality, as opposed to saying. "Look at little Susie-- she can't
>walk..."
>
>We often find it ironic, and borderline humorous that the schools go
>out of their way to generally avoid discussing Kendra's blindness
>around others as if nobody might notice she's blind, but we understand
>the concept and underlying intent. And the fact of the matter is they
>do discuss her situation a lot in certain ways because they have made
>other kids very aware of what is or is not appropriate due to her
>situation and many of the sighted kids have explored and some are
>actually learning braille, for example,  just because they like to.
>Personally, my philosophy is not to ignore that there are differences,
>but to acknowledge them; embrace them in an appropriate way as they
>come up for whatever reason.
>
>What our daughter does notice is more about what is in her classroom
>where she's more interactive with things and people, and most anyplace
>she is, she'll notice things that make sounds. She would for example
>notice other kids canes clicking down the hall, except she has almost
>never gone to school with other cane traveling blind students. She
>might hear a walker being used or a motorized wheelchair-- things like
>that. There is a point here, BTW....
>
>We have explained to our daughter that some people can see with their
>eyes and some people can't, just like some people use a wheelchair to
>travel and some don't, or a walker, or a (conventional) cane-- like
>her grandfather. When we explained about the wheelchair to her mainly,
>was when there was a boy in her class who was in a wheelchair and she
>often ran across the chair in school. Some people can hear with their
>ears and some can't, and the list can continue. The bigger challenge
>that will follow is probably the inevitable "why" that you are likely
>to hear shortly after the discussion about the way things physically
>are.
>
>Now folks, please don't bite by head off about what follows because I
>don't want to be misunderstood. Most of us are probably aware of the
>Sesame Street series. I suspect that many of us, like myself, grew up
>with that show. The actor who played "Mr. Hooper" died back in the
>early 80's and instead of hiring a new actor to replace him (as they
>had done for Gordon, for example back in the early 70's-- in fact they
>replaced him twice) the decided to deal with the concept that Mr.
>Hooper, the character, had actually died.
>
>I am in no way comparing blindness to death. Please. please understand
>that! What Sesame Street did that I think ties in here is they bravely
>choose to deal with a very difficult concept in a direct way and
>without euphemisms. The didn't say he had passed away or gone to
>heaven or any of that. He had died. He was dead and when Big BIrd
>wanted to know when he was coming back, they explained that he would
>not be back.
>
>I know of an blind adult in her 60's who explains to this day how as a
>child with no vision she never really had her vision loss explained to
>her and she assumed that vision was something you "grew into". She
>thought she'd be able to see when she was old enough and then she'd
>understand what all this talk was about. She was in fact, looking
>forward to growing into her vision... Nobody ever made it clear to her
>that some people could see and some could not and that she would have
>to learn to do things without vision while some people would not.
>
>So coming back to the "why" portion of things-- On Sesame Street, the
>why of a difficult concept was explained as "just because". In that
>case, it tied back to some unusual thing that Big Bird was doing
>earlier in the show-- I think he had been standing or skating with his
>head down between his legs or something unusual and when asked why he
>was doing that, he said it was "just because".
>
>When our daughter asks about why her eyes are different, or why
>anything hard to grasp is how it is, I tend to say "that's just the
>way it is".
>
>For us though, I don't think this really came up until more around age
>five. I'm sure that varies from child to child and surely at some age
>you would want to go ahead and discuss it but I don't think there's a
>big rush at age 2 or 3. There may be medical reasons why some people
>have lost vision that may be appropriate to share at some point, but
>for a very young child the technical reasons "why" they are blind
>aren't going to matter or be understood, and as we all know that isn't
>what they're really trying to ask either. In our case, despite
>extensive attempts to save vision (surgeries, etc.) and various tests
>to try and determine the cause, we have no answer to share, so we can
>honestly say "I don't know why", but we focus more on the "that's just
>the way it is" concept.
>
>I do think it is helpful for the child to have some frame of reference
>if possible-- if there are several friends or known people with
>blindness and some others they know or know of in wheelchairs or
>walkers, etc., Anything that is somewhat tangible and unique, if not
>directly related to vision loss, that is going to have a better chance
>of conveying what you are trying to relate, an again, I would not rush
>into a big explanation until it comes up. Vision loss is nothing to
>hide from the child, but it isn't really a focus either.
>
>This is a bit off the wall, but I'll throw it out there because it
>helps me personally with all of this. What if there were another sense
>that existed but none of us had it. (Perhaps there is, right?) Let's
>call this sense "telepathy". I don't have it. I don't think anyone
>does, but maybe they do. Whether it is real or not, I definitely don't
>have it and I don't expect to gain it. It doesn't really matter to me
>how it might be useful to me if I had it-- I'm not going to get it, so
>I don't really want to spend a great deal of time focused on what I'd
>do differently if I had it. Now, if (as with vision in many cases)
>many friends had this so-called telepathy, and I became curious to
>learn more about it and started asking-- yes, in that case, explain as
>well as possible for a given age. Does that make sense? Buy you're
>still probably not going to have a great reason why I don't have it
>too, right?
>
>That's probably more info than you were after, but that's where I am
>on the topic. Kendra is 7 now and this is a topic (blindness) that has
>been an ongoing discussion for a couple of years or so-- it comes just
>in bits and pieces, and there are reasons to try and explain vision to
>her more and more. This is a process... Kendra is forever frustrated
>that I cannot answer questions like "what color is this", or "what
>does this look like" while waving something at me and seated behind me
>in the car as I am driving. She wants to grasp how / why we can hear
>sounds from all directions but only see in one general direction. For
>people with some limited vision, I suspect this is far less confusing,
>but if you stop and think about it, vision is the only sense that is
>so specifically directional. Yes, sound and smell to work better in
>one direction but you can still hear and smell somewhat if you're
>facing the wrong direction.
>
>One related topic that makes little sense to her so far is the notion
>of "clear" things like glass windows. You open one thing (say, a solid
>door) to look through a doorway but you can see THROUGH a window.
>Closed windows virtually stop smell and sound, but not light? Why is
>that? Again, that too is a process, and perhaps a subject for another
>thread sometime as I suspect I've more than exhausted this topic.
>
>If you have any other specific questions about our experience with
>this though, feel free to contact me off the list.
>
>Richard
>
>
>
>
>On Mar 12, 2010, at 5:58 AM, julietnan wrote:
>
>>Hi, I wondered if any of you could share with me the different ways
>>you have talked to your children about being blind. The ways to
>>explain it, or how to answer questions they might have. My daughter
>>is 2.5 and I want to talk with her about it in a normal sort of way.
>>I don't want to make her feel like there is something "wrong" with
>>her, don't want to use the "your eyes are broken", as from my mind,
>>that would be negative. I want to just be able to talk about it in a
>>gentle normal sort of way, any help would be appreciated. I just
>>don't want to say the wrong thing.
>>_______________________________________________
>>blindkid mailing list
>>blindkid at nfbnet.org
>>http://www.nfbnet.org/mailman/listinfo/blindkid_nfbnet.org
>>To unsubscribe, change your list options or get your account info
>>for blindkid:
>>http://www.nfbnet.org/mailman/options/blindkid_nfbnet.org/rholloway%40gopbc.org
>
>
>_______________________________________________
>blindkid mailing list
>blindkid at nfbnet.org
>http://www.nfbnet.org/mailman/listinfo/blindkid_nfbnet.org
>To unsubscribe, change your list options or get your account info 
>for blindkid:
>http://www.nfbnet.org/mailman/options/blindkid_nfbnet.org/blindchildren%40verizon.net


_______________________________________________
blindkid mailing list
blindkid at nfbnet.org
http://www.nfbnet.org/mailman/listinfo/blindkid_nfbnet.org
To unsubscribe, change your list options or get your account info for blindkid:
http://www.nfbnet.org/mailman/options/blindkid_nfbnet.org/empwrn%40bellsouth.net