[blindkid] talking to a child about blindness

Arielle Silverman nabs.president at gmail.com
Fri Mar 12 06:19:10 UTC 2010


Hi all,

For those of you who don’t know me, my name is Arielle Silverman and
I’m the current president of the NFB’s national student division. I am
25 years old and I have been blind since birth. I think this topic is
important and I am encouraged to see everyone’s commitment to convey
blindness to their children in a positive and normal way. As a former
blind child, I have a few additional thoughts.

	For someone whose blindness has always been a part of them, I think
the process of discovery is gradual and there’s no one moment of
realization. Of course, for us discovering that you’re blind is more
about discovering that you’re different in one way from the majority
of people you encounter than anything else.

A few weeks ago I was speaking with a parents’ group and someone asked
me whether I ever hated or regretted being blind while I was growing
up. Thinking about what I remember of the discovery process, I realize
that the only times I felt negatively about blindness was when I
perceived that blindness was the reason for social isolation or
discrimination that I experienced. Of course I must have known what
“blind” meant from an early age, but it wasn’t until about fourth
grade when I began to get frustrated by the way adults and other kids
treated me, and to compare myself and the way I was treated to my
sighted classmates. I didn’t think blindness was a big deal unless it
was being used as a reason to talk down to me or to leave me out of
some activity. Before that, I remember a time when I got upset because
my sighted sister was allowed to ride her bike around the neighborhood
and I wasn’t. I didn’t care much about riding a bike or any other
“visual” activity until I learned that some people could take part in
the activity and yet I could not.

In middle school, I went through a period in which I would sometimes
fantasize about what it would be like to be sighted. But rather than
thinking about seeing sunsets and other beauties of the world, I would
fantasize about who I would be friends with or what I would be doing
socially if I could see and, for example, didn’t have to be pulled out
of class by an embarrassing O&M instructor. I remember my frustration
with blindness reaching a peak around the end of seventh grade, but
after that, I didn’t give blindness much thought or attention. Looking
back, I realize that my feelings about blindness improved radically
around the same time that I started developing close friendships with
a couple of blind peers that I met at a summer camp that year. There
is no doubt in my mind that having those blind friends gave me some
much-needed confidence and an affirmation of my worth as a person who
happened to be blind like them.

I also don’t think it was a coincidence that after I started getting
involved with the NFB in high school, I felt much less anger and
resentment toward sighted people around me, whom I had formerly
regarded as treating me with an unwarranted sense of superiority.
Before I attended my first NFB convention in 2001, I knew four blind
adults, and I interacted with each of them separately no more than
once every two years. I remember them vaguely but never felt any kind
of connection to them or any desire to emulate them. They all seemed
very different from me and none were strongly affiliated with any
other blind adults. In fact, the one I spent the most time with was a
blind attorney who explicitly encouraged me not to associate with
other blind people. I felt like I was fighting my own battles for
equality and acceptance alone, and in all the wrong ways, before I
joined the NFB. I often wonder how my journey through blindness in a
sighted world would have been different if I had had true blind role
models whom I could learn from about how to manage the everyday
struggles for dignity and self-worth that we face throughout our
lives, but especially when we are children who don’t quite know who we
are supposed to be. Today if someone treats me strangely or denies me
an opportunity, I don’t take it personally because I know that there’s
nothing wrong with my blindness, and that I’m not the only person
having the experience.

I know this story is all too familiar, and so I can’t overemphasize
how important it is for blind kids to have competent blind role
models, blind friends, and a welcoming blind community around them. I
think these kinds of relationships not only convey the normalcy of
being blind, but also give us the mental and emotional support we need
to forge healthy relationships with our sighted partners.

Arielle


On 3/11/10, Richard Holloway <rholloway at gopbc.org> wrote:
> Interesting perspective. It is always nice to hear about things like
> this-- small details that can come together to help build a concept.
> Several of those things would not have dawned on me. Especially the
> under the door thing-- I must have been a poor hide-and-seek player as
> a child-- I suspect I would not have thought of that,  I am rather
> embarrassed to say...
>
> For quite a while, I was stumped about how to convey any reference or
> understanding of light and shadows to Kendra at all, then standing in
> front of the oven with the door open one day I had an idea--
>
> Shadows work with heat too-- pass an object between yourself and a hot
> oven or a fire and there is an instant cooling effect from the shadow
> of the heat projected. I tried it and apparently it was enough to
> satisfy her curiosity-- suddenly she could actually feel a shadow. It
> was the first time I felt like I had managed to convey anything close
> to a concept of light and how it moves and behaves to my daughter.
>
> I expect there will be better ways down the road, but my thought was
> that any way to get that making some sense to her at whatever age she
> was (5 or 6 I guess?) had to be progress.
>
> Richard
>
>
>
> On Mar 11, 2010, at 5:55 PM, Deborah Kent Stein wrote:
>
>>
>>
>> Playing hide and seek with sighted kids taught me a lot about sight
>> when I was growing up.  I remember being shocked when I discovered
>> that sighted kids could see under doors; if I wanted to hide in a
>> room by closing the door I had to get up on a piece of furniture and
>> keep my feet off the floor. I also found that kids could find me
>> when I hid behind a door because they could see through the gap by
>> the hinges.  And I found out that bathroom windows are tinted so no
>> one can see in.  Hide and seek is just one example of the myriad
>> ways blind kids pick up working knowledge about vision.  The
>> opportunities are endless, especially if kids feel comfortable
>> asking questions.
>>
>> Debbie
>
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-- 
Arielle Silverman
President, National Association of Blind Students
Phone:  602-502-2255
Email:
nabs.president at gmail.com
Website:
www.nabslink.org




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