[blindkid] Struggling with socialising

[Penny Duffy]

I don't think its possible to shut off the instinct to do everything we can
for our children. My mother still does things for me. That is what parents
do.  Just as our children need to work on self advocacy  we need to work on
letting them 'go' and do things on their own.

My daughters O&M instructor when shopping with my daughter yesterday and had
her ask where the bags where and then had her buy the bags.  It was so
interesting how hard that task was for my 'social partially sighted child'
 showed me an area I can start having her work on but i never thought about
it.

Its a balance when are young they need more help and need to be taught these
skills will do it themselves.  The trick is is holding back.

I am amazed what I have learned the last few months in parenting that I just
never thought of when I had two sighed children.

Talk about a crash course. Strangly my sighted son has benefited already in
my change in parenting (just slightly)  I am having him do more for
himself.
-- 
--Penny
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Adventures with Abby - visionfora.blogspot.com

On Wed, May 4, 2011 at 11:54 AM, Richard Holloway <rholloway at gopbc.org>wrote:

> I agree completely. When some sighted child can't figure out why my
> daughter is "staring" at them (or "looking through" them, or whatever their
> take may be) it can be very off-putting for all concerned. Yet as soon as
> the realize, be it by conversation or possibly a white cane in hand that
> Kendra isn't being rude, staring, or ignoring them, they usually get right
> on-board.
>
> My take on the white cane issue is also that it is still a pretty rare
> thing to see a child with a white cane, and many kids have no idea what it
> means. They may have seen a few adults with white canes, but why would a kid
> have one of those, right? (Hence, "why does she have that stick?", coImes up
> fairly often.) When that happens, I try to explain, offering words that
> Kendra can use as well (and she has begun to) that this is how Kendra can
> tell where things are around her, lust like their eyes let them know what is
> in front of them. That's often all it takes.
>
> Where I have to work the hardest is to shut myself up (as sometime on this
> listserve, LOL) and let Kendra speak for herself. At first the
> parent-modeling is the only option, but after trying to keep myself in the
> full-time advocate mode for many ears, it is hard to step away more and more
> to let her self-advocate. Still, it is what has to be at some point so I
> keep working on it. Thankfully, Kendra (blind since birth) is so outgoing
> (surprisingly so) that she reminds me pretty well just by her actions that
> she can manage a lot of this without much of my assistance.
>
> Give her a couple of years, and she'll just tell me "Dad, its okay, I've
> got this..."
>
>
>