Special Needs | itsawonderfilledlife

Posts Tagged ‘Special Needs’

Beautiful Disorder

Posted in GOD, life, WONDER, tagged A Child Will Lead Them, Amen, Disorder, Interruptions, Life, Order, Sermon, Special Needs on March 6, 2012| 1 Comment »

I love order!

I could be the most anally ordered person on the planet, if I let myself. I innately love it when things are done well, when plans go smoothly, when all the pieces fit perfectly together. It is satisfying, it is comforting, and it is NOT real life.

Our alarm clocks don’t go off, our job gets eliminated, our kids make choices that we see will have dire consequences, our significant other doesn’t bring us flowers anymore (or he/she doesn’t love us anymore), we get sick … really sick, people we love die. Real life is not always ordered, not always smooth, and the pieces do not always fit together.

Real life is messy. A normal, real, everyday life is full of mistakes, blunders, interruptions and disorder. That is the reality that we should open our eyes to each and every day.

I was at church recently, when the order of the service was … altered. Something unscripted, unpredicted, un-orderly happened.

As the pastor (have I ever mentioned how cute my pastor is? AND I get to sleep with him! … but, I digress) was preaching about how we are not condemned for our sins, because God provided the way to be redeemed (saved). After making a statement about that, there way an immediate, joy-filled “amen” that came from the congregation. The “amen” did not come from someone in church leadership, it did not come from one of the wonderful church foodies or worship leaders, it was not uttered by one of our more charismatic members, it did not even come from a pastor’s wife.

The “amen” came from a little boy. A little boy of about six years old. A little boy who has special needs.

Now this little boy is, as my grandmother would say, “cute as a button.” He is full of love, and energy, and is not inhibited in any way, or at any time. As cute and as joyful as he is, he has special needs. And, as one who gets paid to work with students with special needs, parenting him is more stressful, more demanding, more un-orderly. His parents awaken, every day, knowing that their human desire for order will be obliterated as soon as the day begins.

And, despite the fact that he is a walking, talking, chaos-causing conduit of disorder, he was able to hear the good news that God gives through the redemption available to us. He blessed the entire congregation by his impulsive, disorderly, “amen”.

And, he humbled at least one, silent, pastor’s wife, who was sitting there, content in her orderly state.

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Natural Inclusion

Posted in life, WONDER, tagged Cerebral Palsy, Downs, Inclusion, Part of the Community, Special Needs on October 20, 2011| Leave a Comment »

I love the students that I work with, and I love the job that I have. I get to work with students who live with the struggles of physical, mental, social, psychological and other difficulties. I get to assist them in finding the keys to unlocking their gifts, and finding ways of learning that may be unconventional. I love the job that I get to do!

I believe that all people in a society need to attain the benefits of being in, and being part of, a community. I believe that including all students in a school community provides the students with special needs the ability to interact with others, and it also provides non-special needs students the opportunity to get to know their ‘special’ counterparts, and thereby learning that they may share common bonds, and learning the capacity to look at life from a different life perspective.

What I struggle with is when inclusion is forced (like brussel sprouts on your plate at a Thanksgiving Dinner). There is nothing so pointless to me as a student with verbal comprehension skills at a grade four level, in a grade twelve History class (I realize this is probably a rarity … but I am trying to make an exaggerated point). To me doing that to the student with special needs is an act of torture for them, which rarely gets lived out in a manner that improves how they appear, socially, to their peers.

What I do not struggle with is when inclusion is natural. When the person with special needs and the community they live in gravitate to, and accept each other. Now I know that this does not always happen naturally, and it is imperative that we sometimes ‘create’ natural-looking opportunities for the ‘typical’ and the student with special needs to come together. And that is one of the parts of my job that I love … facilitating opportunities for my students to accept, and be accepted by their community.

I was thinking of a natural inclusion recently, while at a course about autism. I was thinking about times when my life crossed paths with people with special needs.

There was the boy with Downs who was my age, who attended my church. He sang every hymn … by memory. And he was loved by all at that church.

There was this boy in hubby’s youth who probably had autism, and was loved by the entire group. I remember when he had a big crush on a girl in the group, and he sang her name in the multiple-storied cabin we were retreating at. His peers were giggling in the background … and we still giggle together today … and that boy (now a man) laughs along with us.

And the other boy with cerebral palsy who chatted everyone’s ear off, and they listened … and they told him he talked alot, and that was okay.

And the lady at the workplace I took students to, who would sweep the floors while smiling brightly. She was thrilled to be making the staff lunchroom a cleaner place for her co-workers to have their breaks.

Those experiences are the ones that make my heart sing, with the knowledge that the key to their truly being part of the bigger community, has been found. When people with special needs are not just ‘placed’ into situations to ‘be’ included, but when they are included, with little to no recognition of them having special needs. To me, that is an inclusive society.

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In the Student Seat

Posted in WONDER, tagged Autism, In the Student Seat, Learning, Special Needs, Students on October 5, 2011| 2 Comments »

This week I am back in the classroom, as a student. A colleague and I are taking a course on Autism, and it has been amazingly fascinating! We are learning lots, wanting to try it all out and feeling a sense of information overload!

It has also been an opportunity to feel a bit of empathy for the students I work with. I find I fade in and out of consciousness, I struggle to stay focused, I am easily distracted, fidgety and I almost fell asleep in class. I watch the clock, and I really wish I was in the back row, so that I could play with my iPhone. I am doing all of this, as a ‘typical’ student. (Other than my self diagnosis of ADD) I have no learning struggles, I am in a course that is of interest to me, and is taught at a level that I can comprehend and learn. Yet, I still struggle to pay attention.

At one of the many times I was fading off into my own mental ‘La La Land’, I found myself wondering what happens in the mind of a student with learning struggles, while they struggle to pay attention. How exhausting it must be for them, when they have diagnosed struggles in learning, and the material they are being taught is beyond their interest, or beyond their understanding, or beyond their developmental ability.

And we wonder why they sometimes have issues of bad behaviors!

Speaking of bad behaviors, the main point that I have retained this week is that behaviors are communication. So, if the students with special needs are behaving ‘badly’, maybe what they are communicating is ‘I can’t do this anymore’, or ‘when are you going to start talking my language’, or ‘I am so frustrated, because I just don’t get it, and I feel so dumb.’

Maybe they work so hard, all day long, to hold it together at school, that they go home and unravel … where they can just be who they are, without having to conform to a community and culture that is as foreign to them as moving to Siberia would be for us.

I think that despite struggles to get my readings done (because the IS an exam), I will finish this course with fresh eyes and ears, to see and hear and understand the hearts of the students with special needs … a worthwhile week!

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Moms that I Admire

Posted in life, WONDER, tagged Disabilities, Life, Mom, Perseverence, Special Needs on June 20, 2011| 3 Comments »

I am a mom, and I am a special education assistant … but it was becoming a mom was what gave me a better understanding of the people I would be called upon to assist … the students and their families.

In my job I am very aware that God has entrusted ‘my’ students:

first, to their parents …

and w a y down the line, to me.

I am also aware, because I am a mom, that I do not know what is best for them … God didn’t entrust the students to me first.

I am not always right … ask MY kids!

I work with ‘my’ students about six and one half hours a day, for a year, maybe two or three … their moms are with them for life.

To be a mom of a child with special needs means living with public scrutiny, public embarrassment and public shame.

To be a mom of a child with special needs means living with a large host of professionals who ‘are better educated’ about your child’s ‘needs’, than you.

To be a mom of a child with special needs means constantly having to hear what is ‘wrong’ with your child.

“I know God will not give me anything I can’t handle.

I just wish He didn’t trust me so much.”

Mother Teresa

But …

To be a mom of a child with special needs also means …

being a mom to a son or daughter

who you have dreams for

(what good mother doesn’t?)

who you have fears for

(what good mother doesn’t?)

who you love, with that unconditional love that is called ‘Momma Love’

(what good mother doesn’t?)

PERIOD!

I remember well the day I realized how heavy the weight can be to be a mom of a child with special needs. The mom was bringing her daughter to school, and I asked how the new ‘special’ air mattress for her child was working. The mom’s reply was that she had just had her first full night’s sleep in YEARS. Now I do not mean one or two years … this ‘child’ was about sixteen years old …

Then there is the mom with a child who, as a toddler, would sit still on a blanket when out at the park. And the other moms of toddlers would tell her how ‘lucky’ she was that she didn’t have to run around after him … when, inside, she so wished that her son would need her to run after him.

Then there is the mom whose son is mostly non-verbal, and can be violent and aggressive. She spends most waking hours ensuring that she knows where he is, as he is a flight risk. When her son does express affection, adoration and love it is never to or for her, because her son only has eyes for other males.

Then there is the mom who spent many years doing homework with / for her son, so that he would not be embarrassed that his work was obviously ‘inferior’ to that of his classmates.

Then there is the mom who has taken on the task of raising the special needs child of another woman. And that child’s special needs are the direct result of the actions of the child’s birth mother.

Then there is the mom, whose child has been so discouraged by teachers, leaders and other adults that don’t ‘believe’ his diagnosis, preferring to think that this student is simply ‘lazy’. And this child, so beaten down by the bad attitudes of some teachers, leaders and adults in his life that he has chosen to be viewed as bad over being seen as stupid. And his mom has picked up the phone far too many times to hear the school principal’s voice to tell her of another antic causing harm to people or property.

And then the mom of the child with Down’s Syndrome (Trisomy 21) who NEVER goes out in public, with her child, without facing strangers staring at her child …

“Hey, keep staring at me and you just might cure my disability.

Then we can work on YOUR social skills.”

Anonymous

How many of us, as parents, as moms, have said, ‘I wish my son, my daughter could stay a baby forever’? To the mom of many special needs children, that wish of yours can be like a curse to them. As they might have a child who will never live independently, or have a job, or learn to drive, or learn to count, or be toilet trained.

I like to think that I have thick skin, but I know that mine is nothing compared to the mom of a child with special needs.

For anyone out there who is the mom of a child/children with special needs, may you know that …

I don’t know more than you, about your child

I don’t look at your child as a disability to our society

I don’t look down at you

I don’t know how you feel

… and there are many more, who feel the same way.

All that to say, I just wanted to give you some positive ‘air time’. And to tell you, that if I have worked with your son or daughter, I have respected, appreciated and prayed for you …and may God hold you in the palm of His hand.

“Perseverance is not a long race.

It is many short races one after another.”

W. Elliot

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