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Good thing I slipped on my Nomex™ Suit before posting up there.
Helena330’s post rings beautifully true. Find me a school that makes an effort. Where the admin, staff and students are at least marginally on board with the idea that EVERY single person in the building is a human of value, deserving of respect. Found that school? I’d be stunned to find a marginalized or ostracized child in that school.
It doesn’t take a village to raise a child, IMHO. But it sure as hell takes a community. That’s defined, where I come from, as the fellow children and adults that any child comes into contact with in their daily existence.
Finding the right methods of slowly turning a community towards a more embracing mindset is the stuff of a life’s work for many parents. Not just of kids on the spectrum. But for many parents.
See, from what I have witnessed in my life, it’s not the parents who run to social media and try to create a storm of attention who deserve the attention. It’s the countless families that work hard every day in complete anonymity, making their child know she/ he is beloved.
All three of my daughters go to such a school. It’s wonderful for all of them. And its truly wonderful for my spectrum daughter. PE teacher makes sure she’s included in the less serious group and gets to score a goal. Choir teacher says she’s better than some of the mainstream kids at paying attention and following directions. French teacher says she’s a joy to have in class. Special needs teacher loves having her. The principal asked that we consider our daughter to attend, both for her being with her peers in mainstream classes, and to help her teach diversity and acceptance at the school.
***Every ***kid should have such an opportunity and environment
I have to wonder about the parents planning big parties every year, and year after year being disappointed when hardly anyone, or no one, shows up. Why get your child stoked that this year is going to be different, then crushed, when it’s not?
There has to be a better way to handle birthday parties for kids who don’t have a lot of friends.
I don’t get it at all. for me birthday parties were a family thing, I never once had one where kids I knew (I hesitate to say “friends” anymore) were invited.
Ah. It’s a recent revelation that TX is apparently blessed with a surfeit of qualified and experienced autism providers and specialists. (I wouldn’t have guessed.)
Tonight’s NBC News ended with one of these “heartwarming” stories, although in this case, it was the fire department.
I called BS on it when the dad said he flagged down a fire truck. :o Like they don’t have anything else to do while they’re on duty? And why didn’t they bring their own kids?
Anyway, I hadn’t realized this thread was that old. It’s been a while since I’ve seen a story like this, on either my local or national news.
Or in the case of the boy in today’s story, his entire class said they would come to his party which was going to be held at a church (or so his parents said) and NONE of them showed up.
Who does this, anyway - say they’ll be there and then not show up? And especially doing that to little kids - in this case, a 7-year-old?
Here’s another story, although it doesn’t say anything about the child being autistic. A large percentage of the comments say there has to be more to the story.
TL : DR - A family planned a 6th-birthday pizza party for 15 classmates who RSVP’ed, and none of them showed up. This was such a big deal that the father flew in from Alaska, where he works. However, the boy was so excited about all the arcade games, he soon forgot about the guests not showing up. :dubious: The mom posted the story on Facebook, and said she immediately regretted it when, among other things, a TV crew showed up.
Update: Now, the stories are about the police and fire department doing a drive-by parade for a child who’s getting their last chemo or radiation treatment. Not a bad thing, but once again, how many of them had chronically ill children whose appointments they don’t bother attending, etc.?
No, I meant that some of the police or fire personnel may have ill or disabled children whose appointments they didn’t attend, didn’t know about their treatments, etc.
But you’re begrudging the children who got the drive-by parade over these theoretical overlooked children??? Do you have any reason to fear that these cops or fire fighters have children who are undergoing chemo and radiation treatments and whose co-workers aren’t aware of it? I feel like I’m missing something.
