How do you address the subject of disabilities with your children? There is a natural curiosity of anything different for children, yet at the same time, children are very accepting. Our own behavior, as well as how we choose to address this topic, will impact our own children and how they view and treat those with disabilities.
My son is two, so we obviously aren’t going to sit down and have a long chat about it. In fact, just the opposite method may be best at this age. He is most likely to follow our lead. If we are relaxed, and not apprehensive, he is likely to follow suit. When we come across someone who may have a disability, it is important that we view them without the disability, which will allow us to not treat them any differently.
We are also careful of the words we use. I’ve always told my husband it would be our luck that our son would blurt out some word (out of context) as loud as he could in the grocery store one day that would turn us 15 shades of red, lol (c’mon – you know kids!). The same principle applies with words that could be disrespectful to others and conversations drawing attention to someone with disabilities.
As he gets older, we’ll take more age appropriate action to educate him and teach him be respectful.
CVS / Caremark has create All Kids Can, worth checking out.
How do you talk to your children about other children with disabilities? Do you take different approaches at different ages?
What other ways could I address the situation with my two year old (directly or indirectly)?
If you have a child with a disability, what is it you wish you could say to other parents?
If you are blogging about Disability Month or have related posts, please add a link in the comments.
1 March 18th, 2009 at 1:10 pm
I have a cousin with a disability. We just explain God makes everyone differently, but we don’t treat anyone that looks different than we do differently. Our girls are 7 and 4 so this works at this age.
Great blog post!
2 March 18th, 2009 at 2:02 pm
Hi Alaina - I love your response. That would work across the board, not just with disabilities, but different races, different weights / heights, etc. Everyone is indeed different form the next person, and just as wonderful!
3 March 18th, 2009 at 3:54 pm
“It’s important that we view them without the disability.” I think generally speaking this is the best thing that you can do. You want to view them as you would anyone else just like you would do with someone race or nationality. Not all disabilities are visible.
My daughter has autism and physically you would not know that there is anything anything different about her from the next child, but in social and academic situations there is differences.
Unless a situation deems necessary we do not go out of our way to let children know that she may be different. If there is a situation that calls for an explanation for age appropriate children we ask if they have heard of autism…a lot of them actually have and are curious to know more or tell you what they know and are sympathetic and kind. For younger children that may complain about a behavior or what not we simply just say that she does not understand.
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4 March 18th, 2009 at 4:08 pm
I guess we don’t actively do or say anything. We’ve said things like, “God made everyone different.” Or, “We don’t stare and point, I’ll explain when we get in the car.” When we get to the car we talk about how a car accident or a burn accident or something of the sort hurts people permanently and they act or look different than we do. We aren’t to treat them differently or stare or point. We help them if they need help just like we would anyone else.
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5 March 25th, 2009 at 12:24 am
I have a child with a major disability…and sometimes if a child is staring, and looks curious, I will just say to them that they can talk to her…she can not really talk back, but she loves when you say hi to her. If they ask questions I answer them. Typically the kids are pretty good until they get older. If someone is being mean, just saying that is not nice, how would you like to be treated suffices. Or if the whole line of kids in school are staring, just a reminder that it is not nice to stare does it. Educating children about disabilities seems to be the best thing.
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6 May 28th, 2009 at 11:54 am
It sounds like you’re creating problems yourself by trying to solve this issue instead of looking at why their is a problem in the first place.
7 October 22nd, 2009 at 3:03 pm
Never work just for money or for power. They won’t save your soul or help you sleep at night.
8 February 2nd, 2010 at 3:21 pm
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