Tuesday, April 26, 2011

Apples to Apples or Apples to Oranges

It seems
the world is full
of comparisons.

It doesn't escape
we parents of
special needs children either.
In fact,
something that so easily rolls
off of our tongues can
become quite a challenge...
depending on the subject matter.

You see,
our children are
often compared to the
"other children"
in the same age range.
It's done medically,
academically
and socially.

As a group,
we can be very sensitive
regarding the many
verbs that can and are used
to describe our kids
versus those "other"
kids.
Why, we parents even struggle
ourselves when making the comparisons.
Our conversations often go like this:

"Our girls do so well at (insert anything here)
but it just isn't the same as the ("others") do.
Each of us struggles with what word to insert for
"others" and most often,
we say
"I hate using the word "normal"
but they aren't the same as the "normal" kids.

Enter my daughter:


The other day,
we were once again,
discussing prom
(yes, the magic continues).
One of her friends
was escorted by two
handsome young men
(she has difficulty walking and my
heart swelled as I watched those young men,
proudly escorting her).

I asked my daughter
if the boys were also
in special education
and she simply stated
"Well, one is but the other one is just a plain teenager."
It hit me!
The "others"
are just
PLAIN TEENAGERS!

This bears repeating:

P L A I N Teenagers!

My "special needs"
daughter has (in my not so humble opinion)
brilliantly resolved an issue
we normal plain
adults have not been able to figure out!

I learn so much from her...
and all of the other
special needs kids
I am lucky enough to know!

6 comments:

Kayla said...

Love it! Her apple didn't fall far from the tree!

Young Adventures... said...

My autistic nephew once said to my sister "I wish my sister could be autistic like me." Have a great day Jill! Thanks for sharing your journey as a parent.

Anonymous said...

That's one way that ALL children are the same: they always amaze us.

Am I Really Grown Up? said...

Beautifully put:)

Heidi said...

Leave it to Becky to put the rest of us to shame! :)

Valerie said...

Well, she makes her Auntie Val just plain proud.