I was having a conversation recently with someone who said that there are very few special needs divisions in life. His stance was that there should not be a special needs division in a karate tournament. That teaching those less able to achieve, in his mind, was a less pure practice if they couldn’t get it exactly right (or even close). He felt that it is a mockery of what karate is supposed to be. He is certainly entitled to his opinion.
Here is mine.
When a child is born, the process of enculturation begins. This simply means that the child is taught what society accepts as “normal” in practice and procedure. It is the close family members and people who raise the child that impart most of this information. After a while, the outside world begins to present itself to the child. As different views and practices are presented, the process of acculturation begins. Again, this simply means that new and different cultural norms are presented. Here, people learn new values, rules and procedures that other social groups may be practicing. As a child begins to compare what he or she has learned through the enculturation process with the new concepts of the acculturation process, the child may begin to blend socially accepted practices. What does this mean? It means the child, as they grow and become more aware, forms his or her thoughts about what is acceptable in the world. Of how it is and how it should be. A very strong beginning from the family in terms of what they are capable of (positive or negative) usually prevails.
In other words, YOU, as the special needs caregiver are one of the strongest voices in your child’s internal dialog of what they can do. If you tell your child that there is nothing they can’t accomplish, they will most likely believe it. If YOU show them that their process may look different and their outcome may be different than other people’s, but it is no less valid, they will internalize this. Later, when others tell them that they “can’t,”(or that they will never be good enough to matter) they may falter, but they will remember their first enculturation process – and again, that came from YOU. They will rely on this inner voice (that YOU have given them) to move forward.
It doesn’t matter if their achievements don’t look as mighty to others. It doesn’t matter if what their trying to accomplish is less “pure” than how other people do it. What matters is that our children have high expectations of themselves and what they will succeed at, whatever that looks like.
Do you know who doesn’t understand this? People who don’t have to work as hard. It is so easy for people with typical brains to follow the instructions, put in the time and practice and succeed if they want to. It is so easy for them as children to watch an adult pick up a cup and just copy them. It doesn’t occur to those people what it would be like to have to think through every single tiny step of the process and practice, hand over hand for about 200 repetitions to lock in that motion because their brain just doesn’t work that way.
When a child is willing to follow their internal dialogue (which YOU have given them) that they are warriors, that they are smart, that they can do anything, that they can succeed- and then practice over TWO HUNDRED times to be able to pick up a cup, are we to denounce this achievement because the water spilled?
In a life where “there are very few special needs divisions,” it is our job, as their first teachers and as we lead our children through the enculturation process, to create them. We should demand of our special needs children their very best. We should accept no less than success, whatever that looks like for them. And, as we are the ones who shape society, well, society needs to bend quite a bit.
I have expectations of excellence, for my son and for the society that he is a member of. And believe me, both will rise up to meet the occasion.
My son, as he is, is enough. Isn’t your child with special needs enough?
Please share your special needs child’s amazing achievements in the comments below.