Take a look at the meme above. I have seen different versions of it all over the internet so my guess is you may have seen it, too. As a caregiver of a special needs child, what do you think of it?
It annoys me.
I am about to speak specifically about ONLY my child. Please don’t become offended because you perceive that I am calling YOUR child weird or odd. I am not.
My son, Kai, is seven years old and has about 8 different diagnoses. Developmentally, depending on what you are measuring, he is somewhere between 20-36 months old. But he is the size of a robust seven year-old. He is very strong, about 4’4 and weighs about 65 pounds.
Kai stims. He used to slap himself in the head. Then, after an incident when he was about two years old at a daycare where another child choked him, he also added in throat-punching. He only punches himself, not other people. So, if Kai needs input (stimulation) or feels stressed or even just excited, he will sometimes, without warning, haul off and punch himself in the throat. Really hard. And sometimes there is a loud, popping kind of sound that accompanies the impact. He hits himself so hard that he often has a bruise. I have had doctors look in his throat and he is not hurting himself internally. But this is an ongoing behavior.
It is a very startling experience if you have no idea that it is coming. In fact, we are currently in New York on vacation (we live in Texas but I am a native New Yorker). And in a city where the cultural norm is that no one looks each other in the eye on the street, I have seen people stop short with wide eyes when passing us on the sidewalk. It is that startling.
It is WEIRD. It is ODD. It is DIFFERENT. It is STARTLING.
So, maybe your child with special needs blends into a crowd. But our child doesn’t.
Kai also rocks and spins and sings and makes sounds. He is learning to talk but is often unintelligible. When people see him, they immediately know that he is OTHER than them.
The words weird and odd could be used as synonyms for different, except I think that they have a slightly more negative connotation. Still, in our case, you could definitely use these words to describe Kai.
It doesn’t make him any less amazing. He is smart, beautiful, joyful, a problem solver and brings happiness to everyone around him. His Dad and I believe that this is his purpose in life – he is a joy giver.
But to deny the fact that he appears weird or odd is to deny the feelings of those that first meet him. A lot of people have a shocked initial reaction, especially with the throat punching. This popular meme invalidates the feelings of these people, in my opinion. So, instead of acknowledging their feelings and admitting that, yes, it IS in fact weird or odd, but inviting them to come a little closer to meet Kai and learn about him and our world, we are shutting them down. We are telling them not to feel what they are feeling.
I think this blocks them from moving past their feelings. And, in turn, doesn’t build the bridge that we need to create a world where weird and odd is OK. Because we are all different. Some just wear it on our sleeves more than others.
Again, I’m not calling your child weird, or odd. What I’m saying is that I find it weird, and well, odd, not to acknowledge what’s right there, in front of my face. And yours, when you meet my child.
So, come up and meet Kai. He may do something weird, or odd, but when you look past that, he is amazing and worth getting to know.
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