What would you want me to tell my child

groisamomma

Sun, Feb 02 2020, 12:42 am

Can you rewrite your post please? Text speak is really hard on the eyes and it's difficult to take you seriously.

Also, mothers of special needs makes no sense. Mothers of *children* with special needs is a bit more sensitive.

gamanit

Sun, Feb 02 2020, 12:43 am

I would probably say "I don't know why he/she is in a wheelchair. There are lots of reasons why someone can be in a wheelchair. For example Reuvi is in a wheelchair because his legs aren't strong enough for him to walk with"

Kiwi13

Sun, Feb 02 2020, 1:01 am

chasdie Hashem wrote:

Kiwi that’s great for after-b for scenereo,where the child still there,& mom lets say there as well ,what should answer on the spot ,short to the point

"Some people need a wheelchair in order to get around." Once at the library, my son went on asking questions about the wheelchair, and I answered him that it's a chair that has wheels and a control button that can make it move by itself. He was interested in the chair, mostly. I've also talked to him about privacy and personal space, but that's an ongoing thing that takes time for kids to understand.

He also asked me about a woman who used a device that amplified sounds to help her speak. My approach is just to answer his questions matter or factly with the truth, respectful and normalizing of adaptive devices. My younger son has a developmental disability, so we've had some more talks about that, mainly about why we have different rules for him vs. our other kids. I say it's because everybody grows and learns at their own pace, and his little brother is just learning how to listen to the rules, so we're still teaching him. (Basically, that he doesn't get in trouble for doing something wrong because he doesn't understand it's wrong, we just try to help him stop and eventually we hope he'll understand.) My older son seems to understand that idea.