Help! My kid is getting teased

A mother of an 8 year old child with some medical issues and cognitive delays asked what to do about a problem. Her child is mainstreamed for part of the school day, and attends a special education class the other part of the day. This child has complained recently of being teased in school.

Following is my response:

Congrats on having a "different" child. Contrary to what some say, I don't believe God chooses special parents for special kids (at least not in my case!) Rather, I think as parents, if we're given a special needs child, we rise to the occasion as best we can. It's a tall order, but it makes us grow if we're doing it right.

As you know better than anybody, there's never one big solution to helping a child with special needs. Instead, we manage our kids' differences on a daily basis. I have a little experience with kids who are different.

My first child (14) has Down syndrome, making him both physically and mentally delayed.

My second child (13) has NDA. That stands for "not diagnosed with anything."

My third child (11) was born with a muscle missing in her face, causing her smile to droop on one side

My fourth child (8) is both gifted and color blind, setting him apart in many ways, yet making him dependent on others (can someone please find me a brown crayon?)

Both my now 13 year old daughter and I have been published in Exceptional Parent magazine, which is the number one selling magazine for parents and professionals in the disability community.

My family has had the good fortune to spend twelve summers at a disability camp, where we've had the privilege to meet a whole range of kids and adults with every kind of difference possible, many quite severe differences, delays, and disabilities.

So I guess you could say we've dealt with this topic, and, as you can imagine, I have a few thoughts.

Because of my oldest, I end up being a sounding board again and again for parents whose kids are classified. Most of these parents have kids who look normal from the outside, and are very high functioning. These seem to be the parents who struggle the most, perhaps not so surprisingly.

Many of these parents work hard at normalizing their kids, and I can't say that I blame them. They come to me because they're frustrated by how their kids are treated at school.

There's a weird thing that goes on in our schools, and it has to do with privacy. Teachers and administrators are charged with protecting your privacy to such a degree that they are never in a position to talk about differences.

All other differences, such as race, religion, and culture are celebrated in school. It's called diversity. But when it comes to learning differences, disabilities, or medical issues, it's called privacy.

That kind of atmosphere leads to shame for the child, and ignorance for the other kids. Kids crave information when it comes to someone a little different, and when they get it, they're satisfied. Then they're able to better interact with a kid who is different. In other words, being "out" about a child is what normalizes him.

The parents end up making a mistake, and it's an understandable and right-hearted one. They take their cue from the school, and stay hush hush about their kid's difference. But parents are not bound by the privacy law.

Parents and schools are on the same team, but as you know, a team's players don't all play the same role. They all have different jobs to do. Parents are allowed to be as open as they care to be. It is my opinion that in most cases, the openness is what's needed.

I asked a teacher once to discuss my third child's facial difference in class. It took a little convincing that I was allowed to ask her to do this, and that she is allowed to do it if the parent asks. She was so accustomed to privacy that it took some persuasion for her to remember that parents can override this privacy. Once she warmed up to the idea, she was able to run with it.

The catalyst for my request had been the day the kids got their professional photos back from the photo lab, and they were distributed in class. My then 8 year old daughter's smile was crooked in the picture, and someone made fun of it.

The result of the class discussion turned out to be so earth shattering that I wrote the whole story, sent it to Exceptional Parent magazine, and the story got published in the March 2004 issue of the magazine. At the end of this article, I'll provide the link to "Outing My Kids."

Once you've read "Outing My Kids," there's a second essay, and I promise it's much shorter. It's one of my blog entries, and it's called "Following the School's Lead? Not!" I'll give you that link too.

I've worked hard at setting a tone for discussion in my children's schools. Once, when a child on the playground commented on my son's unusual eyes, and the infantile way that he plays, I went over to the child and praised him for his observation skills. The kid couldn't have been more than seven, but he was fascinated with my simple explanation that my son has a disability called Down syndrome, that this means he looks a little different and maybe acts a little different, but that he likes to play just like other kids.

Then I suggested to this mesmerized child that he might grow up to one day be a doctor or social worker who cares very much about people with disabilities. He went away beaming.

That child could easily have been misinterpreted as being nosy or mean. But he was just asking, and he's entitled to an answer. If he'd asked such a question in school, he would have been hushed. As parents, we need to combat this.

When we as adults avoid a subject, we communicate loud and clear that the subject must be terrible and shameful. In contrast, when we do allow discussion and provide explanation, children can fill in their natural curiosity with information.

Children will fill in the blanks with something, no matter what you do. It's up to us as adults to decide if they'll make something up, which is usually not good, or whether they will receive the right information. And there's always a way to explain it, even if the child has a specific diagnosis. What curious kids need is a word. At very least, you can tell them, "Oh she has some cognitive delays, which means she may have to work a little harder than you to learn things."

It may come down to our own comfort with our child's differences.

Here are the articles:

Outing My Kids

Following the School's Lead? Not!