Give Your Kids Words for Special Needs
The young boy wrapped his arms around his dad’s left leg and held on tight. Even from across the corridor of the indoor mall, I could see the fear in his young face as he stood there at the top of the escalator, his dad at his side, knowing what he was supposed to do but seemingly unable to will his foot off of the solid ground to the moving steps.
“What is he doing, mom?” My eight-year-old asked me.
“It looks like his dad is helping him down the escalator,” I responded.
“But he can walk, why doesn’t he just go down?” she asked, as we heard a frightened yell and both instinctively turned to look at the boy.
“I think escalators are probably very scary for him, honey. It looks like his dad is trying to help him overcome his fear.”
“Oh,” she said, thinking about how much she loves escalators and, I’m sure, wondering how one could possibly be scary, how a young boy could still be crying and clinging to his father at the top of the moving steps.
Then she asked, “Does he have autism?”
“I don’t know, it’s possible,” I said with a smile, hoping my body language normalized the whole situation.
“Yeah,” she commented, then went back to her cinnamon roll, occasionally looking up and across the corridor, wondering if the boy she suddenly felt a kinship with would be able to put his foot on that first step.
We finished our snacks and got up to leave, both of us taking a last look at the little boy we didn’t know across the mall still crying each time he went down the escalator, his father still patiently encouraging him to go again.
“Look how hard he is working over there!” I whispered to my daughter, “What a brave boy.”
She knew I really meant the last part. We say it all the time about her little brother.
What We All Have to Remember
My daughter doesn’t really know a life without special needs. Her brother, just seventeen months younger than her, was diagnosed with autism when he was two years old. In the five years since then, she’s seen everything from an inability to communicate what he needs to meltdowns in public places to fecal smearing. She’s seen her brother fall apart. She’s seen her mom fall apart. She’s seen us have to leave places early. She’s seen all of us cry until there were no tears left.
But because of all of this, she is especially perceptive to the uniqueness of someone with special needs. She has no problem telling other children at the park why her brother won’t respond to them when they try to play with him, and she’s also taken it upon herself to stand up for other children with obvious disabilities when she’s heard any type of mocking. God truly gifted her with a heart of compassion, a gift that has only magnified in light of her brother’s challenges. And I know she looked across that mall corridor from our seats and sensed a kind of brotherly love for that young boy as he faced the mountain in front of him.
Still, even with all she has seen, all she knows, all of the conversations we have been forced to have, she—no, we, both of us—had to discipline our eyes not to stare at the scene at the top of the escalator. None of us are immune to the curiosity we have when we notice something that appears abnormal, and none of us outgrow our need to remember what someone with special needs is truly facing.
As parents, encounters like this, though they may be awkward or difficult, are perfect opportunities to help our children learn not to stop and stare, laugh, or gawk. They are opportunities, not for us to rush them away and dismiss their curiosity, but rather to walk our children along that narrow ridge of having questions about what they see or hear and helping them put their eyes back on God’s sovereignty.
What Should I Tell My Children?
Special needs usually become obvious to the onlooker when we see something unusual. Perhaps a child is using a walker or wheelchair or some other kind of physical assistive equipment. It could be that he or she is not acting “normal” or “appropriate” in a public setting. We might hear yelling or crying, perhaps see a child rolling on the ground and refusing to get up. In our family, I can think of a few dozen times fellow park goers would have seen a little boy refusing to take his slippers off to play, ignoring the calls to his own name, or cutting in front of the line of children as if they were not there at all. Kids with special needs might be overly affectionate or not affectionate at all. They may talk too much and too fast and not notice no one is listening, or they may not speak at all. But usually, even children will notice the “otherness,” and that’s when they have questions about it.
I’ve had typically-abled children ask me many questions about my son—all from a place of curiosity that they don’t have words for, not malice—from “why does he scream so much, it’s weird?” to “so he’s just a little bit dumb?” And one particularly difficult day, after my son took a small fishing net out of another boy’s hand with no idea his actions would be perceived as inappropriate, I had to physically intervene as the boy and his brother chased my son down while he yelled and cried. Kids will be kids, and I would never expect that they innately know how to think or act around a child with special needs. But I can say confidently that when parents take the time to honestly talk about the unique children they see or spend time with, it changes everything, for everyone involved.
Not long after our son’s diagnosis, my friend asked me what I would like her to say to her boys, if there was any way I preferred she talk about autism to them. It’s a brave question to ask. Special needs moms, especially in the early stages of diagnosis, live on fragile ground and can be easily prone to tears and offense. Oftentimes, talking about their child is hard even for them. Still, I was so thankful for the sincerity behind my friend’s words. What did I want her to tell her children about my special child? I recommend anyone who is in a relationship with a special needs mom, whether that is once a week at church or every day best friends, ask this exact question. The specifics will be different in various contexts and for different needs, but this is how I answered:
You can tell them he has a disability. There is no shame in using that word.
Ask them if they know what a disability is. It’s important that all children know a disability is something that someone cannot control, but it changes the way he or she thinks and acts, and it makes a lot of things that are easy for us, very difficult for him—things like talking, listening, playing with other kids. Sometimes children can’t walk or run or read. But a disability means he or she just cannot do some things as well as others can.
Please tell them that people with disabilities are very, very brave. They have to work much harder every day than the rest of us do, but when we see them as brave and not ‘less than’ us, it changes how we think and act toward them.
You can tell them they can still ask him to play or greet him or talk to him, even if he ignores them. He’ll notice the kindness, even if he doesn’t act like it or cannot reciprocate it.
Tell them it is ok to ask questions! They can ask you, or me, but it’s perfectly ok to ask and wonder about what they are seeing.
And tell them God does not make mistakes. Remind them that “in [Jesus] all things hold together…” (Col. 1:17). We don’t know why some people have disabilities and others don’t. But we know that God is good and kind, that “no purpose of his can be thwarted” (Job 42:2), and just like he has a plan for your life, he has a plan for every child’s life—even the child who lives with a disability.
Mostly, will you tell your children how much it means to me, as a special child’s mom, that they stick up for him, and that they model how to treat and talk about him to other children? Because he is going to need people like that his whole life, and I’m so thankful he has them now.
The world is not going to give our kids words for the special needs child other than weird, dumb, or worse. We have to give them kingdom language and perspective—words that reflect the image of God in the kids who are different, but who are no less “fearfully and wonderfully made” (Ps. 139:14) and no less “created for [his] glory” (Isa. 43:7). Individuals with special needs are brave, unique, hard-working, and strong. And even more, they are as beloved by God as anyone he created. It’s up to us to give our kids these words, and the eyes to see those who struggle in the way our good, good, Father sees them.
