I was waiting for our next doctor visit before writing again with news on Gabbie's progress, but something happened yesterday that made us very sad and it has been happening very often, so I decided to write about it. I wrote many times here about the fears we have as parents about what our kids will face in their future. It is even more true with parents of kids with special needs. My friends may not realize but everything we plan for now, we have to think first on how Gabbie will be able to fit in that plan. For example, we were looking for a gym, somewhere we could go and exercise after work and weekends. We need to start soon because we need to keep up with her, and being older and overweight is not going to help us. So we visited a couple of places, but our main concern was not if they had the equipment or classes we wanted, it was if they had the daycare facility that would be able to really watch Gabbie while we were exercising. If they had a swimming pool that I could take her to exercise her legs. We wanted to take a good look at their kids area, to make sure that Gabbie wouldn't be stepped on by the older kids.
Then we were planning our summer trip. Well, summer trip for us is only a 3 day weekend, because we are not allowed to take time off work during the summer in our line of work. So we always try to make it special for the older kids, since it is the ONLY thing they will do out of the ordinary all summer. It has been difficult to plan the trip. We have to think about every single detail, and how it will affect Gabbie and us. The vacation we choose needs to be mentally stimulating while not physically challenging. It needs to give her time and space to be on the floor to exercise a little, without getting hurt. And to match that with what the older kids would enjoy has been a big challenge. In the end, in trying to please all of them, we will both be exhausted and will need a vacation from the vacation, but hey, that's parenthood!
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| Gabbie in the older kids room |
Back to the original topic, I know that many parents of children with disabilities face the fear of the stigma carried by the word "disability". And there are of course many types and levels of disability and fortunately Gabbie's disability is very mild. But at some point the parents need to decide if they want their children in the regular schools or in special schools. One may argue that they should go to special schools that can cater to their needs, but if the disability is not that debilitating, they may thrive in regular schools, and that will maybe prepare them more for the world ahead, to be independent, and to show them that they are "normal". We are not there yet, but even at daycare things can get difficult for a child like Gabbie. Because she is 18 months old now, she should be in the 12 to 24 months room at her daycare. All the activities in that room are planned to stimulate the kids at that age group, teach them what they are supposed to be learning at that age. But to move on to different rooms, age is not the only requirement. There are milestones that they need to reach. All the other kids in that room are walking and are much more independent than Gabbie. Add that to the fact that it may be overwhelming to the teachers to deal with 4 young toddlers at a time (the student to teacher ratio at this age is 4 to 1). And if 1 of the 4 is not following, and stays behind, it makes it difficult for that teacher to watch them all.
So one day I went to the daycare to pick her up and all of the kids were outside running and playing and where was Gabbie? Outside too, but the teacher had to place her in a corner so that the other kids wouldn't step on her, and there she was, happy playing with mud. She was happy, but it brought tears to my eyes to see how excluded she was even at this young age. I understand that it was for her safety, but she is already suffering some type of discrimination. And Gabbie too is learning that she doesn't get hurt if she stays away, so many times she removes herself from the group. Most times when I go there now, she is in the babies room. It is safer (physically) for her there, but then she does not get all the stimulation for her age that she should be getting in the older kids room. Even kids much younger than Gabbie are in the toddlers room, learning different stuff and playing, and Gabbie is just crawling around in the babies room most of the time. It is so sad to see that. That was what I saw yesterday. It may have been just a glimpse of her day, but it was sad to see.
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| Gabbie trying at home |
The definition for discriminating is
" excluding or restricting members of one group from opportunities that are available to another group". I don't want to accuse the daycare of discriminating, I know that they are doing what they think is best for her. But how do we cope with that? And how do we make sure that she is still reaching all the other milestones that she needs to? How do we make sure that her physical disability doesn't put her behind in other aspects too?
What is going to happen when it is time to move to the 2 to 3 year old's room? That is coming in only 6 months from now, and she is not even ready for the 1 to 2 year old's room. And although we try to live and celebrate each day, we can't help but think about her future and all the discrimination (justified or not) that is on her way.
