I love the articles posted by The Friendship Circle Blog. They are helpful and informative and hit really close to the matters that matter most to me. When I read 10 Hurtful Comments From Relatives About Your Child With Special Needs in my email today, I knew I had to pin it to my Pinterest board and put a link on the blog. Here's the one piece of advice I would add to The Friendship Circle article: Do NOT compare my child with another child with a special need.
This is an issue I've had a few times in the last few years and my first reaction is to get really defensive, really quickly. I know that my relative didn't mean for the comment to come across as it did, but it still ruffled my feathers. The term "special needs" is used to describe a ton of conditions and not all of the conditions are similar or related. In fact, I don't like to use the term "special needs". My kid is my kid. Not my kid with special needs. You know? Yes, I know that most families are touched in some way by a special needs person. But, I don't want you to compare your experiences with my experiences.
Let me try to paint a better picture. Do you remember the movie Clueless (Alicia Silverstone and Paul Rudd)? Ok, remember when Cher is looking for her "most capable looking ensemble" for her driving test and she refers to the house keeper as Mexican, and the house keeper reacts with "I'm not a Mexican!" and storms off, then Josh explains that "Lucy is from El Salvador" ??? Sure, I've watched that movie one too many times, what can I say?
But that scene perfectly sums up how I feel when you compare my kid with any other kid with any other special need. So, that's what I'd add to the list: Don't compare my kid with your friends kid or anyone else. Please offer supportive advice and comments gallore, but don't compare!
On a completely unrelated note: I can not believe Clueless has a rating of only 6.6 on IMDB! It should at least be an 8!
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