Imagine living in a world where everyone was perfect.
Imagine if we all looked the same, had the same hair, skin, weight, eyes. Thought the same thoughts, spoke the same language, had the same skills, liked the same music.. etc., what a boring world it would be to live in.
We are so lucky that we are all so different and I feel even more so when you have a complex child.
We as parents have to try and see things from their eyes, their understanding, and feel what it must be like for them to live in their body and most importantly how their brain works. Isn’t it great that we have children like that in our lives; we are more enriched as a person because of it. And you must admit we have learned a lot along the way. Thrown in situations we never thought we would be in, meet a lot of people we would never have met.
I love seeing people with additional needs, and watching them go about their day, I sometimes wonder, what they must think of us. (My guess is that, they think, we must be very boring). I love that people with additional needs are different, and it needs to be embraced by the society as a whole.
That’s what makes the world interesting and I feel as a parent you sometimes have to let your child be that – be different – ok, we all have guidelines that we have to follow and behave as appropriate as possible in different situations and we can only try and explain that to our children.
Embrace yourself and your child for being different; don’t try to be anyone else because everyone else is taken.
As the saying goes “Accept the things you cannot change, change the things you can and have the wisdom to know the difference.”
Dolores.