I remember visiting the classroom they intended for Nat, when he was 3.\u00a0 This was the first classroom, general special ed or some such oxymoron.\u00a0 It was not autism-specific.\u00a0 But what did I know about autism, anyway?\u00a0 All I knew was that by sending Nat to this place it would mean that he was, indeed, special ed.\u00a0 It would be more than a label:\u00a0 it would be an entire cloak.<\/p>\n
When I saw that classroom I felt choked with despair.\u00a0 It wasn’t the room, brightly colored and filled with art that it was; it wasn’t the energetic, smiley teachers.\u00a0 It was the other kids.\u00a0 I looked at the other children and I did not see Nat there.\u00a0 No kid reminded me of Nat.\u00a0 They mostly seemed spacey and weird.\u00a0 Yet Nat was also totally spacey and weird, but that fact made me hate that classroom even more.\u00a0 Nat did not belong there!\u00a0 That’s what my heart said; that’s what I said, but in the end we sent him.\u00a0 And not only did he belong there; he needed even more than they could offer.<\/p>\n
I thought about that day after visiting a DayHab, the first on a list we were given to visit.\u00a0 The DayHab is where the significantly disabled often spend their weekdays.\u00a0 The hours are 9-3, like school hours.\u00a0 A van brings them there.\u00a0 They have a list of personal goals to work on.\u00a0 There are therapists that come in and out.\u00a0 There are shelves of brightly colored toys and games, a computer or two, and staff walking around assisting.\u00a0 Not all that different from many special ed classrooms.\u00a0 But with adults.\u00a0 I was prepared to be depressed.<\/p>\n
But where once there were children that made me sad, there were now adults that did not, which is odd because kids are definitely cuter.\u00a0 Yet is no longer hard for me to go and hang out with highly disabled people — because I’m used to it.\u00a0 My way of dealing with hard events is to plunge in, my belief being that familiarity breeds enjoyment.\u00a0 This is also the way Nat comes to enjoy things, too.\u00a0 Exposure, repetition, familiarity — these build a repertoire to draw upon.\u00a0 So I have always visited Nat’s classrooms — all my sons’ classrooms — and gotten to know the teachers and other kids; I force myself to get comfortable.<\/p>\n
Nat’s classmates and roommates have, by and large, always responded well to me.\u00a0 It’s the same principle as I follow with Nat.\u00a0 You go in thinking the best.\u00a0 You fill yourself up with hope and a sense of lightness, you surround yourself with a bubble of confidence that suspends you above harm.\u00a0 And the other person feels that, and wants to grab on. The moment that circuit is complete, strangeness starts to fade, you lose your inhibition, and you can connect. Simple human nature.\u00a0 Learning this has given me immense comfort and strength to walk into a room full of rocking, hooting people and say hi and feel interested in getting to know them.\u00a0 Now, I have to say, it’s fun to do that, because for the most part, Nat’s housemates and the disabled adults I’ve met are eager for interaction even if they’re clumsy at it.\u00a0 They are really glad to see new faces, even if they can’t talk to them.\u00a0 And if you treat them with interest and openness, they will warm to you very quickly.\u00a0 But this is true with any person. anywhere.<\/p>\n
Back when I visited Nat’s preschool classroom, I didn’t realize that these classmates were other people’s children.\u00a0 On some level, I didn’t even realize they were people.<\/p>\n
The world, especially this corner of it, is full of people who really have very exacting requirements of what a person has to be like.\u00a0 But you don’t have to.<\/p>\n
I think that Nat says it best:\u00a0 “It’s a different that’s okay.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I remember visiting the classroom they intended for Nat, when he was 3.\u00a0 This was the first classroom, general special ed or some such oxymoron.\u00a0 It was not autism-specific.\u00a0 But what did I know about autism, anyway?\u00a0 All I knew was that by sending Nat to this place it would mean that he was, indeed, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2066","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pSTth-xk","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2066","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2066"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2066\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2068,"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2066\/revisions\/2068"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2066"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2066"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2066"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}