The incidents

Following on from my previous post on the subject of schooling: what is making me change my private ways?

I think the fact that I have struggled with the labeling of my child, has momentarily made me ignore the issue staring me in the face: my child has a physical disability, what am I going to do to advocate for her at her school?

Fi has been going to creche (daycare) part time since she was 3, and other than talking to the teachers and putting in a specific fire evacuation procedure, we had to do nothing, the kids played with her, the parents were nice.

She started her ECCE year at the same creche in September, that is like pre-K in the US, basically you get 3 "free" hours a day. The creche is the same, the teachers are great, they put in an extra stool for her for the bathroom, they seat her on the shorter chairs, did the fire procedure, etc. - all without me telling them or asking them.

But the crowd is different. I think the children are older now, so her being shorter is more obvious  We are also in the same group with the woman's daughter who called her an imp. I have no doubt that she has done her fair share of over-sharing.

And I have witnessed this whole Psychology Today article play out in front of my eyes for the last while. I am not one to rush to intervene, I wanted to give the children and parents to let Fi know a bit more, but I don't think it's happening.

If it wasn't about my child, I would find this psycho-social phenomenon fascinating, well I still do. Otherwise completely normal women of child-bearing age acting extremely stupidly and in an awkward manner when faced with a very young child with an obvious disability.

I think it all comes down to what we have been made believe all along: "I don't care if it is a boy or girl, as long as it's healthy". So when they meet a disabled child, the instant reaction is: "Thank God, it didn't happen to me" or "God, I hope, I won't have a disabled child."

So, in my next post I will share about my intervention planned and how this made me change gears for next year when real school begins.