Deb VanderGaast

The benefit to my own children without disabilities has been remarkable. My teenagers are more sympathetic and accepting of differences in their peers. They tend to be protective of the kids that other kids tease or avoid because they don’t fit in. My two preschool-aged daughters are very accepting of children with special needs. Rather than stare at a child with a disability, they will start talking to them and invite them to play. If they have questions about a person’s disability, I encourage them to ask the person rather than talk about the person as if they weren’t there. Believe me, if someone asks about one of the kids in my care and I don’t let the child who is capable of responding answer for themselves, the kids will scold me for it.

My favorite moment was when I put a school age boy with profound physical and mental disabilities into a cube chair so he could sit on the floor with the other children during free play. I had put a small table in front of him to prevent him from falling forward. Another boy his age saw this as an opportunity for a play mate. He placed a variety of plastic animals on the table in front of the other boy, divided the animals evenly between them, and began to enact Pokie-Mon battles. The game was very fair with both boys winning about the same number of battles. The boy with cerebral palsy could not actively participate in the game, but he had such a huge smile the entire time. For a brief time he was not the boy in the wheelchair. He was just another boy involved in a game of pretend.