MScoleman at aol.com wrote:
> i have a nephew who is learning disabled (age 7). on one of my many visits he
> spent some time explaining to me how his one and only friend protects him from
> the bullies at school who don't like him. as it turns out the friend is
> african american and my nephew is caucasian. clearly the behavior of adults
> is being developed on the playground. maggie coleman mscoleman at aol.com
Do the bullies know that he is learning disabled? Is this the reason they bully him? The reason I ask is because my daughter went to grammer school with Henry Winkler's daughter who has a learning disability. It seems that the Winkler's thought it best to hide their daughter's disability, so it was never mentioned. But my daughter picked up (as third graders will) that there was something different about Zoe and made a raw comment. I forget exactly what it was but it was something about Zoe's brain being different from other people's.
When young children ask me about my disability, "why do you walk that way", it is always direct and I appreciate that - it gives me the chance to de-charge and neutralize disability for them, (that is if their parents don't make a big deal of it). Zoe's reaction to my daughter's comment was very negative, I think because it was kept hidden and my daughter had brought it out in the open. My round-the-world point is, if there was more openess and discussion about difference, I think the chances are that there would be less hostility between kids who have differences.
This school was really backwards about disability. After a lesson about "handicaps" one of the sixth graders did a spastic rap at recess and not one teacher intervened to stop the display or to talk to the kids on the playground about what the child was doing. My daughter of course knew exactly what he was doing and because she had a disabled mother and the other kids did not, she felt hurt very deeply by it - and felt very alone too. Of course I had some words with the school about it. They apologized but the damage had already been done.
Marta