This is the area of Kathie Snow’s People First presentation that I’m still mulling over. She challenged us to think well outside of the box to a day when labels such as “special needs” or “disabled” would no longer be used. Even the name of this blog, “Parenting Special Kids” would be problematic, as the use of “special” could invoke pity.

While I totally understand, now, that People First Language isn’t as much about being politically correct as it is about treating people with respect and dignity, I wonder at what point we are no longer to communicate because we no longer words that are generally believed not to have negative connotations to them.

What I’m trying to say is this. If words like “disabled”, “special needs” or even “challenging” are devaluing (and I do agree in some ways they are), then what other descriptors can we put in place instead that still allow us to communicate. The problem with our language is we want to use shorthand (to say it faster). So people with disabilities becomes “disabled people”. Children with autism become “autistic children”, etc. It’s convenience and speed that drive this usage.

The other thing that Kathie made incredibly clear was that our children’s disabilities, especially their diagnoses were NOBODY’S BUSINESS. She drove home the point that our children’s privacy is critical and that we shouldn’t be sharing information about our children with total strangers. She also said that we just tell too many people information they don’t need to know. Who needs to know what’s going on with our kids? Doctors, insurance company…yes…but school personnel, strangers at the mall, friends at church or extended family members. Well, they need to know what my child NEEDS, but not what the diagnosis is.

On the surface, I couldn’t agree more. Then I remembered how much I was sharing with all of you. I have never met the vast majority of you. Yet, you know a great deal about me, but even more about LuLu. Kathie recommended that we only share about our child what our child feels comfortable with. So I thought I’d ask LuLu today how she felt about me talking about her in my blog nearly every day. At age 10, she has some concept of what I’m doing here. She told me she likes the blogs best where I do talk about what she does, especially the one recently where I scanned and inserted some of her artwork. Since then she’s drawn several pictures and proposed that I include them in my blogs. Perhaps I should take her up on illustrating some of my posts!

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