Bluntness, No Filters, and Just Plain Ol’ Curiosity

Special Needs citizens are some of the greatest people—whether they are adults or children—that you can ever be blessed to be able to work with or get to know. There’s an old “saying” that children are the most honest people that you will ever meet. They will tell you exactly what is on their mind. They WILL tell you if those jeans make your butt look big. Well, Special Needs individuals are no different, they will tell you, to your face, exactly what is on their mind. My Special Buddy, Mr. X, grabbed my forearm one day, pinching the flab and kind of jiggling it around a little and looked at me and said, “Ms. Christine, why is your arm so flabby right there?” Now, bear in mind that Mr. X does not use his “r”s, so it sounds more like, “Ms. Kwistine, why is yo ahm so fwabby wite derr?” The thing is, he asked me this question with such a straight face because, to him it was a serious question, and then on top of that, he’s just so darn cute, I had to look the other direction for a second to regain my composure and think of an answer that would satisfy him and make sense to him. Once I got myself together I looked at him and said, “Well, Mr. X, Ms. Christine likes to eat too much, so I got fat, but I’m trying to work on that; but don’t you worry about that right now, lets just get back to figuring out how the farmer got the problem solved with the cows.” And that answer was good enough for Mr. X.

The thing that the general public needs to remember about the Special Needs Community is that, while they do need special services and a little extra help with some things, when it really comes down to it, they want to be treated just like you and me. I know that this paragraph is disjointed from the little story that I told in the paragraph above, but I think that it’s something important that a lot of people forget. Down’s Syndrome, Autism, Cerebral Palsy, Multiple Retardation, and other Mental Illness are not contagious; so by helping someone with one of these illnesses, we will not get sick with it. There’s no need to walk in a WIDE circle around someone with a mental or physical illness for fear of “catching” it because you can’t! They are people with feelings just like us, so treat them just like you would like people to treat you!