I think there's a gender thing here, too. Women learn at an early age that expressing self-satisfaction is "wrong". A women wrote about the unfair advantages she'd received throughout life from being "beautiful"– a slender, blonde caucasian with delicate features and good teeth– and nearly broke the internet. Not because of her exposé of lookism, racism, and classism in our society, but because she had dared to pronounce herself "beautiful", thus breaking a major social taboo. Do you remember the scene in 'Mean Girls' when Cady– upon being complimented on her looks by the reigning Queen Bee– says "Thank you" and is immediately attacked with a "So you think you're pretty, don't you?" It's like that.

If a guy assesses himself as handsome or good-looking, he's perceived as being self-confident (unless he's truly delusional in that regard). Women who do the same thing are considered vain and arrogant. This spills over into other areas of life; women are expected not to "toot their own horn" about their educational and professional achievements, yet a man is seen as an assertive go-getter for trumpeting his qualifications. A study showed that a female job applicant who negotiated a higher salary for herself was rated as being pushy and unpleasant to work with, while a man who did this drew no such onus.

Now, I may well be wrong, but the fact that Lamp asked if it was "okay" to love herself makes me think she's already encountered this belief set.ReplyCancel

Yep! My finger! 🙂ReplyCancel

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I'm a rehabilitation counselor (my job is to help people with disabilities live and work independently), and because of my job, my three year old sees and encounters all sorts of ability-diversity. If I know that we're going to be somewhere that has a large group of one kind of people (people who use mobility aids, hard of hearing/Deaf, Down syndrome), I will pull up some YouTube videos so she can ask questions and we can talk about things in a safe environment. I started this when she was about two years old, and she's largely unphased by things.

One time, I hired a baby sitter, and it sort of slipped my mind that she only has one arm. We don't get sitters very often, so in my nervous "Your sitter will play with you, and you'll have so much fun, and mommy will be back soon" chatter, I failed to mention her limb difference to my daughter. The sitter came in and they talked for a minute. Then, I hear my daughter ask, "What happened to your arm? Were you born that way or did it fall off?" I almost died – ugh my worst nightmare! The sitter responded that she was born that way, and my daughter responded, "Everybody's different. Whoever cares."

I know that things will get more complicated as she gets older, but I guess the point of all of this is that the more kids see differences, the less scary they will be. I don't think she ever interacted with anyone with a limb difference before, but since she knows people who use braces to walk, people with pale skin, people dark skin, people who use hearing aids to listen, I think she realizes that humans have different bodies. Also, the internet can be such a resource. When her cousin started "track" and she didn't know what that meant, I tried to show her examples of videos and pictures of all sorts of athletes, including para-olympians and special olympians. We can't possibly expose our kids to every kind of person out there (and to do so in reality seems srt of tokenish), but we can at least introduce differences thorugh books and media. ReplyCancel

My son is 10.5 months old and we are starting to explore the larger world of playmates at the playground. I have wondered how best to approach visible differences in others with him, and this strategy does it with acceptance and kindness while addressing curiosity -which are also great ways to start friendships. Thanks!ReplyCancel

Wonderful post! Thanks so much for breaking down a really difficult topic, how to talk to others (especially children) about your child's special needs. Both of my sons have autism of varying degrees. I've been in many situations where I've stuttered and stammered over how to talk about it to others that it finally motivated me to actually sit down and write it out on paper so that I could articulate it better to others. This article is spot on and so helpful. I'm going to share on my blog page as well as in the special needs group I'm the admin in. ReplyCancel

Thank you for writing this post! It is something I have always wondered about and hearing your perspective is so helpful. Great ideas, thank you!!ReplyCancel

This is wonderful, thank you! I love this and find so many people struggle with what to do. I also appreciate the caveat for when things don't go well and there may be a need to walk away. I work with children with special needs and ironically, even they may be the ones pointing and staring and saying rude things at times. My favorite part of your article is that regardless, it is an ongoing conversation. You and Lamp sound amazing.ReplyCancel