You're not alone

Reading back on Patrick Black’s older posts, I discovered one that really interested me. My goal is to hopefully become an educator for special needs students. He is a parent of a special needs child. The child was just entering high school and he had many concerns about him. It is not stated what kind of disability this child had, but Black’s concerns were definitely something I think many special needs parents have when their child is growing up. He talks about how it is difficult for his child to grasp the concept of brushing his teeth, putting deodorant on, and keeping a decent appearance. In middle school, most kids stayed away from him because they did not want to be around his “grossness”. He talks about how he wants his child to put in contacts instead of having wobbly glasses, or chew gum instead of pencils, remote controls, or his calculator. He feels that this is the only way he could make friends. I do not think that changing your appearance to make friends is a good thing because being yourself is probably the most rewarding thing you can do for yourself, but if you don’t have good personal hygiene, you will definitely have trouble getting people to agree to be around you. I think that at school, his aid should carry extra deodorant on her for him to make sure that he does not smell. Since his son does not like chewing gum all that much because he does not like mint, maybe let him have tic tacs in class or a different flavor of gum. High school is definitely a tricky place to make friends, but it might help if the school has those buddy programs where it gives the students with disabilities to interact with other students their age. These allow for students to keep interacting so that way they can feel connected to others.