The school year – reflections…

With the start of the school year, many interesting articles and illustrations about tolerance for people with disabilities in schools and kindergartens appear online. This doesn’t apply to us just yet, but I already know that the topic of preschool and our daughter’s broader contact with peers will be a major challenge…

Experiences with intolerance and inquisitiveness are far worse than the fact that our Antosia’s hand and legs will never look like the legs and hand of her healthy peers.

On playgrounds, we often encounter children or adults talking ‘about us’. They sit on a nearby bench and speak unkindly about Antosia’s strange hand. What is worse, after long debates, they gather and approach Antosia not to say hello, but to ‘tug’ at her left hand. Because it is small, because she cannot grab the swing.

With her legs, we have even more ‘adventures’ at swimming pools. Children dive and pull Antosia by her legs underwater. We try to explain to the kids that Antosia can feel it and that touching someone without their permission isn’t nice… but what can you do… when a parent sitting nearby doesn’t react, and when confronted, claims that their child is just curious about the world, and those legs are just something different…

I know that after her surgeries, Antosia will be more active, more independent, and will surprise us more than once. I only wish we were more sensitive… I fear that the greatest bane of Antosia’s life will not be her disabilities, but the struggles with tolerance and acceptance…;/

However, I have a quiet hope that thanks to the vast knowledge of parents with similar challenges and our community, we will find a way and a method to cope with these unpleasant situations 😉

Meanwhile, all the best to the First Graders and Preschoolers for the upcoming year 😉