kids – Real Social Skills

When marginalized people exist unapologetically in public, some bigoted people say things like “But it will confuse the children!”

This is about as ridiculous as saying “Don’t pour water there! It will get the fish wet!”

Most of the world is confusing to children, because they haven’t had time to learn very much about it yet. Kids have to learn even really basic things. Some examples of stuff kids aren’t born knowing and often find confusing:

Door open *and* close.
Light switches can turn lights on and off.
Some things belong to you and some things do not.
Not everything that looks appealing is edible.
When you’re in public places, you have to wear clothes.
Some people are relatives and some people aren’t.
Everyone has a name.
People like different things.
Holidays exist.
Not everyone celebrates the same holidays.
It is possible to read books.
If you let go of a ballon outdoors, it will almost always float away.
Even when you are very upset, it is possible to communicate without screaming or hitting anyone.

You’re not going to break children by existing in public as a marginalized person. Even if they are confused, nothing terrible will happen. Children are good at thinking about things they don’t understand and learning new things. Kids are confused a lot; that’s part of being a kid. They are learning, and it’s ok.

One issue with accommodations and modifications in school, is that it can often be hard to avoid stigma. Kids don’t usually like being singled out or doing things conspicuously differently. Also, nondisabled kids often resent it when disabled kids are allowed to do things that they are not allowed to do.

Further, one frequent objection to accommodations is “but if I let one kid do this, then all the other kids will want to.”

Sometimes that’s true — and, often, the best solution to that problem is to just let all the kids do whatever the thing is. Sometimes there’s no good reason to restrict access to something. Sometimes changing the rule works better than making exceptions to it.

One way that something works to correct this problem is to make some of their accommodations available to other kids who would like to try them. The kid who has a documented need for accommodations probably isn’t the only one who would benefit from them.

And even aside from that, it’s good for kids to explore the world and experiment with different ways of doing things. This is a good way to learn that difference is normal, and that doing things differently is a basic fact of life.

For instance, if one kid needs to use manipulatives for math, maybe try making manipulatives available to all the kids.

If one kid needs a large print worksheet, maybe make a few large print copies and let kids try doing it that way.

If one kid needs to chew stuff, maybe make things available for other kids to chew.

If one kid needs to use fidget toys, maybe make them available to all the kids who would like to try it.

If one kid needs to type, and you have the resources to make that available to other kids too, maybe let them try doing assignments that way. And let the kids that works better for continue to do it.

And, beyond that, it helps to get in the habit of providing different ways to do things even when there isn’t a kid who needs them as a specific accommodation.

Not in the sense of “take a walk in the disabled kid’s shoes”, this is not a disability simulation. The point shouldn’t be empathy building, and it should not be presented as being about the disabled kid. The message is “there are a lot of legitimate ways to do things, and it’s ok to experiment and figure out what works for you, even if most people don’t do it the same way as you”.

You can’t always do this, and you can’t always do this for everything. When you can, it helps, a lot.