Let’s fill our classrooms, restaurants, grocery stores, playgrounds and every other public place with all the differences in this world. Long ago people of different races wouldn’t mix, same sex couples wouldn’t go into public and people with disabilities were sometimes institutionalized in horrible conditions and weren’t educated alongside their peers. Now the argument between the sides of educating student in general education is an ongoing battle between lawyers, district staff, parents, teachers and communities.
While we wait for society to get more comfortable with differences, I think just like all of the other things we needed to get used to, that every family should not be ashamed. The best adjusted kids I have worked with have families that would bring them everywhere, make them try a bunch of different foods even if the student rejected healthy food, they would push it. The families would make their child with autism who loudly verbally stems, sit at a restaurant table and would teach them how to sit quietly. One client I had enrolled her son with autism in dance, Pilates, yoga, basketball etc. He was so used to doing off schedule things that he stopped rejecting it.
The point is, the more get our children used to being different places with different people, the better it will be for everyone in society. We can push children to get used to more situations and eventually they will get comfortable in those situations instead of rejecting them. Be safe, but be bold and start trying new things.
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