Children with SEN (Special Educational Needs) do not need your compassion, they need your respect. These children need others to understand them and give them their love and respect as the people they are, but they absolutely do not need compassion for anything or anyone. Do you like to be treated with compassion or respect? Well, the same for them.
Even with good intentions
It is true that compassion usually has good intentions, but in this case what it does is stigmatize and devalue the person in question. A person who realizes that others look at him with compassion may feel that he has something wrong. Can you imagine that you have a deformity and that they look at you with compassion?
A child together with his family go through many complicated situations and it will be less distressing if they see social support around him of quality and not looks of pity. They need to feel supported and understood all the time. Empathy and respect are essential for children and families who live with SEN on a daily basis.
Disability
Disability does not define people , what defines them is their ability to face life and be able to overcome daily obstacles. All parents want things to go well and for their children to develop in “normal” conditions and without health problems… but this is not always the case, and some families may experience complicated situations.
The SEN in children can appear due to endless factors, but each family is a world. Whatever the reason, the diagnosis can be difficult to assume because it causes an emotional impact that is not always known how to manage correctly. Motherhood will be different (not better or worse, just different). It is necessary to be understood and obtain all the necessary information to be able to face SEN in the best possible way.
Once the diagnosis is assumed Parents will look for ways to help their child in their development, so that they have a good evolution within their abilities and promoting all those skills that, although difficult to acquire, are not always impossible. With effort and dedication, a child with SEN can make great progress… always keeping in mind that we are the ones who have to adapt to them and not the other way around.
They need respect and affection
What a child with SEN needs is respect and affection from his family but also from the environment and from society in general. They are the champions of the daily fight and they almost always do it with the best of their smiles. Parents can have intense and ambivalent feelings, so much so that sometimes they even cringe… but everyone needs positivity to be able to move forward each day in the best possible way.
Children with NEE give everything without expecting anything in return, they are grateful and very affectionate. His way of seeing the world is undoubtedly one of the great lessons that all of society must learn; gratitude for life and for everything you have today, without thinking so much about the past and without taking your eyes off tomorrow.
Adapting to the environment
Social integration is essential for these children with more or less difficulties in adapting to the environment. It is necessary that people do not have compassion and yes that they offer their help from you to you, with respect and with affection. Hurtful comments of the type: “what a pity that you have had to live through this”, are totally inappropriate. Any person with this type of thought, it is better that he is away from the family and the child with SEN since the last thing they need is to feel that they make others feel sorry for them.
Fortunately, the vast majority of people are good, educated and respect children and people with SEN. They are able to talk about these issues naturally and know how to help when their help is needed. Social integration has a long way to go but it can be done correctly if we are able to really understand SEN… Betting on the minor’s happiness, respecting him and helping him improve his abilities.