marauders4evr:

marauders4evr:

This Hurts Me More Than It Hurts You:

A Summer Project

Attention any and all people with disabilities,

I really want to do a small project this summer. I would use a nifty website (courtesy of one of my Education professors) which allows people to post sticky notes on a virtual wall.

About what, you may ask?

Messages from people with disabilities to parents of people with disabilities. Because I know from personal experience that there is a huge disconnect there. And the optimist in me is saying that if we can bring light to some of these problems, maybe future parents can be a bit better.

I want to call it ‘This Hurts Me More Than It Hurts You’ which admittedly is a mouthful but I think it establishes the theme of the project. Most parents say this to their disabled children, not realizing how wrong and harmful it is.

What would this project look like?

If all goes well, it will look like an online corkboard filled with dozens of ‘sticky notes’. Each sticky note would be posted by us, people with disabilities, who want parents of children with disabilities to know something. I’m looking into making it anonymous. Each sticky note should only be a sentence or two. It should just present the basis of what you want to say. Some examples that I’ve thought of include:

• It does not hurt you more than it hurts me

• Your children are going to know that they’re different.

• You are not a hero for having a disabled child.

• It’s not your child’s fault.

• For the love of everything that is good and holy, do not ever use the word ‘differently-abled’.

• Seriously your child is going to figure out very quickly that they’re different, don’t try to pretend otherwise.

• Don’t be your child’s bullly.

• Don’t bully people on behalf of your child.

• Listen to your child.

They can be vague advice, they can be something that you want to say to your own parent (and can do so anonymously), they can be positive, they can be negative, they must be clean, I will be monitoring them.

Again, this would be from people with disabilities to parents of people with disabilities. 

My abled followers can participate by signal boosting the website and posting pictures of the sticky notes.

So…

Do you think this is something we do?

UPDATE!

Alright, let’s do this!

https://padlet.com/rako9685/thishurtsmemorethanithurtsyou

SIGNAL BOOST!