I published a short video of Emir talking about a very cool experience in which I reached out to the school counselor with questions about the need for accommodations or support for his successful participation at the school homecoming party. I mention my joy to read the email’s reply in which the counselor tells me Emir has a very solid group of friends and they don’t feel there is a need for any additional supports as he is very well included and he can benefit from the universal supports that will be provided to all students to ensure safety.
There are a couple of comments that bring me here to talk about who’s responsibility is to make inclusion possible.
To begin with, it’s never the child’s responsibility to make people “accept” him or her. If we begin this path with the wrong idea that’s that inclusion is the seek for acceptance, we are most probably going to fall for the desperate need to build a “perfect child” who needs to prove his value repeatedly to be seen as worth it by external approval. That’s not inclusion at all.
- Inclusion is the deep understanding of ourselves, which involves self-awareness, to present ourselves to the world in our strengths and weaknesses without a need for approval but a clear focus on reclaiming our right to be and exist being who we are.
- The path to inclusion is knowing with no doubt that you have the right to belong and for that, you don’t need to exist to please others but to build yourself and as a result, interact in a way in which you respect people’s differences as you celebrate your own.
NEVER EVER a child needs to be cute, nice, angelical, perfectly behaved, inspiring, or out of the ordinary to access inclusion. All that a person needs to be included is to exist. Inclusion is the most organic circumstance of human existence. Segregation is a societal construction that is unnatural and charged with prejudices.
When I celebrate things like this one, I am not celebrating others or idealizing them for being “nice” to my kids. That would mean to me that in my heart I feel inclusion depends on others’ approval of the existence of my children, or on others’ compassion for them to feel good enough. And that’s clearly not the case. My kids are already enough. My fight for inclusion is not to assign value to my children based on others’ perceptions but to strengthen their value through their right to belong with their own abilities and possibilities.
Inclusion is a shared responsibility.
- It’s my responsibility as a parent to pave the path with accepting and celebrating my children in their strengths and weaknesses while recognizing that my goal is not to change them but to maximize them. I build them at home and present them to the world with a deep understanding of whom they are as a whole, and that includes their diagnosis, their humanity, and their personality. Their commonalities and their individualities.
- Inclusion is the responsibility as well of the professionals that work with my children and with all the children that attend the educational center. Their responsibility is to provide the right resources and supports, and as well, to lead the path of natural inclusion while supporting it naturally and by example.
- Inclusion is society’s responsibility, starting with our political leaders and trickling down to all layers in a systemic and efficient way that allows diversity awareness to be embedded as a part of our human rights. So instead of creating isolated events to talk about inclusion for some, we can live under the light of understanding that inclusion is a right for all that promotes diversity not only for those with disabilities but for everyone else who doesn’t fit the mold and still have a human right to exist, be respected and exercise their inherent right to belong.
So let me repeat it again to conclude, INCLUSION IS NEVER EVER the responsibility of the child. And we should never ever raise a child who is always in desperate seek of the approval or blessing of others, but a child who is confident, self-aware, and emotionally smart to understand that inclusion is not the glory to be excluded under prejudices or idealization but to be acknowledged as a human being with strengths and weaknesses like the rest.
