How to Discuss Special Needs with Young Children

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Today's question says, "Do I need to explain to other children at the kindergarten level that their classmate, my lovely daughter, has Down syndrome slash special needs, or do I just let them discover it as they grow up? She's the only one in her class who has Down syndrome."

Transcript

Note: The following is an auto-transcript of the podcast recording.

Hello friends, and welcome to another episode of the Foundation Worldview podcast where we seek to answer your questions so that you can equip the children that God has placed in your care to carefully evaluate every idea they encounter and understand the truth of the biblical worldview. I'm your host, Elizabeth Urbanowicz and I'm thrilled that you've joined me today for another episode.

Today's question says, "Do I need to explain to other children, kindergarten level, that their classmate, my lovely daughter Erin, has Down syndrome slash special needs, or do I just let them discover it as they grow up? Erin goes to a typical school. She's the only one in her class who has Down syndrome." This is a really good question for us to think through, and even though I know that the majority of listeners do not find themselves in this specific situation with having a child who has Down syndrome, we know that our children, no matter who they are, are going to encounter others who have Down syndrome or other special needs. And so thinking through from a biblical perspective, how do we help our children if they have special needs, engage with others or if they do not have special needs, engage with others with special needs and think through this from a biblical perspective. So that's what we're going to look at today.

Before we dive down deep into answering this question, would ask that you invest the few seconds that it takes to rate this content. Also, if you could share it with those within your sphere of influence, that would help us reach our goal of reaching as many Christian adults as possible so that they can get the kids in their care thinking critically and biblically. And if you have a question that you would like for me to answer on a future Foundation Worldview podcast, you could submit that by going to FoundationWorldview.com/podcast.

Now, I am going to do two things in this podcast. I am going to both give personal recommendations to the person who wrote in this question, and also just give us some general recommendations for any of us who have children with special needs or have children without special needs that are going to be interacting at some point with others who have special needs. Now, the personal advice that I give to the person who wrote in this question about your specific situation, I'm going to be sharing more my opinion, so do recommend that you take it with a grain of salt. So just wanted to give that warning upfront.

Now, I think from my working with children that it is always best for us to be honest with our children in a developmentally appropriate way, especially when we're talking about those with special needs. It's important for us to have open honest conversations with our children because we want to make sure that they understand how to treat others as image bearers of the holy God.

And this is a mistake that I made in my first few years of teaching that almost every year I had one or more students in my class who had special needs, and I never really explained to the rest my classmates that this child had special needs or why or what we were going to do as a class to love this person. I guess I was always really concerned with the child's privacy and the parent's privacy, and I didn't want to overstep any boundaries. And while I think that was a good thing to think through, I think in hindsight I really wish I had been more upfront and actually asked the parents of those children to share information with the class just so that my students would have been more kind and compassionate and intentional because I think by leaving them in the dark, I put them in a lot of situations that were really difficult for them to navigate.

So for this person who wrote in the question, I would recommend that you be honest with your daughter and with her classmates. And so being honest with your daughter, I would recommend that you be honest with her in explaining that she is different than her classmates in some of the ways and that God has allowed these differences for his glory. Okay? So being honest with your daughter that she's different than her classmates in some ways and that God has allowed these differences for his glory. An important passage of Scripture that this is rooted in is John chapter nine, verses one through three. These verses are talking about Jesus and they say "As he passed by, he saw a man born blind" I'm sorry, "he saw a man blind from birth. And his disciples asked him, "Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents that he was born blind?" Jesus answered, "it was not that this man sinned or his parents, but that the works of God might be displayed in him." So from this passage, we see that when God allows disabilities in us and in our children, these disabilities are for the purpose of his works, his glory being displayed. Now, in this particular situation, the purpose was that everyone would see this man being healed. Now, a lot of times we do not see healings from physical disabilities or special needs, but we can trust that God is working things together for the good of us and our children by using those things to conform us more into the image of His Son. So we want to be honest with our children if they have some special needs. That those special needs, God has allowed this for his glory. That he ultimately is going to use this for our child's good and for his glory.

Now, thinking about a five-year-old and how to say this to a five-year-old, it's not that you need to have a long serious drawn out conversation, but you can just have a conversation one night as you're tucking her into bed and saying, you know what? With the way that God designed you, God designed you a little bit different than some of your classmates. But you know what? We know that all that God does is good and that all that God allows is for our good. So even when you're different, we know that this is for your good and so that people can see God. And you can read this passage of Scripture to her. Also recommend that you be honest with her classmates. And so what you can do there is you can explain some of the ways in which she was different, some of the ways in which she might respond differently than they would in different situations, and then you can walk them through how they can respond to her in a loving way and explain that you or her teacher would be happy to answer any questions that they have.

Now in kindergarten, kids' social awareness is not very high, so they're not going to recognize a whole ton of the differences between your daughter and themselves. But just starting this conversation in kindergarten can be helpful in just saying, Erin's going to be a little bit different than some of you. And if you feel frustrated, you can just still be patient with her. And if you have questions, you can ask your teacher or you can ask me. Then as she goes on up through the grade levels, especially around the third grade year where kids do start to be more socially aware, that's where you can give some more details and you can explain ways in which they can respond to her if she's responding to things a little bit different than they might.

This is something that I actually did with my students. One of my final years of teaching, I had a sweet little girl in my classroom who just had a host of special needs and in my classroom I had never really addressed with my students her special needs, what they were and what my students should do. However, things were getting pretty tense towards the middle of the year just because it was just becoming so obvious at the age of nine that this child responded differently than most of the rest of my students. And so I just reached out to the mom of this child and just said, is it okay if I explain to my kids some of the things that are different? And this was when the girl was not in the classroom just because of who this girl was. I felt it would be best if I explained these things when she was not present. And I said, is it okay if I explain some of the things that make her a little bit different? And then talk to my kids about how God is ultimately going to use these things for his glory and then specifically talk through some of the ways that they can respond to her. And so I had this conversation with my students. We just circled up on the rug one day when she wasn't there. And I just said, some of you have probably noticed that the way that this student responds is different than the way that most of us would respond. And just talk them through how God has designed this little girl differently. And so there's going to be some things that she struggles with. And then we talk through what are some things that we can do, and we talked about how all humans are created in God's image with inherent dignity, value, and worth. And then we talk through, okay, so when this student is responding in a way that most students wouldn't respond, what are some things that we can do to show that she's an image bearer of the holy God? And we talked about being extra patient and extra kind. We talked about ways to respond, and that completely changed the way my class interacted with her. Now, did it make all of the interactions positive? No, but it made them much more positive than they had been before.

And so just as your daughter continues to grow, be honest with her about how God has designed her and be honest with others. And so for those of you watching and listening who are not in a situation where you have a child with special needs, but your child is going to interact with other children with special needs, this is an opportunity for you to talk through with them what are the special needs this child has and what are some of the ways that you can interact with them in a way that shows that they're an image bearer of the holy God?

I know that my mom did this with me when I was in, I believe I was in fifth grade, that there was a boy in my classroom who transferred to our school and he had autism, and he was really far down on the spectrum. He actually had an aide that traveled around with him. And so my mom had been a special education teacher. And so my mom sat down with me one day and she just explained to me some of the ways that this boy was probably going to respond differently, and then some of the ways that I could respond to him in love and actually be his friend. And so this boy and I were actually friends throughout the rest of elementary and middle school, and I was so grateful that my mom had intentionally talked with me about this because if she hadn't, I would not have known some of the best ways to respond.

So one thing that I want to just caution here for both the parent who wrote in this question, and then for everyone else, whether you have a child with special needs or not, that we need to make sure that we are presenting things to our children biblically.

Now, I'm so grateful that we live in a world where a biblical view of humans who have special needs is more rising to the surface. It was just a few days ago I saw a commercial, and I think it was a commercial for Airbnb, and they had someone on the commercial who was in a wheelchair. And I was like, man, I'm so grateful to be alive at a time where people who have special needs are better represented just in our media and in commercials and things like that, because all humans bear the image of God. And I'm so grateful that we live in a place where humans who have special needs are viewed as having inherent dignity, value, and worth. That is such a good thing. But one of the things we need to be careful of is not taking things so far to the extreme and presenting different things that are effects of the fall as inherently good.

Several months ago now, I saw a YouTube video and it was by a person who was blind. And the person was saying on there, they were like, my blindness is beautiful. My blindness is the best thing that has happened to me. Like my blindness is not something that was bad. And now, while viewing a disability like blindness through the lens of things to be grateful for that is distinctly biblical to view anything that we struggle with or that we suffer with as something that we can be grateful for because of how it points us towards God, because of how we know God will use it to bring him glory, that is distinctly biblical. However, viewing things like blindness that are the effects of the fall as inherently good in and of themselves does not align with the biblical worldview.

Now, in that passage that I read to us before from John, Jesus didn't say that the blindness that man experienced was good. What he said was that the man was born blind so that God's power might be displayed. So we need to be careful when we're talking with our children that we're not saying about any disability that this is an inherently good because when Jesus comes back and he makes heaven and earth new, and we receive resurrected bodies and live with him forever in the new heaven and the new earth, none of the physical disabilities that we currently have will exist in the new heaven and the new Earth. There won't be blindness anymore. There won't be deafness anymore. There won't be down syndrome. There won't be paralysis. There won't be multiple sclerosis. There won't be heart disease. There won't be cancer. There won't be any of these things that physically affect our bodies, that we will have resurrected bodies that will be completely healed and completely whole. So we need to be careful that we're not going to an unbiblical extreme of saying, oh, this special need is something that is inherently good. We need to differentiate between, okay, this actually is a result of the fall. It's a result of the cursing of the ground. However, God is in the business of redemption. So while this blindness or this paralysis or this down syndrome or whatever it is, is not in and of itself inherently good, it's an effect of the fall. God can redeem it and use it for his glory and our good.

As I was writing these sections of my notes for this podcast, I was actually thinking about my sister-in-law's uncle. My sister-in-law has an uncle who has Down syndrome, and her uncle is one of the most joyful people that I have ever met in my entire life. And he blesses so many people because of his joy. I know that there have been times where he's been at restaurants and the server has brought the food and he has stood up and he said, great job buddy. And given the server a hug, and the servers just burst into tears because they had a really bad day and they just needed this love and attention, that someone without Down Syndrome might not have been forward enough to stand up and to give them a hug. And so I know that my sister-in-law's uncle because of his Down syndrome, he has blessed so many people. So is his down syndrome in and of itself inherently good? No. That Down syndrome is the result of living on a cursed ground, the fallen earth. However, God who is in the business of redemption has redeemed that Down syndrome and has used it to bless so many people.

So we just want to be careful that when we're presenting our kids with the concept of a special need or a disability, that we are not presenting that special need or that disability as inherently good, that it is in effect of the fall, but our God is in the business of redemption, and he will redeem that special need or that disability for our good and for His glory.

So for the person who wrote in this question, the specific advice that I gave you about how to talk to your daughter about how to talk to her class, that is my personal opinion. So I would recommend that you take that advice with the grain of salt, that you really include others who are in your local church, who know you and your daughter well, who even know the school that she goes to, that you involve them in this process and seek out their counsel. And then for all of us watching and listening, that we would have this paradigm in our mind that we would equip our children to understand how they can love every image bearer well, whether that image bearer is someone who has a special need or not. And then as we are presenting our children with the concept of a special need, that we're not taking it to an unbiblical extreme of presenting some kind of disability as inherently good, but presenting it as an effect of the fall, which our God who is in the business of redemption can redeem and use for our good in his glory.

Well, that's a wrap for this episode. But as always, my prayer for you as we leave this time together is that no matter the situation in which you and the children God has placed in your care, find yourselves that you would trust that God is working all things together for your good by using all things to conform into the image of His Son. I'll see you next time.