Interesting Dialogue about Advocacy

[Gena]

One of the blogs I follow is The Thinking Person's Guide to Autism (TPGA). For the past 2 weeks, they have been hosting a dialogue between parent-advocates (parents of children with disabilities) and self-advocates (adults with disabilities). Although these two groups have a lot of goals in common, their different perspectives and philosophies sometimes put them at odds. This dialogue is an attempt to reach a better understanding.

Although the dialogue is hosted on an autism-based site and many of the participants are part of or connected to the autism community, the issues raised are related to many different disabilites.

Over the past couple of years, I have realized that I am not just raising a child with disabilities, but I am raising a child who will one day be an adult with disabilities. I wonder how he will look back on his childhood and what will he think about the things we have done in our attempts to help him. So it has been increasingly important to me to understand the day-to-day lives and the point of view of adults with disabilities. So I find this dialogue very thought-provoking and other parents may as well.

You can read the entire series here: http://thinkingautismguide.blogspot....label/dialogue
(The most recent entry is first, so scroll to the end/older posts to read from the beginning.)

[melrose7]

Thanks. I'll check it out.

[Uno-Mom]

Over the past couple of years, I have realized that I am not just raising a child with disabilities, but I am raising a child who will one day be an adult with disabilities.

Gena- that's an amazing insight. I've often wanted to put that thought into words for people, but for some reason the right words escaped me. Thanks for that. Some time soon when I'm not frazzled from work, I will eagerly check out those links.