Why having a drunk teenager is a good thing. Speechless Episode five

  Image description JJ and Keneth at a house party.  There are lots of teenagers with red cups 

 On this episode of Speechless.  JJ and Keneth go to a high school house party where JJ gets drunk.  His parents seem mad at him , but in reality, they are happy for him.
  I am 25 years old   living with Cerebral Palsy and  I am on medication that makes it dangerous for me to drink .  I still live at home and  I think that if  I came home from a house party drunk. My parents would be very happy.
   Why might you ask?
  I am not saying that parents of disabled kids  are more prone to encourage their kids  to try drugs and alcohol. What I am saying is that often times  parents want their kids with disabilities  to  have a social life.
   When you have a disability, more often than not  life is lonely.   My high school career consisted  of  me going to one dance -- my Senior prom.  I was not guaranteed that I would go to that.  My mother insisted that I  only go if I were escorted  by a guy that didn't have a disability.  I  ended up going with someone  who graduated the year before and was a Freshman in college .  I did not have a group of close friends that  I hung out with in high school. I was different and even though I was fully included  for all academic subjects and graduated with my high school diploma,  high school friends were nonexistent.
  I am hoping that Speechless encourages able-bodied  high school students to include peers with disabilities in their  Halloween house parties.  

 

Finding a balance: Friendships among abilities

             Friendship  is a   long word- a  wooping ten letters. For some  friendships come easy.  Two  kids   meet t
hey  like  Angry  Birds and   Mario and  Legos and  bam they  become  friends its that easy. For others  it is  really hard they  might  be shy  interverted or a little  nerdy,




  Enter a child with a pretty sigficant disabilities




           I should propise by saying that  I do have special needs and sigficant social issues and  do not have a lot  of friends, nor have I  ever had solid firendships.  I have tried   befriending those with special needs and adverage  people with some success, not much but some aquences and some  firendships past.  In  lainmans terms, I may not be the best person to  give advice here  but this is  just  my  own   oppion,  which.


     I think kids with special needs need to have a mixture of firneds.     They should have  peers  that also have disabilities  if possable  with the same dignoses.  I have seen the  special  connection that others have made   with those with disabilties. For example,   I have witnessed   two  young people with  the same disabilities as  "brothers"  even though they are not related, good luck convinceing them  though.  I have witnessed a group of young kids rally  together to support another  kid  when they  had a  meltdown and  all three kids  shared the same  disability. As for me  I do  feel a special connection to others with CP. Which is why  I  love doing the World  CP montage,  and online  I  read stuff by fellow  CPers and  I  think,  "Man  I could have   written that."   But  I do not have a close  friend   with CP   but I  think  I  would enjoy that.  In the meantime I have friends with  disablties   over the past 21 years of my life.

      I also believe  that kids with special needs need to have  average  (ie  people without disabilities ).   I  am not going to lie  I had a lot of help  from my mom and book gal  on this subject

  I  think  my mom put it best in that    interacting with different types of people allows you to  break down stereotypes of that person and  allows  people to see  that when the day is done   we are all just people.  Book gal  agrees ,her best friend is different  from her but  what makes them  best friends  is knowing that they  have each others back.  

   Another reason that  interacting among abilities is  that  those with special needs will need to interact with the general population  for the rest of their lives.  99 percent of the time   I need to  interact with the people   at the store in  restaurants and  college.    Most of these people  do not have disabilties therefore  those with disabilities need to learn how to   behave  with average people.  The social skills  I do  have I had to learn  in the world. I could not have learned them in  amongst my peers with disabilities because  some of them   are trying to learn  them  themselves.  In  first grade I had  to learn about personal space  because  when  I  got too close to my classmates  they did not like  it.

 It a nut shell  those with  special needs  need a balance of  friendships.   It is nice to be amongst people that understand what you are going through, yet   by isolating one self   people with special needs  do not get a chance to  bridge the gap  and gain the social skills needed for  success.  What are your thoughts.


  If you  know  someone with Cerebral Palsy  click here to learn more about a photo montage  that
AZ is hosting for World CP Day.








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