Why Kids Need to Know How to Respond to Differences

When we bring a child into the world, one of our hopes is that our child will be accepted and valued by others.

Unfortunately, if a child is different or has a disability they will most likely be treat differently to other kids. It’s not right, yet it often happens generally because of lack of education and a lack of role models to show kids how to treat people who are different to themselves.

One of the greatest lies we could ever believe is that people who look different should be treat differently. They should be gawked at.

Why do we always judge on what we see?

Stacey Gagnon shared a moving Facebook post about an experience with her son.

The family had decided to attend a new church and Stacey took her children to the kids church and her son was humiliated after all the kids in the room stared at her son as he walked into the room.

Image via Huffpost, Stacey Gagnon

Stacey’s son does look different because he was born with craniofacial impairment and is missing an ear.

Yet his outside appearance should not have warranted the mouths wide open stares he received as he entered the room.

Here is Stacey’s full post of what happened.

Today hurt. We went to a new church because our oldest son was speaking about his camp experience. The church dismissed for children’s church and I walked my three youngest back to the meeting room for children. As we walked in the room, there were four tables set up filled with kids. The minute we walked inside, the room became silent and every child stared or pointed at my son, Joel. Joel was born with a cranio-facial impairment. He is missing an ear and some bone structure. I know he looks different, but today hurt.

I stood at the door and watched every child look with eyes wide and mouths open at my child. I stepped in and was about to address the entire class about differences; but then I stopped. I stopped and looked to the back of the room where my son had fled to hide. He had buried his head in his arms because you cannot hide in plain sight. My heart sank and the room remained silent as I walked back to Joel. I touched his shoulder and he raised eyes shiny with tears and a face red with shame. I knelt down and asked, “do you want to leave?” “Yes”, he whispered, and he stood and ran from the room.

I held him in my arms during church and he drew ‘Joel loves Mom’ on my palm. Tears welled in my throat. My beautiful and loving son deserves so much more than stares and pointing. And I thought about what I didn’t do in that room today. In the past, I have always stepped into the role of teacher to educate kids. This has happened before, and I would step in and talk about differences, but today I did not. Today, I did not teach someone else’s kid because I was too busy holding my broken-hearted son.

So I ask all parents this, teach your children. Teach your children that many people look different. Show them pictures of people that look different. And then explain that it is not okay to stare at someone that looks different, it’s not okay to point. Teach them that my boy is the same on the inside as your child is. He loves Dodge Ram trucks, and Minecraft, and digging in the dirt. He loves ketchup, but does not love broccoli. And mostly, he does not like people staring or pointing out that he looks different. I don’t think he needs this pointed out, it’s something he lives with everyday.

I am not angry. I do not think these were bad, mean children. I think no one has ever taught them. And so this post is asking you to take a moment tonight and talk about what to do when you see someone that looks different. Show them pictures of people with different colored skin, different eyes, different abilities to talk, walkers to walk, wheelchairs to roll. Show them children with no hair, without an ear, without an arm. Take a moment and share all kinds of different. Now teach your child that a beautiful person is found with the heart; not the eyes.

The post was shared over 14,000 times and received a lot of support with many mums saying thank you for writing this as their child had encountered a similar experience.

Gagnon told HuffPost her post is “really about bridging an understanding and helping parents understand how to teach their child about kids like Joel,” she said.

“Children stare, but that doesn’t mean that it’s okay. Teaching empathy is not a curriculum; it’s a way of life,” she explains. “I must share with my children about others and what they might be feeling. I have to teach them to value others, especially those that are different. That value is found from the inside, not the outside.”