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Meeting a Mom at the ASDC Conference….

I went to my first American Society for Deaf Children’s Biennial Conference on June 24 – 28th.  During one of the workshops, I was seated next to a young mother.  I asked her the typical questions…Is your child Deaf?....Where do you live?...How old is your daughter?....Where does she go to school?  The last question brought tears to her eyes.  She said my daughter is 9 years old and goes to a mainstreamed school about 90 minutes from the Oklahoma School for the Deaf.  She said this was their first time on campus.  Then she said that the minute they arrived at OSD, she saw an immediate change in her daughter.  Suddenly she was happy and social….she saw her daughter “fitting in”.  With tears Mom said, “I realize now that this is the place where my daughter needs to be and go to school.”

 Like all moms and parents that face this realization, the emotions are a mixture of relief and sadness.  Relief in that they finally see the resources, peers, role models available to them and their child that they didn’t know existed.  Sadness in “How will I send my child to school everyday when we live so far away”….”How can I separate from child if he/she needs to live in the dorm?” And these were the exact questions this mom posed to me while we sat waiting for the workshop to begin. 

All of these emotions came rolling back to me.   Years ago, I was faced with the same decision.  After my first visit to the Indiana School for the Deaf, I knew immediately that my daughter had to attend this school.  I finally saw a school where she could grow up socially, have access to communication, and simply be a kid.  Yet in my joy,  I cried just like this mom did.    The decisions are not easy for parents.  Many times we have to either to move closer to the Deaf school or decide to send our child to live in the dorm.