Re: Deaf for a day

Now there's something that could be both theraputic for disabled people and educational for the children too - visits by schoolchildren.

Where I work, at Christmas the local school send a junior choir to sing Carols for the residents and everybody loves it.

Before and after the children meet the residents, talk to them and listen too - but the questions!

Adults always skirt around asking what they think are impolite questions but children - they don't pull any punches and ask things like "Why can't you sit up in your wheel chair?" to one of our palsy residents or "Why do you have to use that typewriter-thing to talk?" to another.

The effect on the residents is, to me, obvious; they don't have a lot to smile about, stuck in wheelchairs or bedridden much of the time, unable to do what most people don't even think about but after the kids have gone there's smiles all round for hours.

I've often wondered if it makes a difference to the kids too.

Two of my granddaughters want to work as teachers, one with the disabled in particular, and that came about from a school visit and she made the decision about what she wanted to do from that! stevmk2

Re: Deaf for a day

That's great Steve, wish it could happen more might make people think when they are older if they have met disabled people when they are children.