Hello my dears! You probably already know by now that April is the month dedicated to raise awareness about Autism. Many lovely nail bloggers have dedicated gorgeous blue manicures to this cause, and that's such a great gesture.
I don't have anyone in my family or close friends with Autism. So I can only speak for what I read and what I want to say is: the life quality of most autistic individuals could be so much higher with a little UNDERSTANDING and ACCEPTANCE!!!!!!
I'm not talking about pity, not about compassion, just UNDERSTANDING. For me is very important to say this. May be your own child is bullying on an autistic person right now and you don't even know about it. You may read some info on wikipedia here, or get some extra info on the Autism speaks site over here. But you'll never get the whole picture. I invite you to skip a mani, and save those 20 minutes for reading Kimber's daughter story here, and to be AWARE of what WE are doing to these kids and families.
So, this takes time. The time you take to read and UNDERSTAND a little what Autism is about is the best donation you can do to this cause. Take the time to talk to your children about it. Take the time to be a little HUMAN about it. That's all it takes to raise awareness.
Thanks for your precious time!!!!!!!
Love,
Nati
Yo tenia un estudiante con Autismo, y no es facil
ReplyDeletetenerlo en una clase donde el resto no lo tiene.
ya que hay que dedicarle mas tiempo a esta persona. Mientras el resto ya esta liso para seguir en la siguiente etapa. Son muy cariñosos pero hay que cuidarlos mucho. Ya que también tuvo burlas de sus compañeros y otros alumnos del instituto, trate de protegerle cuando estaba cerca y hablar con otros alumnos del respeto. No entiende cuando le hablan mal y era difícil poder ayudarle ya que no todo el tiempo estaba con su clase.
Ha debido ser muy difícil tu experiencia! En verdad coincido contigo que lo más importante es educar en el respeto de las diferencias!
DeleteSalut Nati, this is such a wonderful and touching post. You are right about EVERYTHING you wrote!!! Awareness Days are for people like you and me who are not touched by a particular condition but have maybe an affected person, be it personal or be it a relative, friend, etc, and are oblivious to their daily obstacles. My sister fostered a child with Down Syndrome and we all experienced the intolerance and snide comments in our environment every so often, not to mention the good-doers who were always full of advice and clue-less about the condition itself! Am I bitter for this? No, most certainly not, just adamant about raising awareness and knowledge - take care - Bisous xxx
ReplyDeleteOooops I hope you understand what I meant when I said "people like you and me" - I mean we normally would not necessarily think or read about a certain topic unless we are encouraged by an Awareness Day :-)
ReplyDeleteMy dear Christine, you're perfectly right!!! That's what I meant! I meant to address people like you and me, specially because people affected by autism and their families suffer from hostile environment often created by people who don't understand what it is about, like you said they're clue-less. Best way to make the world a little better is understand each other, and understanding the differences lead us to acceptance.
DeleteWe all have so much to learn, and I'm glad today I learnt a bit more about autism.
Very cool that you are highlighting this issue on your blog! I know very little about autism, and I think I am not alone int that. Not knowing enough about this disease makes it easy to judge and to make wrong assumptions, and that is bad. So yes, a little more awareness is definitely a good thing!
ReplyDeleteHi Melissa, thanks for your comment! You're not the only one indeed, I'm one to know very little too, but it seems that cases of autism increase statistically, so I agree it's important to know a little more about it.
DeleteI knew very little about Autism before my 4 yr old niece was diagnosed with it. People really need to understand what it is!!
ReplyDeleteI read your post Vicky, and I think you're right. Most of us just generalizes and make assumptions about a condition, but we rarely try to understand. If there was a little more info, specially to the people/children that share everyday life with autistic persons I guess there might be more respect and less discrimination against it.
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