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Years ago I read this article and its simple message deeply inspired me. As a mother of kids with special needs, it touched my heart and enriched my understanding. It reminds us to not spend a lifetime mourning what might have been, and embrace the opportunity to discover and celebrate something very different, but equally wonderful. Our children are our GREATest growth gifts!
Welcome To Holland : by Emily Perl Kingsley
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I am often asked to describe the experience of raising a child with a disability - to try to help people who have not shared that unique experience to understand it, to imagine how it would feel. It's like this...
When you're going to have a baby, it's like planning a fabulous vacation trip - to Italy. You buy a bunch of guide books and make your wonderful plans. The coliseum. The Michelangelo David. The gondolas in Venice. You may learn some handy phrases in Italian. It's all very exciting.
After months of eager anticipation, the day finally arrives. You pack your bags and off you go. Several hours later, the plane lands. The stewardess comes in and says, "Welcome To Holland".
"Holland?!?" you say, "What do you mean "Holland"??? I signed up for Italy! I'm supposed to be in Italy. All my life I've dreamed of going to Italy"
But there's been a change in the flight plan. They've landed in Holland and there you must stay.
The important thing is that they haven't taken you to a horrible, disgusting, filthy place, full of pestilence, famine and disease. It's just a different place.
So you must go and buy new guide books. And you must learn a whole new language. And you will meet a whole new group of people you would never have met.
It's just a different place. It's slower-paced than Italy, less flashy than Italy. But after you've been there for a while and you catch your breath, you look around…and you begin to notice that Holland has windmills...Holland has tulips. Holland even has Rembrandts.
But everyone you know is busy coming and going from Italy...and they're all bragging about what a wonderful time they had there. And for the rest of your life, you will say "Yes that's where I was supposed to go. That's what I had planned".
And the pain of that will never, ever, ever, ever go away...because the loss of that dream is a very significant loss.
But...if you spend your life mourning the fact that you didn't get to Italy, you may never be free to enjoy the very special, the very lovely things...about Holland. |
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"When mindfulness embraces those we love, they bloom like flowers."
- Thich Nhat Hanh
INTRODUCING OUR NEW FAMILY & SCHOOL WORKSHOPS & GROUPS
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Nurtured Heart Parenting Workshops
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Social & Cognitive Skills Groups (for Child/Teen & Their Parents)
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Nurtured Heart Approach School Interventions: Teacher Workshops
(As presented by Linda in 2009-2010 at The Quebec Teacher's Convention, The Bronfman Educational Teacher's Convention, McGill Distinguished Speaker's Seminar Series, and in various schools and community centres in Montreal.)
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Nurtured Heart Classroom Implementation (Teacher & Students)
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New, effective parent / teacher method for turning around your child’s-teen’s-student’s behavior.
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Nutritious vocabulary of what to say & do when child / teen talks back & tries to "push" your buttons.
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Learn why time-out as you know it doesn’t work & what to do instead.
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Prevent power struggles BEFORE they start.
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