Zoom Autism Magazine Issue 3 Spring 2015 | Page 14
“Parents who want an inclusive life for their children,
parents and true allies who believe every person has
the right to experience life at its fullest, the way each
one of us can, need to be informed and educated.”
Parents who want an inclusive life for their children, parents and true allies who believe every
person has the right to experience life at its fullest, the way each one of us can, need to be informed and educated. Parents should be learning
about the history of the Disability Rights Movement; facts are important if you want to fight
for either your child’s or another adult’s rights.
History will tell you what to fight for without
wasting all the energy you have. It will also help
you educate others about the value of the lives of
disabled people.
The best way parents can educate themselves
is by seeking information from other disabled
people. Our lives are full of happiness, sadness,
ups, downs, struggles and accomplishments, just
like any other person’s life. Many of us have been
through events that you would not want your
children to go through, or we have learned how
to be proud of whom we are and how to deal
with sometimes real debilitating issues. We can
Amy Sequenzia is a passionate autistic
activist, writer and poet. For more of Amy’s
writing, follow her blog Non-Speaking Autistic
Speaking. You can also find Amy on Autism
Women’s Network and Ollibean and follow
Amy on Twitter at @AmySequenzia.
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Zoom Autism Through Many Lenses
help you by sharing our experiences. Your child
is part of our tribe, and we want him to succeed.
Seeking members of the disability tribe is free
and will teach you that hope is not something to
long for with pain and pessimism but a certainty
that only requires respect for the human being
each disabled person is.
Disability is not a tragedy, but it is complicated
sometimes. Involvement will forever be part of
your life. When we educate ourselves, we learn
to value every achievement and every person.
Changing attitudes toward disabled people is an
act of activism that begins with respect, information from the ones who are the only true experts,
and education. This change in attitude is for your
child, for the person you love, for all of us, and it
can start with you.
(The above is edited and shared with permission from
Amy’s original post that appeared on the Ollibean
Website on October 7, 2014.)
Do you have an informative story about what it is like
to be YOU, an autistic person, that you would like to
share? Send your 800 word or less first-person essay
to [email protected] with “Zoom-IN” in the
subject line for consideration.