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MSGirl

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My stepdaughter is 14 and has been deaf since about 1 1/2. She wears 2 hearings aids (when they aren`t broken) and uses ASL. She`s gone to a school for the deaf for 2 years now and LOVES it. My problem is: Now she doesn`t want anything to do with "hearing" people. She won`t go skate unless her other deaf friend (she has a cochlear and speaks fairly well) is with her, she won`t go to a store unless her parents (mother, father or me) or her younger sister is with her to be there *constantly* to sign or just plain do it for her....She even got picked to go on a New York trip for a math competition (she is only one in school going) and she told her mother she didn`t want to go because "I will be the only deaf person there and they (hearing people) won`t understand me".....Her parents have done everything for her, from ordering in a restaurant to letting her get away with beating up her younger *hearing* sister..She wants to be a vet, but to do that she will have to live away from home and deal with *hearing* people on a regular basis....how do i get her to be more independant so she can do things on her own and live a *normal* life, not living with her sister (she told her younger sister that) because she doesn`t want to deal with hearing people?????
 
Before she went to the Deaf school for 2 years. I assume that she went to the mainstream school with probably no accommodations, but if she had ASL interpreters in the hearing classrooms, then that is great. But if no accommodations to get the access to what she need to understand in the hearing classrooms, that would be difficult. She is really mad at the hearing society not understanding her reputation as a Deaf person. She is right that hearing people never understand where she is coming from. Do you and many of the family members sign ASL? If her sister never sign with her, then she is or was mad at her being hearing 24/7 all the time. It could be the jealousy thing between siblings. :dunno: I went through that myself, too.

Being deaf or hard of hearing is something that we all have to go through while hearing people never understand how we suffer in the mainstream school with no accommodations. Hearing people like you and your family think that she can lipread and understand what is going on in the classrooms. Not true at all. Not with hearing aid or two hearing aids would help the deaf or hard of hearing understand by listening. That is why we are pretty bitter about it all. Some of them can make it through okay, but not great.

As for going on the trip to New York for a math competition, she need to have an interpreters to be there for her so that she will understand what the judges and other people on stage or meeting place. She wants sign language to communicate all the time or maybe half way so that she can be comfortable and not hate the hearing world so much. I hope that help you understand about our Deaf Culture here. :)
 
^^^^^^^^^^^^^
:gpost:

And now as an older adult, I don't usually go places alone where I would have to communicate with strange hearing people.

Yes my family does a lot of that talking for me.

So maybe she won't outgrow it . It is not easy.
 
My dad still orders the food for me whenever I go out with him to grab something to eat. And I'm old enough to order my own food, obviously.

Guess old habits die hard.

I was mainstreamed my entire life basically, but was still dependent on my parents although I could speak for myself. I didn't want to deal with people asking me why I sound funny. I still hate talking in the public because of that reason. It's also part of parents responsibility to make sure of their child's independence. She's still at a young age and she'll approach the phase where she will learn how to break away from her parents and start learning things on her own. Get ready for her terrible teens. :Ohno:

She'll figure it out eventually.
 
Maybe she doesn't feel safe around the hearing.

Have you spoken to her school or her teacher about this? They might have insights or ideas as how to solve this.
 
I feel this child had been "coddled & catered to" to the extent to where she feels that her family has to do all the communication for her....The reasons are her "not wanting to even go to the store unless someone is with her to sign."....The time is now to broaden her horizons, interact with both deaf & hearing.....she's a teen.
It's understandable about her wanting her deaf friend to go skating with her, still yet, if she has hearing friends that invite her, why not go? Since her family is hearing, and know ASL, why can't she teach her hearing friends ASL?...

I would not immerse my child into just "one" culture....be flexible, my boys are around hearing & deaf. It's gonna take awhile to teach her independence, since she's been used to "getting her own way".....Teach her to stand up and convey her own wishes, (since she has speech), or even writing down /pointing to....what she wants.....even when ordering food, going to the cornor store, etc.

One day, she is going to have to enter the world on her own 2 feet, at times, with her family not around to "lean" on, and not to "depend on". She's going to have to make her own "path" in life.
 
I know how you guys feel about that problem. I also wear two hearing aids just like her and I'm not afraid that I'm the only HOH kid in my school and has an FM system :)
 
Is it possible she's experienced a recent round of anti-deaf bullying that she doesn't want to talk about? Some kids are crazy cruel for no reason at all, making hearing aid feedback noises at you, silly lip-speaking faces, maybe she's had an unfortunate incident in the street? People pulling faces at the school bus, that kind of nonsense.

Or perhaps she's just gotten into Deaf studies through the Deaf school and she's asserting her rights to accommodations. Sometimes people go pretty militant when they are just discovering that they have the right to have things signed and refuse to do even those things they can do - if the law owes her an interpreter then she's not going to do all the work. Thing is, if she's going to be grown up in that way she's going to have to find interpreters from the appropriate places, not drag along unwilling family members. If she gets any disability money then she's expected to use it to pay for terps - she might be less keen to have one if she knows what it costs! If she's unhappy going to this maths thing because it will be all hearing then help her arrange interpreter services. But she probably still doesn't want to "stand out" - some places can make a real fuss over who exactly it is that is receiving interpreter services instead of just standing quietly in the corner and translating. If it's done properly nobody in the room should be able to pick out why the interpreter is even there.

But she might just want to spend some time with people who "get" her easily and she doesn't have to keep explaining things to. I spend a lot of time with other wheelchair users because every time I go somewhere else the conversation is 99% "So why are you in a wheelchair" and it's like OMG I do do other things!!

It sounds like it's gonna take more digging to get into what is going on here.
 
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