Thanks for your insight, Daredevel. I might suggest that their awardness came from being left out of so much in a group that didn't sign. Do you think ifyou had been exposed on a more regular basis...say several times a week or daily...to other deaf kids, you would have been as uncomfortable? I know hindsight is 20/20, but these are the kind of discussions that actually have the potential to open things up and allow us all to make some progress.
Since we are being honest, I will admit, too, that when I first came in contact with the deaf community, and for some time afterward, I was uncomfortable, as well. I had never been around deaf people until my son was born. I didn't want to offend, and I wasn't fluent in ASL yet. I would walk away from every meeting exhausted! It finally dawned on me that they were probably as uncomfortable as I was, and walked away from our meetings just as exhausted because until communication became more natural, it was exhausting for all of us!
