Update on my daughter's education

Deborah said:
I don't know--I just honestly cannot imagine her "turning off her voice"--it seems as unnatural for her to do that as it would for a hearing person to do it. Anyway--yes, it could happen--and my hearing son could decide to take a vow of silence--but the likelihood of either thing happening is very remote. How can someone who CAN hear and CAN speak and DOES live in a world where they talk to everyone around them--how can they give it up?
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That is the part I respectfully disagree with. My family is very active in the Deaf community and like I said, 100% of those with hearing parents grew up oral and now use ASL as their primary language. I would say 90% were mainstreamed for most of their lives and didn't find ASL until their teens or older. They CAN speak and some can hear, but they choose not to.
 
faire_jour said:
Again, I will refer back to my friend. She is very out-going, she always has been. When she was "oral" she was chatty and fun and popular (and now she is the same way in the Deaf community), she functions very well with her hearing aids and she is not genetically deaf. She turned her voice off because she wanted to. She feels that she has to struggle less if she uses ASL. She is able to understand 100% using an interpreter where as with speech-reading/listening it is more like 75%.

And for your information 95% of deaf people marry other deaf people, so it seems highly likely that your son-in-law will have a hearing loss. My friend married a Deaf man and her children turned out to be Deaf too (that is much less likely) but she cried when she found out the first child was Deaf. When I asked her why she said it was because she had never thought it was ok that she was deaf. To this day her parents can't sign more than a handful of functional signs and she has to use her voice and interpret for her husband when they are around, but whenever possible she uses a third party (ME!) to interpret and voice for her with her family.
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I respect that--if she is happy, than that is great. Maybe my daughter WILL marry someone deaf--that would be great! BUT--there are probably a LOT of oral deaf people who marry oral deaf people and continue to talk to each other. If not, that's fine, too. I will definitely love them all, no matter what. And if someone who is deaf due to illness marries someone else who is deaf due to illness, they will probably have hearing children. Things like meningitis and other illnesses that can cause deafness are not passed on through genetics. We know several people who are deaf due to meningitis--they have or likely will have hearing children. However it turns out is fine, though--it is completely her choice who to marry and how to live. I will love her and be happy for her no matter what. She and her future family will always be completely accepted and loved, however we communicate with each other! :)
 
Deborah, believe it or not, your daughter's educational experiance isn't that unusual. My experiance was pretty much the same! One thing that I honestly think that most pro oral only experts etc don't understand, is that mainstreaming is NOT some sort of glorious utopia. Like they seem to assume that everyone's got access to good suburban schools, and that everyone is a SuperDeaf, who just needs minimal accomondations. You know....its quite possible that your daughter might not even really have an actual LD.....it could just be that her teachers really weren't trained in how to teach kids like her.
Have you looked at MSSD in DC? What about St. Rita's?
Oh and it's awesome that you're realizing that high school can be horrible......I still wish that someone had told my parents that maybe a Deaf School could have been the answer to my social woes.
 
deafdyke said:
Deborah, believe it or not, your daughter's educational experiance isn't that unusual. My experiance was pretty much the same! One thing that I honestly think that most pro oral only experts etc don't understand, is that mainstreaming is NOT some sort of glorious utopia. Like they seem to assume that everyone's got access to good suburban schools, and that everyone is a SuperDeaf, who just needs minimal accomondations. You know....its quite possible that your daughter might not even really have an actual LD.....it could just be that her teachers really weren't trained in how to teach kids like her.
Have you looked at MSSD in DC? What about St. Rita's?
Oh and it's awesome that you're realizing that high school can be horrible......I still wish that someone had told my parents that maybe a Deaf School could have been the answer to my social woes.
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and I wish that my parents and the so-called "experts" in my deaf education took me seriously when I expressed an interest in trying the Deaf school when I was in middle school. I was told that I didnt need to go cuz I was too smart for those "deaf" kids.
 
Deborah said:
Whenever I read about experiences such as yours, my heart breaks. Not being accepted as a child and teen can really affect a person's self-esteem as an adult. I am sorry that you felt out of place for so long, and the fact that you now seem to feel at home where you are now is wonderful. I know I can't make life perfect for my daughter, but I sure wish I could! I want to do whatever I can to give her the best life possible. In many ways she is a very happy person--life just began throwing her some curve balls as she hit adolescence. I think all of us adults would agree--yes, being a teenager CAN be fun, but most of us would NEVER want to go back through the agonizing emotions of those years. It is a tough life stage! And building friendships--as well as entering the dating world--is REALLY important to teenagers. I just want to put my daughter in an environment that is comfortable to her--I want her to continue to grow and develop in a positive way. Thanks for your input. It is always good to see things from other people's perspectives. I hope my daughter can look back, as an adult, and see that I did everything I could to give her the best life I possible could give her! :)
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Your daughter will definitely recognize and appreciate that you really listened to her and took her seriously to what her needs are instead of you or other "experts" telling her that she is wrong or dont know what she really needs.
 
Deborah said:
Whenever I read about experiences such as yours, my heart breaks. Not being accepted as a child and teen can really affect a person's self-esteem as an adult. I am sorry that you felt out of place for so long, and the fact that you now seem to feel at home where you are now is wonderful. I know I can't make life perfect for my daughter, but I sure wish I could! I want to do whatever I can to give her the best life possible. In many ways she is a very happy person--life just began throwing her some curve balls as she hit adolescence. I think all of us adults would agree--yes, being a teenager CAN be fun, but most of us would NEVER want to go back through the agonizing emotions of those years. It is a tough life stage! And building friendships--as well as entering the dating world--is REALLY important to teenagers. I just want to put my daughter in an environment that is comfortable to her--I want her to continue to grow and develop in a positive way. Thanks for your input. It is always good to see things from other people's perspectives. I hope my daughter can look back, as an adult, and see that I did everything I could to give her the best life I possible could give her! :)
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No disrespect intended, and I'm sure that you love your daughter unconditionally and would do anything you could for her, but I doubt that life just began throwing her curveballs in adolescence. I'd say that maybe they just became big enough that they were obvious in adolescence.

I'm sure that your daughter will understand that you have done what you think is the right and most beneficial thing for her. Few deaf adults blame their parents for the decisions they have made that have had a negative impact. In fact, deaf adults are the most tolerant people I have ever met when it comes to the decisions that their parents have made. All that I know understand that it was nothing but good intent on the parent's part. They only want to make it understood that good intent doesn't always produce good results in return, and they tell the truth of their stories to prevent other parents of deaf children from getting caught up in the same trap.
 
Exactly shel!!!! I am so envious of your daughter Deborah. It's too bad there isn't a way that your daughter could take advantage of the social advantages of a Deaf program. ....Are there any other very sizable Deaf programs in middle schools near you?
 
Deborah,

I do not find your posts "rambling" but full of honest feelings and asking questions that many of us have asked as well.

As you know, every child and every family situation is different. My daughter is a 21 year old oral deaf college student who has always been mainstreamed. For her, that was the best setting. She is very outgoing, played sports and had that BFF. Interestingly, my younger hearing daughter is 15 a great student, an exceptional athlete and has many friends but what she does not have is that BFF that her sister did and that is something she wishes she had. My younger hearing daughter also lacks the self-confidence of her older deaf sister.

My deaf daughter (I hate distinguishing them that way but it makes it easier for others to follow!) has grown up around deaf adults and other deaf kids and values those relationships. We have been very close to three other families of deaf children and the kids (6 of them) have always known each other and we vacation together as well. However, out of those 6 kids, my daughter is the only one who has and who has sought out other deaf kids. It is what she prefers and they do not.

A suggestion I have is that you consider going to the AGBell Convention this June in Milwaukee. Forget the politics of AGBell and I am not a big fan of AGBell but that is not why I am suggesting the Convention. Why I am is that there are usually many kids your daughter's age at the convention. When our daughter was 13 we went to their convention after not attending them for several years and she met a lot of deaf kids her age. Over the years they kept in contact, via the internet, texting, phone and in some cases visiting each other and while she is not friendly today with all of them, she remains friendly with many of them and these contacts led to other friends as well.

Something to maybe consider as a possible source for your daughter outside of the school setting.

Good luck,
Rick
 
Deborah, that's good to hear that you are considering your daughter's feelings and thoughts. I felt like that at one point in high school where socialization just wasn't working. It was a huge school, and it was very hard to socialize there. Nobody really listened to me about wanting to be in the deaf school.

I would like to point out to make sure that the school is good academically. I think it's important that all children do not fall behind academically because of a poor school academic. Just watch out for that and that having a CI isn't a problem at the school. I know of deaf children that I have talked to that don't wear CI anymore because they were made fun of or had poor CI support.

I think it's going to be great though at the school your daughter's planning to go to since it sounds like you have both considered it well.
 
My younger hearing daughter also lacks the self-confidence of her older deaf sister.
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Have you thought about getting her in a program or group of teenagers her age that has a talent like her to help her build her confidence?

Knowing other deaf kids early on probably was one of the reasons for your daughter's outgoing personality because she realized that she was not the only one deaf.
 
ClearSky said:
Have you thought about getting her in a program or group of teenagers her age that has a talent like her to help her build her confidence?

Knowing other deaf kids early on probably was one of the reasons for your daughter's outgoing personality because she realized that she was not the only one deaf.
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ClearSky,

Thanks for your suggestions but while my younger daughter does not have the same self-confidence her older sister has, it is not really an issue. She is, as I mentioned, an exceptional athlete and plays on a travel softball team with other girls her age. She gets a lot of publicity for her athletic accomplishments and knows kids from all over as a result of playing on different teams. She is just not as outgoing as her older sister.

I agree that knowing other deaf kids from early on and knowing she was not the only deaf kid were positives that we always stressed but she is just an outgoing person, its her personality.

Appreciate your concern.
Rick
 
Rick, if I recall correctly, Deborah has done the AG Bell convention route. She's found it helpful, but not really all that great social wise. I have to say that I really do think that virtually ALL kids with disabilites need to be informed of other schooling options around jr high/middle school. Even kids without disabilites can find jr high and high school to be miserable years. That's actually ANOTHER reason why I think that most kids should grow up with a full toolbox philsophy.
Virtually all schools for a particualr disabilty, tend to offer specialized methodologies, that most mainstream schools can't really offer. If a mainstream setting doesn't work out, then they can transfer to the specialized school without a HUGE disruption to learn the specialized techniques.
 
Deborah,
Is there any deaf youth group or social club for your daughter in your present state?

Anyway, best of luck to your daughter.
 
Yes, look at cities. Some cities might have deaf teen get togethers.
 
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