Lent #7

Boxes

Every week I have to explain to a parent that their child has a disability. I never take this aspect of my job lightly and ensure that I have assessed the child to the best of my professional abilities. As one could imagine, parents’ reactions vary widely. Some appear unaffected while others are thoroughly nonplussed and still others are completely distressed. Whatever their reactions, I make it a point to be hopeful for remediation and clearly state that our goal in therapy is to make their child better; in essence to help in the healing process.

Then comes the paperwork, with the boxes that need to be checked. “Child has a disability that causes them to be maladjusted”? Check. “Team has ruled out potential stigmatization that services for this disability may cause?” Check. I know these forms well and have committed them memory to the extent that I don’t even need to look at them to run a meeting. Yet, I always take these boxes seriously. “Is the child really maladjusted?” I ask myself. Or, “Could he/she be stigmatized by this label?” Generally, at this point in the process parents and teachers are more concerned with getting the student help then potential social/emotional ramifications of labels.  

Most children improve with what I believe to be a mix of development and intervention and eventually it is time to cut the therapy apron strings and declare that the child is no longer impaired. These dismissal discussions are always dicey. It often appears that parents and teachers are reluctant to believe that a student has improved and is not disabled anymore. There is an overriding fear in these meetings. Trepidation over whether or not the child will fall back into their previous communication behaviors, worry that minimal speech errors remain, can cause caregivers to unwittingly seek to keep the label and the services going. They are often desperate to keep those boxes checked.

There is perceived safety in boxes. Marking on clinical paperwork to categorize people or mentally placing those you know into trite classifications, helps to keep one’s environment predicable and, “safe.” The problem is the boxes are neither wide enough nor deep enough to contain anyone and all too often the boxes never get unchecked. Often times the worst offenders are the, “helpers” themselves who either project their own difficulties, are unsure of their clinical judgment or unconsciously want to keep their client in the “disordered” box.

I see kids in high school who have been receiving speech services since preschool and they seem dejected with an attitude of helplessness. As if no one ever told them they can get better or that wholeness is possible even with an impairment. The same holds true for those who have sustained trauma or hardship in their lives. It is so much easier to place a check next to “broken” when viewing others.

My clinical training taught me to spot pathologies. My years of experience have allowed me to view each client as a whole person. My spirituality has given me the chance to look deeper and to start unchecking those boxes. I am starting to think that this is what resurrection is really about.