Attention Parents: A Valentine’s Lesson for Kids
I just read this touching, inspiring love story by Lynn Harris in my March Glamour. About a couple who found love despite their autism, it’s the stuff sappy Valentine’s posts are made of, but that’s not what this is.
Blissful love stories (and Hallmark commercials) have the power to make me weep, but this story induced tears of sadness and a bit of rage. It was this section exploring the difficulty one of them faced growing up:
Even as Lindsey’s speech caught up and her talent for playing piano emerged, she developed habits typical of autistics: staring for hours at the fibers of a carpet, for example, or performing soothing rituals like stepping on cracks in the sidewalk. Classmates teased her mercilessly, and she’d come home with kick me signs on her back. Real friendship seemed painfully out of reach for the eccentric, awkward girl who came across as blunt. In high school, when another student asked Lindsey what she thought of her new makeup, Lindsey recalls, “I told her it looked fake. She became silent, and I knew I had blown it.” Depressed, Lindsey burned herself with a curling iron and cut her arms with safety pins, hiding her injuries with sweatshirts.
I don’t have kids, but I imagine there’s a tendency to think my child would never treat another child badly. But kids can be mean – likely because they don’t know better or because they themselves want to fit in and going along with the crowd seems the easiest route.
Please parents, teach your children kindness, humility and most importantly – empathy. Different isn’t wrong, and everyone needs love and support, particularly people – like Lindsey – for whom life is challenging enough. And it has occurred to me that maybe this is a fitting Valentine’s post … use this day that celebrates love as an excuse to have a conversation with your kids about compassion.