Aspies For Freedom

apparenlty in the us, there was a situation where a child who survied brain cancer struck out to end a little league game, and people are now villifying the opposing coach for walking the guy before him (the team's best player) to get to the cancer surivior, who isn't as good as him.

the general view of the public is that he has overcome cancer and that he should be treated as a less than capable child and be given all smthyapy and should not fail ever, simular to the jason mcelawn story, as he was treated like he should be given symathy always like their lives are always a tradegy and that if he fails, someone is a bad guy becuase they werne't human to see if they overcome so much and not give them any more pain.

i agree with the coach here.  it's nice he surived cancer, but he's a human being, the general public just medicalizes people who have cancer as that is the only thing about them, sort of how autistics are medicalized in many aspects as just a condtion instead of a human being.

thoughts?

I'm with you.  It's like being embarrassed to say "walk" in front of people in wheelchairs.  Just silly.

I think there's a level of condescention in it as well.  Well, why shouldn't he be able to take it?  Is he suddenly not good enough to be exposed to the full range of human experience?  Should we lock him away so his imperfection does not become contagious?  

After all he's been through, he's not going to be so fragile as people want to treat him.  In fact it's probably very upsetting that people want to make such an enormous deal out of it.

The kid deserves to get a fair shake--and if he makes it through fine with a fair shake, then he's all the better than the rest of us.  Perhaps there isn't just an element of mindless sympathy here.  Perhaps there is fear as well.  Consider, if "cancer kid" is able to hit it out of the park without being thrown meatballs, what does that say about all the "normal" kids who don't?  The boy deserved some good, hard-to-hit pitches.  If he struck out, he struck out fairly and honestly, no worse than all the "normal" kids who struck out.

I think it sends the wrong message to the child, when too many adults swing to his side.  I wonder if he was unusually upset?  If he wasn't, wouldn't everyone have been silent?

Anyway, I've noticed with my kids that when I make a fuss over something, they don't get over it.  When I don't fuss, they usually do get over it (if they are having a difficult time despite my not fussing, we'll sit down and work through it together, but I won't usually give them the pity speech).  Life includes disappointments.  All children have to learn to accept that.

All that said, my son had the best softball coach ever.  My son still figured out it wasn't the sport for him, but it wasn't due to any lack of patience, understanding, or fantastic coaching.  He wasn't babied, just understood.

Children look to adults for meaning.  If adults make a big deal, children decide that something is supposed to be a big deal.