Whatever your additional needs related role… be kind

Many of us have a link to the additional needs world; in some cases (mine included), we wear multiple ‘hats’.

Maybe you are reading this as a parent, carer, or guardian of a child (of any age) with additional needs; maybe you are in the health, social care, or education system; maybe you support a child with additional needs in a club, uniformed organisation, or church; or maybe you have additional needs yourself.

Whatever your connection (or multiple connections) with the additional needs world, you will, I am sure, have come across conflict, harshness, unkindness, lack of understanding, and other forms of negativity. It is sadly all too common in this area, and can lead to stress, anxiety, anger, and more.

I feel myself challenged, though, to think about this some more; to ponder on some of the reasons for this negativity, and to think about whether we could, above all, show kindness to each other.

My Bible App verse this morning was from Romans 12:10, which in the New International Readers Version (NIrV) says ‘Love one another deeply. Honour others more than yourselves.’ I’m sure that for many of us that is not always easy, but maybe taking a step back and considering others might help us to honour and love each other better.

Maybe you are a parent, carer, or guardian of a child with additional needs, and you are angry because of the lack of support your child is getting. You may have had to take your local authority to court to demand the funding necessary and have met brick wall after brick wall.

It is unlikely that local authority staff go into their role to deny children with additional needs the support they urgently need; sadly, the severe lack of funding that most local authorities face requires them to make unbelievably hard decisions, making almost impossible choices about where to use the limited funds that they have.

It must harden the hearts of all of those that have to make these decisions, how else could they cope?

We might disagree with the system, the way it is stacked against families, and still need to push back, but could we still show kindness to those forced to make these tough choices and to communicate them to us?

Perhaps we could… perhaps it would help to soften hard hearts and make a difference. Perhaps it could help us to start to build alliances instead of anger.

Maybe you are in education, and you feel unsupported by some parents of children you teach; they don’t seem to want to engage with you about their child, or to work with you to put strategies in place to support their child.

Maybe that parent is exhausted, barely able to function, and they don’t have the mental or emotional capacity for what they perceive to be another difficult conversation with you at school.

They think it’s going to be yet another negative conversation about their child, and they run away from it. Could we show kindness by offering to meet them for a coffee on ‘neutral ground’? Could we share with them some affirming things about their child and not just the challenging issues? Could we acknowledge that we realise things are really tough and ask them how school can help? Perhaps it could help us to build bridges instead of barriers.

Maybe you support a child or young person at a club, uniformed organisation, or church, and you regularly experience other people being negative towards the child you support.

Perhaps you catch them staring or tutting or making harsh comments; maybe they voice their criticisms of the child to you; or you see them talking negatively to someone else about the child.

It’s easy to be critical in return, but maybe that person lacks the knowledge and understanding about the additional needs the child is journeying with.

They may also be struggling themselves; perhaps the loud vocalisation of a child is physically painful for them, for example.

Maybe instead of being critical we could try to chat with them, sharing a little about the child we support, focussing on the affirming things but also helping to build knowledge and understanding.

I’ve written about ‘Meerkats and Additional Needs Lions’ before:/ and I long for the day when all ‘meerkats’ are helped to become ‘lions’. Perhaps in doing so we could help to build compassion instead of criticism.

Wherever you experience or notice conflict, harshness, unkindness, lack of understanding, and other forms of negativity, let our first response not be to pay it back in return, but to take a deep breath, consider for a moment what might have caused that negativity, and make the choice to show kindness instead.

Let us ‘Love one another deeply. Honour others more than yourselves.’ and turn anger, barriers, and criticism into alliances, bridges, and compassion. If we work together on this, maybe, just maybe, it can be as simple as abc!

Mark Arnold, Director of Additional Needs Ministry at Urban Saints. Arnold blogs at The Additional Needs Blogfather. This article was re-published with permission.