Teach Them

Some ways to help kids recognize inaccessibility are to teach them about disabilities and show them that disabilities aren’t scary. A tagline we use in our house and that I use with kids at school is “Everybody’s brain and body are different.” We often talk about how everyone has different strengths, both physically and mentally, and thank goodness for that because, as a society, if we were all good at the same things then we would never be able to work together to solve problems. A lot of people knowing and being able to do a little individually means that if we work together we can all know and do a lot.

A great children’s book series to teach kids about differences and disabilities is The Able Fables. The author is Dr. Nicole Julia who is an Occupational Therapist. She donates 20% of her profits to building inclusive playgrounds- much like the one we’re working on for Schroon Lake Central School. I definitely give some credit to this book series for Colden being able to spot inaccessibility on our playground. All of her books are available in the library at SLCS or you can purchase them at theablefables.com because every kid should have books with disabled characters on their bookshelves!