Where I was all afternoon

[gsabc]

Spent the afternoon with HS, who has no car and little money. Took him to an eye doctor appointment in Boston. He has better vision than I do (a good thing), but apparently worse astigmatism. Since he's deaf, he is paranoid to the point of hypochondria about his vision, so the odd lighting shifts and variations from the astigmatism are very worrisome to him.

After that, we returned an air conditioner that he had bought and didn't work. He has a small studio apartment (that may be redundant), and his landlord just took out the electricity part of his paid utilities on his new lease. Actually dropped the rent a bit to compensate, but still, the old a/c was a clunker and very inefficient. The landlord allowed him to put in a more efficient window a/c and not use the wall unit. He got a 5200 BTU unit, ran it for 12 hours, got zip for cooling. We got another open-box unit for a little more money, this time 7000 BTU. I hope it works this time. He is more in line with the rest of the family in this case, and does not do well with heat and humidity.

Last was getting new glasses. He had lost a lens out of his old (6-year-old!) glasses and needed the new prescription. Bad case of sticker shock when he saw the price. GW and I offered to pay, but I am proud to say that he is insistent on making it on his own if he can and wouldn't let us. We finally agreed on splitting the cost. He's okay with the near stuff, but really does need the glasses for the distance vision.

He's still looking for additional work to boost his income. With no skills, though, that's a problem. The various agencies which are supposed to help him get skills and jobs are not. Despite a fairly large Deaf community where he lives, his description of what's going on makes me think that some of it is the agency representative not being able or willing to deal with a deaf person. That's aggravating.

[peacock2121]

Okay, one of the ones tagged as a liberal will jump into this one.

That would be me (although I will argue with the label).

He's still looking for additional work to boost his income. With no skills, though, that's a problem.

It's a bit late to decide he has no skills, isn't it?

The various agencies which are supposed to help him get skills and jobs are not.

Exactly who is suppose to help him, other than his own self, of course?

If we were talking about a 4 year old, I would be on your side here, if we were talking about someone who just lost their hearing and needed to be re-trained, you would probably get me on your side. It is my understanding that GS has had many years to be trained to make a living with his handicap. It might be time to have GS take responsibility for his life, to stop making excuses for not having skills or money and for you to hold him to that responsibility.

How long before someone calls me a bleeding heart liberal now, huh?

[kayrharris]

We are huge supporters, both personally and financially, of the Alabama Institute for the Deal and Blind. I go several times a year and have seen so many success stories for those who are deaf, blind and/or both.

The last function we attended had an attorney who lost his sight as an adult after a terrible car accident. The AIDB was able to get him back into his law practice and continue to be a successful attorney. His story brought tears to my eyes, as he was ready to give up all hope after the accident.

I hope those type of resources are available to GS but it does take his desire to be able to succeed in whatever field he chooses.

[gsabc]

Okay, one of the ones tagged as a liberal will jump into this one.

That would be me (although I will argue with the label).

He's still looking for additional work to boost his income. With no skills, though, that's a problem.

It's a bit late to decide he has no skills, isn't it?

The various agencies which are supposed to help him get skills and jobs are not.

Exactly who is suppose to help him, other than his own self, of course?

If we were talking about a 4 year old, I would be on your side here, if we were talking about someone who just lost their hearing and needed to be re-trained, you would probably get me on your side. It is my understanding that GS has had many years to be trained to make a living with his handicap. It might be time to have GS take responsibility for his life, to stop making excuses for not having skills or money and for you to hold him to that responsibility.

How long before someone calls me a bleeding heart liberal now, huh?

Let me rephrase and expand on this. HS is seeking assistance with finding where to gain the skills needed for better jobs. The agencies are to help put him in touch with schools, training sessions or the like in which he will participate. The agencies have the specialized knowledge about the contacts, how to start in the search for what you want to do, etc. HS is initiating the contacts with the agencies, i.e., he is asking for their help, because that is what these agencies are there for.

He is not making excuses for his situation. It has taken him a while (and possibly the love of a good woman) to realize that he has responsibility for himself. He is trying to take it, and we are very happy and proud that he is doing so, but he needs some assistance in getting to the point where he can successfully do that.

{Warning: soapbox rant coming. Feel free to skip the rest of this post.}

My main complaint with his elhi school is that they are too plugged into the Deaf community and do very little toward helping their students deal with the hearing world. Unless the child is very motivated to expand their horizons and learn ON THEIR OWN about getting on with the rest of society, about all that graduates can do is work with others in the Deaf community. Unfortunately, we didn't realize this until far too late, and our efforts to motivate HS along the way went unheeded by anyone there. One of my deepest regrets in life is that we didn't send HS to another school when we had the chance (around age 10). This other school actively challenges the students and works to maintain them at age-appropriate grades and education levels. Despite our constant complaints and insistences, his school never did that. To our knowledge, they still don't.

Gallaudet U. doesn't improve that attitude one bit, with the insistence on deaf presidents and such. At the risk of being politically incorrect, IMO they are ghetto-izing their students. On our visit during HS's junior year of high school, GU offered as a sparkling success story for their science department one graduate who had become head of the stockroom at a research organization - after ten years of working there! We had higher aspirations for HS than that. So did he. He wasn't impressed either, so went to RIT/NTID instead. Since that college insists that you work alongside hearing students to get your engineering degree, and his earlier schooling had done nothing to prepare him for that, his time there was, shall we say, less than a success. Yes, we accept some blame for that. So does he. It's water under the bridge.

The kid has a self-reliant attitude that makes him reluctant to seek out help. We've seen this for years (it was one of the reasons for the NTID problems), but have been unable to help him overcome it. We may even have prolonged it with our efforts to get him to seek help, in a "what do parents know?" rebound sort of way. Whatever the reason, he is seeking it now. Requests for money or other assistance from us are nearly non-existent. We are very proud of this new attitude, and have told him that directly. I am encouraged about his future for the first time in a long time.

[kayrharris]

I wish him the best of luck in finding something suitable that he will have a passion doing. It sounds like he wants to and I feel sure he will. I admire you as a parent in facing challenges that I would have no concept of dealing with. (that sounds grammatically incorrect, but I'm leaving it that way!)

[secondchance]

My son's high school algebra teacher is deaf. The public school system provides him with a full time aide/interpreter and he's very happy and fulfilled with his position. It's working out really well, the kids like him, and as a bonus they get a better instructor/student ratio; great with such large class sizes. We have excellent communication with the teacher as he's constantly corresponding online.

Might something similar be a promising goal for your guy?