Not Special

Well, Hashem in His infinite wisdom decided to gift us with a child who has special needs, and my perspective has shifted. I think it’s great that in the past 35 years we’ve destigmatized the special-needs experience. Now, I think we’re ready for the next step: de-specializing special needs.

The world of special needs is filled with euphemisms. My son has autism spectrum disorder (Asperger’s for us lay people) and therefore looks relatively typical to the untrained eye. It’s both a blessing and a curse.

It doesn’t feel very special to realize that finding a yeshivah anywhere in the entire United States (or probably the world) that is truly designed to meet our son’s needs — with the mental-health staff and training to provide the behavioral modification and social skills training that are necessary for his success — is like trying to find the proverbial needle in a haystack. And even if  we found such a yeshivah, he’d probably refuse to go, because he thinks he’s too mainstream for that. So how can this kid succeed? We’re his  parents, and we think we know exactly what he needs, but we still can’t handle those needs most days of the week.

The extreme stubbornness, the inability to see another perspective, the total lack of time-management skills, the black-and-white thinking in which he’s always right and everyone else wrong… these don’t feel particularly special.