DISNEY AND THE MAGICAL WORLD OF DISABILITIES

It’s been called a “Modern-day Mecca.” Most North American families attempt a pilgrimage at least once in their life time. It’s billed as the Happiest Place on Earth. It’s Disneyland.

My parents hated it. The slick consumer culture, the crowds, the noise, the underlying thrum of excitement, but most of all, the price. They didn’t feel the magic.

My husband and I do. We love Disneyland! We’ve always loved it! The price is a stretch to say the least, but well worth it to us for the excellence in every detail, the nostalgia, the rides and the underlying thrum of excitement. Since we have family who live in the area, we’ve been able to go a lot more than the average family. It is a perk we don’t take for granted. Bringing our children, especially when they were young, remain some of the best family memories in our arsenal.

The First Visit

We took our youngest daughter as a baby, along for the ride while her older sisters gaped in amazement at the “real” Winnie the Pooh and screamed with delight on the Peter Pan ride. She slept through most of the day, but looked cute in pictures. We were just like everyone else.

The Second Visit

Two years later we were back. I had some misgivings about B’s ability to handle the day, so my parents (who love us enough to endure the park they dislike) tagged along. I had heard that there was some sort of accommodation for guests with disabilities, but resolved to avoid it. I was embarrassed to ask. I didn’t want to be unfair. I was sure we could handle it, just like everybody else.

Unlike a typical 3-year-old, my daughter wasn’t able to walk or even stand on her own. Desperate to be mobile, she would scoot on her bum at an extraordinary speed. As you can imagine, this was a filthy way to travel and terribly hard on clothes, and terribly inconvenient to adults who don’t expect a headstrong little speed bump to pop up unexpectedly.

She was okay as long as we kept her in the stroller, but her sisters were eager to go on rides and show her all the wonders she had slept through last time. The waits weren’t particularly long, but holding a squirming, screaming toddler can make time pass extraordinarily slowly. Not only was she dying to move, but she could see something exciting, just out of reach, and was enraged that we wouldn’t let her go to it immediately. As the lines wind closer and closer, then back around, farther away again, she must have thought we were playing a cruel trick on her. By the time we made it onto the ride she was almost inconsolable.

She LOVED being on the ride. She would squeal and clap and laugh with pure excitement. For 30 seconds. Then it would be time to get off; we would pry her fingers off of the bar and drag her away and head to the next lineup. By now, she really was inconsolable.

After a few hours, she had to go home. It was all too much. It was just too hard. The crowds. The noise. The heat. The waiting in line. She wasn’t the only one being punished for it; we all were, the whole family and everyone in her vicinity.

Third Time’s a Charm

Our next visit, I was prepared. We had been planning and talking about this day for months. B had been looking at her sister’s pictures and had become enamoured with the Disney Princesses (though she didn’t have the attention span to sit through an entire movie). I had documentation of her Down syndrome (in case looking in her eyes wouldn’t be enough) and after our last disastrous visit, absolutely NO compunction about taking whatever extra help Disney could offer us. After all, I’ve finally made my peace with the fact that we’re not just like everybody else.

There seemed to be a lot of confusion about where and what we were needing, but we finally found ourselves at the City Hall talking our way into a “Special Assistance Pass.” They didn’t give it willingly at first, but I stood firm: we just can’t handle a repeat of our last visit, not when she’s so excited to be here.

The Pass was intended not just for guests who have visible disabilities, but also those with cognitive, emotional or behavioural problems and need extra support to be able to enjoy the Disney experience. Usually, this meant using an alternative entrance (fast pass or going in through the exit) and waiting there. We didn’t cut to the front of the line right away, but waiting in a calm, cool, less crowded spot makes all the difference.

I’ll admit, it makes our ride experience much faster. That’s the only way it works for us. B can’t tolerate many different rides, so mostly we went on the tamest rides over and over again. But she was wild with excitement!

There’s an age, when adults are giants and characters in books/movies are real and that cool veneer of realism hasn’t yet begun to form. I love taking my kids to Disneyland at that age. They call it “magic” and it really is. My 5-year-old was there and we all basked in her wonder.

Now

She’s still there. At 9-years-old she still believes. She is still amazed. She watches “Brave” at least once a week and if you can understand the words, she’ll tell you the entire story. She often stops and looks at the Disneyland pictures hanging on the wall. She asks to go back all the time.

There’s not much that our entire family, big kids included, can do and enjoy together. Outings are hard. Interests range wide and far. Attention spans are short. These days, B is quickly overwhelmed by new situations, especially ones involving crowds and noises. Even more so than 4 years ago,she needs support.

Now we have a little brother in the mix. He’s never been to Disneyland, and that just seems wrong when you consider how much our family loves it. He has his own blend of special needs: extreme hyperactivity, sensory processing disorder and general impulsivity to name a few. I’ve learned a lot over the years about our limits and our needs, and I’m no longer embarrassed to ask for help. He needs support.

We’ve begun planning (and saving) for a family trip to Disneyland. It’ll take a while, so we’ve booked a timeshare for December 2014. But that anticipation is half the fun for our crew. We’ll have our days mapped out, eateries scoped and show times noted.

That is, if Disney has a workable special needs Guest Assistance program available…

Right now, Disney is getting rid of their Guest Assistance program. It has been badly abused over the years, which has ruined it for those of us who truly need it. They are rolling out a new program on October 9th. 

It sounds terrible.

I had hoped that this was one of those online stories that was wildly exaggerated, but my research has been discouraging. The Disability Assistance System is like a modified Fast Pass, which involves at least two extra lineups/waits, only applies when the wait time is more than 45 minutes (waiting that long is so far beyond our son’s capacity that it’s laughable), AFTER extra lineups, we’ll end up in the regular line anyway (which I’m sure will be fun for everyone)… oh, and it only works on a select few rides.

Without extra help, Disney isn’t do-able for our family.

Just one more thing that’s out of our reach.

There are other families with even more complex problems in the same boat.

As a company, Disney has a reputation of going the extra mile, making every effort to create an amazing experience for ALL their guests. They have certainly won us over in the past. I can only hope that they will hear what special needs families, and those who support them, are saying. I hope they will build a system which actually helps my children and others like them. I hope they’ll make it a priority.

If you want to help, please:

Sign the petition

Borrowed from http://imgur.com/WJxPj

So here’s me, sad that so many people abused this system which worked so well for us. Sad that the new system seems so unworkable. Mostly, sad that we might never get to share a Disney adventure with our boy.

CHRISTIE HOOS

So Here's Us

THE LORD TESTS THE HEART

“Fire tests the purity of silver and gold,

but the Lord tests the heart.” Proverbs 17:3

The fire of the crucible is never meant to destroy the silver. The intense heat of the furnace will not destroy the gold. Fire improves upon precious metals, refining and purifying them. Likewise, the Lord tests our heart.

He allows the heat of our trials to refine our character and purify our heart. Will You test our hearts, Lord?

A wrong has been done against our child and we are in the midst of a battle for justice.  We are his protectors. We are the voice for our special needs child when he is unable to speak for himself.

The world fights injustice by productive means, but its justice also has the tendency to act out with vengeance or silly lawsuits. We cannot get caught up in the actions of the world. On the contrary, we are vessels of Christ and He desires to shine His light into this darkness.

I am very certain He has a larger purpose in mind for the situation we find our family in. We are just along for the wild ride. In the pain and discouragement of events exposed, we are willing to do what He wants us to do.

The problem is we don’t know exactly what He wants to do with all of the details of the event. But we do know the Lord will direct our steps. And when He does make clear to us what actions to take then we act with bold faith. No matter how personally uncomfortable it is to tread upon unfamiliar territory, the discomfort cannot be our guide.

So please Lord, keep our hearts in check. We acknowledge our hearts can deceive us. When injustice is carried out against our flesh and blood mankind has the potential to go overboard in response. We have no desire to push people to their breaking point in the name of justice. And we absolutely have no desire to shrink back, sweeping the injustice under the carpet.

Help us act in just and purposeful ways which reflect Your heart and honor You without our flesh messing it up!  Test our hearts O Lord, and refine them for good.




BONNIE CHRISTENSEN
Woman Gone Wise

THE HUNGER GAMES

I don’t read fiction very often. It is not that I hate it – in fact, it is just the opposite. I absolutely adore fiction. Nancy Drew lit the fire for me, but I quickly moved on to whatever I could devour. Spy books held a particular place of affection for me. I remember reading the Robert Ludlum series of novels when I was 13 years old, convinced that I would grow up to be a CIA agent.

However, my problem with fiction is that it turns me into a really bad wife and mother. I become so engrossed that nothing else in the world exists as I turn page after page. All requests fall on deaf ears because I am so immersed in the book. As such, I have made it a rule to only indulge in fiction on vacation. While my family is happily distracted by the sun, sand and water, I treat myself.

But, rules are meant to be broken. And when a pastor piqued my interest in The Hunger Gamestrilogy (he was complaining on his social media feed that the kids in his church were reading the series more than the Bible), I snuck a peak at the first book, which incidentally, my husband had just finished. For those of you who have been living under the rock, the crux of the story in The Hunger Games is a group of children who are conscripted by a despicably corrupt government to fight to the death in an elaborate arena. It’s like The Gladiator…on crack cocaine.

The series was as gripping as advertised. I was sucked in. I picked up the books in between coaching calls and administrative emails (ok, I am lying – the administrative emails got put on hold) and finished the books in three days. They were extremely good.

Later, over coffee, I was chatting about the trilogy with a friend. (After all, if you are going to blow off emails to read a good book, you might as well use it as fodder for excellent conversations over coffee.) She was commenting about the level of violence and I responded that I didn’t think it was that bad. She said, “Well, some of the parts were hard to read.” And then she cringed.

She cringed.

I continued to chit-chat in a light-hearted way, but I have since gone back to think about the cringe. And the violence. And why it didn’t affect me more profoundly.

This is what I realized. Going into the series, I was subconsciously prepared for it to be as heart-sickening as some of the stories I have been told over the years about child soldiers. For well over a decade, Eric and I have been (either peripherally or intimately) involved in the issue of children at risk. That is a fancy term that the United Nations uses to talk about kids around the world who are systematically abused for the pleasures or financial gains of adults.

When I was in my early twenties, I listened to horrifying stories by Phyllis Kilbourn about the conscription of children into Liberia’s civil war. I am still haunted by those stories. No, I will not relay them here, but let me assure you that they make The Hunger Games look like child’s play. And they are real.

As I realized that I was unaffected by the gory details that went in to the trilogy, something else occurred to me. The very fact that the series is “Child Soldiers Lite” opens up the doors for discussions about what is actually taking place around the world. It is an amazing teaching tool for children who are old enough (I am thinking at least 12 or 13) to read the series.

Harness all that indignation and anger your children are feeling about outrageous abuses of power. Listen to their deep desires for justice. Explain to them that they are feeling matters. Their emotions point to something that is close to the heart of Jesus…the least of these.

I think it is awesome that our kids are getting so engrossed in The Hunger Games. BecauseThe Hunger Games leads to a very natural conversation about the words of Jesus. And talkingabout the words of Jesus convicts us to follow the words of Jesus.

So, after you have had a conversation with your kids, challenge them to work towards solutions in parts of the world where young children are truly made to kill other children…and their own parents…and do other unthinkable things. They can fight on behalf of those kids. They can make a difference.

Of course, I am hopelessly biased towards my husband’s organization, World Relief Canada, but there are many others who are working diligently in Somalia, DR Congo and other parts of the world. Find out what you can do so that children in those parts of the world don’t have to live their own Hunger Games.

ERYN-FAYE FRANS, Canada's Passion Coach ®
ErynFaye.com