A scene from Shrek 3 finds Fiona,
her mother, Cinderella, Snow White, and Sleeping Beauty captured in a room
under armed guard. They are desperate to
escape in order to save Shrek and the kingdom from the evil Prince Charming. In order to achieve this, the princesses rush
into various positions: Cinderella starts to feverishly mop the floor, Sleeping
Beauty fell asleep and Snow White laid down with her hands crossed on her chest. While prior to this they had been fully
functional adults, when placed in a stressful situation, they reverted back to
a very dependent and helpless position.
This
learned helplessness is unfortunately very common for our children who are
visually impaired. It is natural for
parents to go through a grieving process and to be unsure of how their child
with a visual impairment will function within a sighted world, or for a teacher
to be wary of how they can meet the needs of a child with a visual impairment.
We are empathetic creatures by nature, and easily put ourselves in our child’s
shoes and think how we would feel without sight. However, children from a very early age pick
up on the feelings of those in their environments. If we allow our fear for their safety, or
doubt in how they will be able to access the world to take over, the message
they will receive loud and clear is that they are unable to complete typical
activities and should not be held to the same expectations. Paired with the occasional failure that
happens to all children, they will quickly develop the concept that it is
easier to have others do for them rather than attempting to do for themselves.
While everyone needs help from time
to time, and it is nice to be pampered every once in a while, a constant diet of
depending on others and lack of self-efficacy can lead to some negative
outcomes. Research has shown that those
who feel a lack of control over their world and respond passively, over time
tend to develop increased stress, anxiety, and depression as well as decreased
motivation (Psychology Today).
By allowing the world to happen to them rather than happening to the
world, your child can miss out on many activities they really want to
complete. They are also robbed of the
satisfaction and pride that is felt when successfully complete an activity that
is just a little harder than they thought possible.
Even if
these patterns have developed for your child, all is not lost, they can be
reversed with some thoughtful interventions and the buy-in of all the adults in
your child’s world. For the Disney princesses, their catalysis was the queen
calmly head butting the way through two stone walls to open an escape route,
empowering them to realize they too could draw on their inner strength to fight
back. Clearly the solution for your
child does not need to be so dramatic. However, it will require just as much
mental strength and perseverance, especially if the learned helplessness has
been long standing.
1. Look at
your child first and foremost as a child.
What expectations would you have of any other child? What dreams would you have for them? How would you push them to accomplish those dreams
or meet those expectations? What path
would you expect them to move along to adulthood? You should expect the same
and dream the same for your child who has a visual impairment. They will just move along the path a little
differently.
2. Have a
firm, unmovable belief that they can become a successful interdependent adult.
Take every opportunity to convey that belief to them by your actions as well as
your words. What you do often speaks
much louder than what you say.
3. Be
prepared to stand firm through the temper tantrums. Change is hard for anyone. If your child has
developed a long standing pattern of having things done for them, they will
often push back against having to do for themselves. Remember that they need time to change their
thought patterns and to adjust to new responsibilities.
4. Scaffold
activities for them. Going from doing
no part of an activity to the entire activity can be a very daunting task. Having them start with a little part and
adding another when they have been successful with the first, not only allows
them to experience frequent success, it also makes it more of a natural rather
than drastic change.
5. Provide
authentic praise and very concrete examples of what went well. A generic “good job” will cause them to doubt
you really paid attention or that you are telling the truth, especially if they
feel they were not 100% successful with the activity. Instead, if you say “I am really proud of how
long you kept working at tying your shoe.
I know that the knot isn’t as tight as you like it, but this is the
first time you have not needed me to help you put the loop through the hole.”
It gives them perspective as well as an indisputable example of success.
Learned helplessness can be an
easy trap to fall into that approaches so slowly and silently that it can be
hard to detect, yet, the devastating impact on the child can be felt for
years. With a little self-awareness and
a lot of hard work, you can begin to move your child past it to become the
adult you always dreamed they could be.
References:
Miller, C. (2007). Shrek the Third. PDI/DreamWorks,
DreamWorks Animation.
Wentzel, K. R. & Brophy, J. E. (2014). Motivating Students to Learn 4th
Edition. New York, NY: Routledge.
