07/10/2025
Think about all the little things you do each day to keep yourself regulated—to stay calm, comfortable, focused, and able to engage. Maybe you twirl a pencil, chew gum, tap your leg, or pace the room. Maybe you keep a water bottle nearby, adjust the lighting, play music in the background, or change where and how you sit to stay organized and on task. You take breaks—grab a snack, scroll your phone, go for a walk, close your eyes for a moment—whatever helps you reset.
The kids I work with are doing the same. They’re in tune with what they need, showing it through their “behaviors,” or sometimes asking—silently or vocally—for something to help them get to that place where they can thrive. I don’t always get it right, but over time, we make small shifts together—alongside families, teachers, and other professionals—to figure out what works.
Ultimately, the goal is to help kids understand what helps them, and to build the skills they need to access or advocate for those supports on their own.
People say “In the REAL world, they won’t be able to…” and then end that sentence with something that you actually, totally, can in fact do in the “real world”, a surprising amount of times in my line of work.
Actual things that people have actually, literally said to me:
In the REAL world, he won’t be using a pencil gripper. (What? Literally why not? I could use any pencil gripper I wanted to to write anything I felt like.)
In the REAL world, she can’t rock in her chair, so… (Yet I, a grown adult, sit perched like a bird and rocking wildly back and forth in my office chair while writing evaluations when I need a lot of sensory input.)
In the REAL world, the kids won’t have clipboards available to write on. (Isn’t a clipboard like, two dollars? Why couldn’t someone write with a clipboard?)
In the REAL world, she can’t cry every time something happens that she doesn’t like. (Anyone can cry whenever they want to cry. I’ve cried at all kinds of works in my life. When someone is crying, other human beings who are decent usually try to help them.)
On the flip side, you know what else doesn’t happen in the real world? People typically don’t have to sit silently at desks for 6+ hours a day. People typically are able to talk to their friend or coworker or text somebody in between tasks or when they feel like it. People typically can eat a snack if they’d like to or make arrangements to. People typically aren’t stuck in a room with 30 other people who are exactly their age, and nobody else. People typically don’t have to navigate buildings and structures and objects that are too large and proportionally clearly not made for them. People typically can take a break when they need to. People typically aren’t punished, and especially not physically, by their loved ones and close friends.
Every day, we’re *making* the real world.
I want to put all of our effort into making the real world a good place to be before I focus any of my efforts on chipping pieces off of its future inhabitants to try to make them fit some harmful imaginary mold from the past.
[Image description:
A drawn meme by NeuroWild
Around the borders are different colored pencils: purple, pink, green, red, yellow.
At the top is a cloud shape, blue, with words in it that read, ‘We have to PREPARE these kids for the REAL WORLD’
actually means:
“I am not prepared to accommodate this child now or in the future.”
“I accept that the world is going to treat them poorly and they should start getting used to that.”
“I will work hard on this child but I am not prepared to work on myself or the ableist world that we live in.”
The bottom 3 sentences are written in purple bubbles.
End description.]
