How do Amish treat Special needs

we got the knife out again I just can't help myself how does your community teach or treat special needs children this has a special place in my heart what I will tell you is that I am only going to speak for my family and what I know and experienced while I was there I cannot speak for anybody else so let's keep that clear I have a very very special place in my heart for a sister of mine who has Down syndrome she is the most amazing person ever and probably one of my all-time favorite human beings in the entire world and here's why so down syndrome she's always been healthy and never had any kind of uh heart issues like most Down syndrome kids do or a lot of them do she's really really healthy and she's extremely smart so smart however since the Amish my where I'm from they do not do any kind of public schooling they don't even do any kind of special need schools for any of this um she ended up not going to school we did try so we have these one little room one room schoolhouses where all the kids go to school and when she got to that age we did try we we had her go to school and see how it would go but it didn't turn out very well because um all she would do is make all the other kids laugh the other kids enjoyed it but they uh they didn't get to they they forgot to study because um she uh she was just making them laugh so anyway she never went to school so we did do some things at home to you know try to help her with like her numbers and her letters and and she did some of that but um the the thing about her is she's actually a really good worker so like she'll like wash the dishes she'll carry in the wood for the wood burning stove and she has all kinds of hoobies that she likes and that she does and uh so here's the thing we were not allowed public dis display of affection so like we never got hugs and kisses or even told like I love you when uh I was at home and they still don't do that but she's different and here's why she's one of my all-time favorite human beings because the last time that I went home to see my mom they didn't know that I was coming so I pull in and I get get out of the the car and she's she's down the driveway from me and she ends up seeing that it's me and I say something to her and she says something to me and we like scream and she just like full blast runs towards me didn't even stop she just keeps running until she she gets to me and she just like engulfes me in this like big hug best moment ever because here's what I started to do like I I briefly started to like um like give her hugs and she ended up like she she would start giving me hugs back and so when that happened I was like oh my gosh so she knows that that's safe and that it's okay and that she's allowed to do that with me so we give each other hugs and then we have conversations like all kinds of conversations so the thing about her is is she she speaks um she can speak and you can have a conversation with her but if you're not used to uh listening to her speak you may not pick up anything that she's say but I've always had like a a connection with her and a lot of my siblings do too but even being away and only seeing her like once or twice a year I can still understand her really well and so we'll just I just like stand there while she's like watching the dishes and we just have like a fullon conversation back and forth and it's like the best thing ever so when it comes to special needs with my family the the most unfortunate part about it is that they don't have access to special needs schools that's not what they do but I think that part of the reason why they don't is also when you really think about it she's not going to go get a job somewh where she's not going to go start a business and so the way that they look at that is she really doesn't need it in order to live her life and uh so they don't make it a priority and also like they're just not they're just not going to go to a special needs school because that is like dealing with the outside world and they don't want to be a part of the modern world so with that being said I don't know of a lot of special needs kids in the community there are some but it's not as prevalent as it is in the modern world so there's your answer

Channel: Lizzie Ens

Views: 99,865

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Id: EJsKckI9uxU

Length: 5min 49sec (349 seconds)

Published: Sat Jan 27 2024