At the Hands & Voices Leadership Conference, we joined in on an icebreaker activity that consisted of tossing a huge ball of colorful yarn around the room. Once you placed your finger on your share of the yarn, you had to share a bit about yourself or your deaf/hard of hearing child. If you landed on blue--you shared a recent success--yellow, a phobia--green, a struggle you encountered, and so on.
As I was reflecting about the conference, I was thinking about all the wonderful people I've been blessed to encounter through the years via Hands & Voices. My own journey of raising three deaf and hard of hearing kids has had some twists and turns while dealing with their education and I've learned so much in four short years of being with Hands & Voices.
I wanted to share an article written by Holly Thomas-Mowery which was a presentation at the 2004 Early Hearing Detection and Intervention (EDHI) conference in Washington, D.C.:
Honoring Each Family
I think article sums up beautifully the icebreaker activity--we're all connected and we need each of us (parents, professionals, deaf and hard of hearing adults) so that every deaf and hard of hearing child can reach their fullest potential.
2 comments:
I usually hate icebreakers but this seems like a really great one!
Karen,
Thank you for sharing this mom's article. It was very touching. Her message was loud and clear, that each family is unique and there is no right or wrong path. caring for what parents must go through is a key to winning them over for listening to those options rather than feeling defensive or frightened.
A very good post. I loved the ice breaker activity. I may use that in my parenting classes.
~ LaRonda
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