Everything Under The Sun: An Ordinary Visit To The Science Center

Monday, August 24, 2015

An Ordinary Visit To The Science Center

A young boy playing with Kaden Myers at the museum.

A visit to the Science Center can be something of an adventure for most kids. It's a chance to get a hands-on look at what makes the world work. Certainly most science centers have a lot of interactive exhibits to explore. It can be a joy to watch discovery happen for a child.

It can be slightly different for a child with a disability. If the child needs equipment to help him/her interact with the world, it can be harder to engage completely with interactive types of activities. Often enough other children may not realize the limitations and may look at the equipment and be put off from playing with a child who has a disability. But playing is really no different in the amount of fun, the joy of participation, for a child who needs assistance.

But Katie Myers is not deterred by the challenges that her son KADEN faces. Now 18 months old, Kaden was diagnosed with spinal muscular atrophy, a progressive disorder which leaves a child less and less able as he/she gets older, when he was seven months old. However, Kaden still retains a good deal of his abilities, although he cannot walk and gets around in a wheelchair.

Katie is determined to give her son as normal a life as possible, so a visit to the South Florida Science Center And Aquarium was on the agenda. There were quite a few pleasant moments, but really special was the time spent with Kaden by an unknown boy when they both played together with a ball track. That young boy helped Kaden see how the track worked and took his time to help Kaden put balls on the track. In fact, Katie photographed the interaction between the two children.

It was a special moment! Katie posted the photo online, hoping to find out who the young boy was, but even more to share a moment of play between an abled child and a child with a disability. More than anything, that photo is instructive to people who don't frequent the world which disabled people sometimes traverse. It's that intersection between mainstream life and physical limitations. Most people still have difficulty crossing the boundaries between those worlds in order to help those with disabilities feel part of the mainstream.

Katie and Kaden together.

So, it's almost natural that it took a child, a young boy, to reach across the divide, probably without even thinking, to play with the young boy he had just met. That is a natural acceptance, an invitation to share, an act of kindness, a thing still rare. That gives a moment to think it over, to think about reaching over, to help someone who struggles to reach. It's not so hard to do - just look at that young boy in the photo, reaching out for a special moment of play with Kaden Myers. All of us can do the same!