About FTNYS Parents

When Parents Wish Upon A Star

We asked parents to tell us what they would wish for to make the world better for their children with special emotional, social, and behavioral needs. Here are their wishes:

* Everyone would stop blaming children and families and would start helping them.
* Acceptance and support for children with severe emotional disorders in the school and community.
* The education system would stop treating children as labels instead of individuals.
* Teachers would accept and welcome children who were "included" in general education classes.
* More services could be offered in the home.
* No waiting lists for services.
* Inclusionary recreational programs to support children with disabilities.
* Mandatory public parent forums for all elected officials.
* More positive images of mental illness in the media so our kids would not be afraid to ask for help.

When Kids Wish Upon A Star

When we asked children with special emotional, behavioral, and social needs what they would wish for to make their lives easier they said:

* I just want to be like everybody else. I don't want to stick out. I want to be normal.
* I want to go to the same school year after year, and be in the same class with my friends.
* I wish I could make the basketball team.
* I wish kid's wouldn't call me names.
* I want people to see me for me. I wish being different wasn't seen as a bad thing.
* I wish every kid who needed one could have a computer-it makes doing school work easier.
* I just wanted to be accepted as part of the group. I wish it was easier to make friends.
* I wish my brother wasn't so nervous, and that he didn't make everyone else so nervous.

Families Together in NYS is encouraging parents to share their experience, strength, and hope with us so that other parents can know they aren't alone or isolated in their own struggles. Please forward stories to jlounsbery@ftnys.org

Essay Links

"The Myth of the Bad Kid"
"The Myth of the Bad Parent"
"My Child"-a poem
"Emmet's Song"

QUOTES

Government, obviously, cannot fill a child's emotional needs. Nor can it fill spiritual and moral needs. Government is not a father or mother. Government has never raised a child, and it never will.
-William J. Bennett (1943 - ____) former U.S. Secretary of Education

Our children are not going to be just "our children" they are going to be other people's husbands and wives and the parents of our grandchildren.
-Mary Steichen Calderone (1904 - 1998) physician, author

The child must know that he is a miracle, that since the beginning of the world there hasn't been, and until the end of the world there will not be, another child like him.
-Pablo Casals (1876 - 1973) Spanish cellist, conductor

Cherishing children is the mark of a civilized society.
-Joan Ganz Cooney (1951 - ____) actress

Health is a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being, and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.
- Heave