hi lyn,

my daughters school distict strives to "main stream" all kids. they want all kids in the regular class rooms and not put in "special education".

to isolate kids from their peers does more harm than good.

so from a young age, kids are taught. it might be a child with ts, or cp, downs syndrome or something else, who is in their class. the kids are educated on what makes these kids who they are. it takes the scare factor and the guess work out of it for the kids. if they guess, boy can they make up wild stories.

one of her dearest friends since 1st grade has severe aspargers and other dx's. if this girl had never been put in regular classes, they wouldn't have met and made such a special bond.

my own daughter, known on this forum as lil'monkey (pictures in my profile ) was born with a hemengioma that grew, turned gangrene and almost killed her. it was on her neck. very noticable. HUGE, in fact. she had surgery right before starting school.

even when she still had it, if she was asked what it was, no big deal. it was those, especially adults , who didn't asked and stared or made rude comments.

her scar, that is the funny thing. it still has some of the red of the hemegioma. cracks her up when people think she has almost had her head chopped off. she is good about it. doesn't make up wild stories about how she got her scar. she was warned about no pirate stories.

education. these kids will grow up and make the change for future generations and hopefully the make the ignorance go away.