October is National Bullying Prevention Month and the perfect time to read this amazing book, Canaries Among Us: A Mother’s Quest to Honor Her Child’s Individuality in a Culture Determined to Negate It by Kayla Taylor (She Writes Press).
The author should not have had to write this book. Her unique, ‘neurodiverse’ daughter should have been safe at school, loved by her friends, protected by her teachers and principal, and been in a situation to learn and grow and become the wonderful human she is meant to be. But, instead, little Hannah is bullied, anxious, alone, and not protected at school or in her community.
CREATING SAFE ENVIRONMENTS FOR ALL CHILDREN
My own nephew is neurodiverse. He suffers from dyslexia and ADD (which made school oh so hard) and is also on the autism spectrum, which makes him come across as socially awkward. Back when I was a kid, these were the children labeled “weird,” and “different,” and they were ostracized. Shouldn’t we have evolved to a better place in our society by now?
Unfortunately, it seems we haven’t and Canaries Among Us is a heartbreaking examination of this situation that started out so personal for the author trying to protect her own vulnerable young daughter, Hannah — but it’s quickly revealed as being clearly a larger societal problem as the author dove into research on the subject.
Parenting isn’t easy under any circumstances, but when your child has differences, you want to create a safe and nurturing environment for them. That’s exactly what the author and her husband thought they had done for Hannah. She was placed in a seemingly wonderful elite private school in their suburban town, but things went from bad to worse there.
The author set out to advocate for her daughter, having to ‘battle’ the school administration, teachers and other parents, and researching everything she could find on mental health and neurodiversity and eventually taking on the fight for other parents and their children who were left behind at the school when she finally ends up taking her own children out.
AN IMPORTANT MESSAGE FOR ALL
This is an important book with essential messages for all of us. While this is the story about Hannah, her experiences, and the author’s “quest to honor her child’s individuality,” the book is ultimately about so much more. It’s about the larger issue in our country about recognizing people’s differences and celebrating them, rather than shunning, ignoring, or ridiculing them for these differences.
The book is also filled with great information from the author’s research and valuable resources for other parents of neurodiverse children. And it reminds these parents that they are not alone. In fact, according to websites like Understood.org (a great resource), “one out of every five people has a learning difference or attention challenge.” The author goes on to say that these one-in-five children are quite diverse, “affected by a variety of challenges like dyslexia, ADHD, and countless others.”
But this doesn’t seem to include many other issues that affect learning like sensory processing disorder, hearing deficiencies, speech limitations and other physical challenges. Nor does it include mental health concerns or autism. When you start to pile all of these challenges one on top of the other, according to the author, “on any given day, couldn’t a twenty-student class have at least five or six affected children? And over the course of their academic careers, won’t as many as a third or half of all children be impacted? Doesn’t this mean most families will be challenged in some way, whether we acknowledge it or not? Why aren’t people talking about this more?”
Let’s hope that this book helps to open up the discussion in order to affect some change in our society. Kudos to little Hannah for letting her story be told to help others.
About Kayla Taylor:
Kayla Taylor writes to address important issues plaguing families, and she uses a pseudonym to protect the identities of minors and other vulnerable individuals. She supports organizations that promote mental health, neurodiversity, and bullying prevention.
