I was challenged today by someone who claimed that I, as a lowly parent, couldn't possibly manage to educate my children in the skills of blindness. This was my response:

I guess take this for what it's worth, since my more blind children are still preschoolers. But I do have four other children that are old enough to be allowed some freedoms away from home, one of whom has another physical disability and is autistic and is mildly visually impaired, so I'm not flying totally blind here.

I believe that all children are capable of learning self-help and basic living skills. A normal, neurotypical, sighted child doesn't teach himself to cross a parking lot safely. He spends a year or two being carried or wheeled in a stroller, then another year or two holding his mom's hand, then another year or two under his mom's direct supervision, before being trusted with the ability to cross a street or parking lot safely. The child learns about cars and safe walking the same way he learns how to speak English, by constantly observing, listening, and mimicking. A blind child will learn the same skill in the same way. He may not use his eyes as much as a sighted child, but instead he will use touch and sound and smell to collect the information. As a parent, I will assist the blind child in this process the same way that I would assist the sighted child, and I will step back and provide freedom as I see the child is mature and knowledgeable enough, just like I would the sighted child. Jarod is going through this process now. I may have to remind him to listen for cars as well as looking before he crosses the street to a neighbor's house...but I had to yell at his older siblings to look out just as much.

Maybe I have more experience with blindness than the average sighted parent, having been married/dating their blind father for nearly 20 years. But I don't see this as being out of the range of possibility for the average parent. Some things may take a while for the parent to figure out. But a parent of a blind baby HAS YEARS AND YEARS to figure all the details out, because it will be YEARS AND YEARS before that child is ready to take more steps away from the parent. A sighted child spends 6 years learning the skills necessary to spend a full day away from the parent at school. A blind child has those same 6 years, and as long as the parent does not especially shelter and protect the child because of the blindness, the blind child will develop just as the sighted child does. Sometimes the child might get stuck, as with [some kids], mine and others, who get stuck with on-body exploration and don't progress to off-body. That's what all these wonderful resources are for. Through [email lists], the Internet, parent support groups, the library, other blind people, any parent willing to take the time and do the research can find out about things like cane technique, the Little Room, multi-sensory stimulation, etc. Any parent willing to take the time can get a cane of their own and go for a walk with sleep shades on, to see first-hand what things need to be listened for with the ears and felt with the cane. (Brian used to dare me in high school to go a day without my glasses, since my uncorrected acuity was the same as his, and I quickly learned to use echolocation to listen to and identify walls, doors, curbs, windows, even the presence/absence of electronic equipment in a room.)

I still plan to use the services of an O&M professional. I still want that reassurance and backup that an occasional consultation would provide. I'm still highly pissed off at the district's insistence on denying that service to my children once they reach compulsory age, even though I have repeatedly requested to privately pay for it. But I have never intended to rely on them, any more than I would rely on a professional cyclist to teach my child to ride a bike safely, or a race car driver to teach my child to drive a car (or, [on the subject of homeschooling], a mathematics professor to teach my child how to balance a checkbook ). Sure, I'll probably have to sign them up for an "official" driver's ed course, and they'll take an "official" road course, but I don't expect them to learn how to drive from those, any more than I did. 90% of my driving skills came from my dad, and 90% of my kids' skills will come from us.