[New Perspective]

Excellent post. Kids can be very enlightening.My friend is a Dr and has been a paraplegic since a car accident at age 22. My nephew was 8 and wanted to show this little girl my friend Steve, in the wheel chair when he stopped in. My nephew proceeds to tell the girl, as if Steve was not even there, that you could throw as much snow on his legs as you want, and he would never get cold. And that a whole house could fall on his legs and he wouldn't feel it. The best one was when my nephew told Steve that he was lucky because he got to still all the time.

Thank God I met Steve a few years ago because he has taught my family and I valuable knowledge about being handicap. I think God was priming us for our son. Steve has an excellent sense of humor and nothing stops him. He needs a little help now and then, like getting on his jetski, or being loaded into our yearly Aircombat planes that we fly. He is a real inspiration. For Christmas this year, I gave him a coupon for free River Dance lessons. He was laughing so hard he almost fell out of his chair.

[Gabz]

Your friend Steve sounds much like a friend of mine, who because of a birth defect is practically a quadrapalegic and confined to a wheel chair. She has enough use of her hands to be able to operate her wheel chair and feed herself, but not much more than that.

My 6 year old daughter has no problems with talking to people in wheel chairs because of this gal. They became great friends when my daughter was about 2 and Marie would let her crawl into her lap and would take her around the block on her motorized wheel chair.

Children exposed to others who are different at a young age seem to be less likely to be "bullies" and pick on those who are different when they get older.