If the question is How do you raise anti-ableist kids? the answer is Become anti-ableist and then model it through intention and action for your children.
Raising kind and compassionate children is a goal for a lot of parents.While many people have a desire to be inclusive of their disabled and neurodivergent neighbors, and strongly desire to pass these values along to their children, they do not have a breadth of education or experience on how to appropriately do this. Beyond Inclusion breaks down fifteen common forms of ableism, with explanations, examples, and first-person accounts.
Then, author Carrie Cherney Hahn offers activities and perspectives that help parents understand the ableism that exists within them and supports their ability to process and dismantle it so that they can model anti-ableist practices for their kids. Each chapter offers childrens resources that parents can use to nurture informed and anti-ableist ideals in their kids.
Inclusion is actually the bare minimum. Our work is to show our children how to become more understanding, more accepting, and hopefully also more appreciative of disabled and neurodivergent people.
Introduction
1: The Presumption of Incompetence
2: Disability as an Inspiration
3: Disability as a Deficit
4: Disability as a Tragedy
5: Disability as Something to be Cured
6: Tokenizing Disability
7: Stereotyping Disability
8: Infantilizing Disability
9: Euphemisms for Disability
10: Invalidating Disability
11: Disregard of Private Information in Disability
12: Erasure of Disability
13: Disrespect of Disability Supports
14: Othering Disability
15: Ableism in Systems and Institutions
Citations and Resources
Reflection Guide
Carrie Cherney Hahn is a pediatric speech-language pathologist and mother. She has served children of a variety of ages in a variety of settings such as an autism support group for parents, distribution of a parent education newsletter, and talks at conferences and for family advocacy groups. She now has her own practice serving clients through direct therapy and indirect support, and also uses her business page to share information about disability and neurodivergence. Hahn is the mother of two neurodivergent children, one of who also has physical disabilities. Her professional and personal lives have intensified her passion for education and advocacy for making a safer and less ableist world.
