It is not a disability that prevents the ability to fly.
We should not be disadvantaged because we need more help.
We should not be disadvantaged because we need more time.
We should not be disadvantaged by not having the same rights.
Time and time again children crumble whilst parents desperately fight for the equality of their vulnerable and disadvantaged offspring.
We shouldn’t have to fight for them to be in a school that wants them, that can accommodate their disabilities enough to help them learn and want them there each and every day as part of the school community.
We shouldn’t have to explain and advocate that they are not naughty but their behaviours are communicating their unmet needs.
We shouldn’t have to disappoint our children by telling them they have to stay at home because they can’t access an activity that day because it’s purely not designed for them to be there or there are not enough adults to keep them safe.
These basic and fundamental needs should be their equal rights and not dependent upon the parent’s ability to fight for access to them.
Where are the laws to ensure these rights are being met?
These children are being discarded and their fragile mental states left to decay whilst we seem unable to change the structures of a failing education system around them.
Our wings were made to not simply function, they were designed to help us fly.
There are obstacles that are in the way, but we could overcome them with the right level of support, love and compassion if they were given to us.
Intervention is needed to heal those damaged wings and support them to do the task they were created for.
Instead, the exclusion they face is causing them the biggest barrier.
It is not acceptable to say that there are no places for a child to go to.
It is not acceptable to say their lives are being crushed by funding that is not available.
And it definitely is not acceptable that we are forced to keep our children at home when they want to be like other children their age with the opportunity to go to a school that can include them.
What are we teaching them about themselves and the value they are worth?
It is the flight for survival that is making their wings more damaged, disabling them from flying, not the additional needs they have.
It is not the disability that stops the freedom to fly but the non-inclusive society we live in that prevents it.