Hello everyone! Emily, here. I'm so glad you're on my channel today. I hope you're
doing well. So today, I'm going to be specifically talking to the parents of
children with hearing losses. If you're not a parent, don't jump off now! I've got
some good stuff and I'm going to share more. I hope that you take a moment to
like this video and subscribe to my channel because I'm going to be creating
more excellent content and as you like and share and comment below I'm able to
interact with you and we can accomplish my goal of increasing awareness for the
D/deaf and hard of hearing. So here we go. Today, we're going to talk about three
things that parents can share with their children to help their children deal
with hearing loss. The first one is to stand up for yourself. As a parent you
can encourage your child to stand up for themselves. They can stand up for
themselves in a variety of ways: against bullies, in educational or social
settings, they can stand up to themselves. So standing up to a bully is really
interesting it may difficult it can be hard and it definitely depends on your
child's demeanor. For me personally, when someone bullied me I would just ignore
them and pretend that I didn't hear them. Of course, I got a lot of garbage for
that but I would just let it slip out of my ears or turn off my heaing aids and
not even give any attention to it. Definitely be in tune with your child
and do not be afraid to ask them "Hey, does anyone ever make fun of you?" ask
them how that feels. Walk them through it and use your
parental instincts or parental intervention...whatever you need to to
ensure that your child is not bullied and if they are, how you can take proper
steps and measures to prevent that. So on the second one with educational settings
and social settings, be sure that your child is aware of what kind of loss they
have and that they are aware that some people may have questions about that and
that's okay. So for example, I know that my hearing loss is a congenital,
bilateral, sensorineural hearing loss so what that means is that I have a genetic
hearing loss that is in both ears, that my inner ear just doesn't work properly
to process the sound to get it to my brain. So I wear hearing aids because my
ears just don't work as well as other people's ears but these help me hear
and understand better than I could with my ears just the way they are. It's
important for your child to understand their hearing loss so that they can
stand up (for themselves) in classrooms and social settings. They
may notice that people are looking at their ears and it's okay to say "Hey are
you looking at my hearing aids? Let me tell you about this."... "Let me tell you
about my hearing aid" if they have one or their cochlear implant if they have one
or their BAHA. Just let them take initiative and have that confidence to
be able to say that. Also, in the classroom and social settings help your child
understand that they can do certain things to stand up for themselves. What
I mean by this is sitting in the front front of the classroom will help
your child be able to be closer to the teacher as the instructor speaking. Also,
they can let the teacher know that if the teacher can face to talk to the class as
they're speaking, that is helpful. In social settings, you can let your child
know that you know you might struggle to hear but don't be afraid to ask "What?" the
last one is help your child have confidence with themselves. And this starts
really with responsibility. With their hearing loss, there definitely are
days that we have, where we feel down, we feel "Woe is me." sometimes it just
hurts to be different. You wish you could just blend in and so help your child
have responsibility and what I mean by this is when they are of age, give them
hearing aid batteries and help them... "You know, carrying your hearing aid
batteries these are for your aids, put them in different places."... If you don't want
to carry them, I highly recommend that they put a pack in their backpack, in
their locker, in their desk, at home in different places that they're commonly
at so if they ever need a hearing aid battery, their hearing aid batteries will be
there. Because they will have the aids (working). It's like you don't really realize what
a great blessing your hearing aids or hearing devices are until they die and
so you want to boost their confidence by having them prepared to always have their
devices powered up and ready when they need them. So help them (your children) have
self-confidence by taking responsibility. Speak positively of their hearing aids and
express confidence in them. So there is number one. In terms of helping your
child stand up for themselves. Number two: help your child find good friends.
Now, I'm not saying go to school with your child and sit with them at lunch and tell
everyone to come sit with you. No, I'm saying talk with your child at home and
ask them "Hey did you meet anyone new at school today?" or "Hey did you feel bullied
at school today?" "Yes." "Okay well did you distance yourself from them and find
other people that you can be around?" "Yes." "Great, tell me about them" and then
encourage your child to invite those children over. Encourage your child to be
friends. You've got to be a friend to have a friend. And friends are incredible.
Friends can be that strength when you're weak. So I highly recommend help your
child find friends. And don't go find friends for your child but encourage
your child by the conversations you have with them to plant a seed to find good
friends I had a good friend. I've always been very blessed with great friends
that have stuck up for me and it's been amazing. When you have great friends and
you're not alone, hearing loss it's a lot easier to deal with. Number three: help your
child return the favor. This is an interesting one. Returning the favor can
be done in a lot of different ways they can do that daily when they're in school and
social settings by looking for people who are lonely and reaching out for them.
They can return the favor by joining local organizations in which other
people are D/deaf or hard of hearing. You can help them see that they're not alone.
There's other people like them you can view this in physical group gatherings
or you can do online virtual gatherings. There are lots of organizations and
groups that you can become a part of to help your child realize that one, they're
not alone and two, they have experiences! They can relate to those people. There's
a friendship and a bonding that comes with those that share your same
struggles so help your child give back and return the favor. So I'm one last thing I would add to
return the favor that I would add is help your child explore talents. It's
really easy do to say "Woe is me, I have a hearing loss I can't do much" but guess
what? I have taken my hearing loss and I feel like I've made it a strength
because for work I actually edit videos that's incredible considering a hearing
loss and having to line up the audio in the video to be able to put that all
together, get rid of the background noise, even be able to detect but there's
background noise. There are no limits to the talents that your child can have so
encourage them to develop whatever talents they would like to. Whether they be
artistic, musical or sporty but helping them develop their talents and share them
with others will help them return the favor. So there you have it, there's three
things you can share with your child to help them deal with their hearing loss.
Thanks so much for sticking around for you at the end of this video. I want to
share the two things that I wish I had known when I was younger. So all growing
up, I always thought that I was two things: I thought that I was forgetful and I
thought that I always lost things. Those sound very
similar but to me they're different. So forgetful in the fact that someone would
tell me something and I would totally forget about it until they would bring
it up again. For example, my mom would ask me "Did you unload the dishwasher like I
asked you to?" and I would always feel so bad because it's not like I
intentionally forgot to unload the dishwasher it was because I had
hearing fatigue. I would be listening to things like my mom would
tell me but I would already be thinking about
the next thing she would say it wouldn't even calculate that I needed to unload
the dishwasher and so I would forget these things that people would tell me
to do because it never really even calculated because I'm trying to listen
to the next thing that someone's saying or thinking about the thing that someone
said five sentences ago. So recognize that if your child seems forgetful that is
normal. At least for me it was, and when I realized that "Oh it's okay to be
forgetful." I felt confidence in realizing that I do have some weaknesses and and that's
okay. The next thing that I mentioned is losing things. I feel like I'm losing things all
the time: my keys, my sunglasses, my purse, you name it, or my phone...
I'm always asking people "Have you seen this? Have you think seen this? I've lost
it." I realized that the reason I'm always losing things is because I can't hear
them drop behind me. And so like even it just happened the other day, where my
keys (I had a hole in my cardigan pocket) and my keys fell out. I didn't realize
that they had fallen out until I had walked about five steps and thought I
think I heard something drop and I looked behind me it sure enough it was my keys.
So if you notice that your child is always losing things, again this is
normal because they probably don't hear things drop behind them. I have combated
this by any time I leave a place so if I'm getting off the bus or getting out
of my car, we're leaving work I look behind me and I see if there's anything
I'd left and pick it up and take it. It definitely requires building a habit and
sometimes this can't be prevented because for instance, if you're walking
in the store and going straight you probably won't go back to that spot
again and the fact that you were not sitting there but were actively
moving, won't make you think to look back. And we can't always be looking behind
our shoulders and be paranoid we're gonna be loosing something but
getting the habit of looking behind myself when I left either a desk or some
space that I've been sitting in for awhile has helped me remember and not
lose a lot of things. I hope that helped. There you have it! Have you seen any of
these things in your child? Can you relate? I would love to hear in the
comments below. Please share your experiences because I'm sure that when
you share yours it will inspire me and remind me of some of my stories
I have like 20 plus years of stories now and it's been incredible that I've come
this far and I'd love to hear all your stories so please take a moment to like
and subscribe to my channel. I hope that I see you here, through the next video!
Have a great day, everyone!