A journey called confidence
First of all let me tell you all that this is a true story.
Once there was a boy named Jim who was 15 and could only walk short distances and could not talk. He used a wheelchair and a talking device called the Dynavox. He was very conscious of his talking device as he felt that many people had seen wheelchairs but stared at him when the words came out of the machine instead of his mouth.
He felt like he was being caged into a room with eyes glaring at him anytime he went out in public. His favourite haunt was an Indian restaurant called 'Haveli' where he often went for Sunday buffet lunches.
This is what happened on one occasion about 6 months ago. His whole family were seated at the restaurant. His favourite food was spring rolls and Jim could sometimes eat as many as 20 spring rolls!! Jim's mum asked him to go and get what he felt like from the buffet.
He said ok but as he got closer and closer to the food table he felt like everybody was staring at him like he was some animal in a show window at a zoo. He came whizzing back to the table where his family were eating and mum saw that there was nothing on his plate.
When they got home Jim explained everything to his mum who was convinced that he had to do something about it. Every day Jim and his family made sure they had some time to sit down and build up his confidence. His sister and friends promised to help as well.
Every time he was invited to his friend's house for a party or dinner Jim and his mum wrote little speeches and saved them in his machine. He then made these little planned speeches amongst the guests at his friends' house saying
"Thank you for inviting me , the food was really yummy" and so on.
On one occasion he even said some after dinner jokes!!
He did all this in front of a group of friends and slowly got used to speaking with his communication aid amongst a lot of people. They went through this process for many months and also practised speaking to strangers such as at the hospital reception desk.
All of Jim's family were so pleased with his progress that they had to go back to his favourite restaurant 'Haveli' to celebrate!
Just when his sister and Jim went up for spring rolls, they found that the buffet container was empty. With no prompting at all, Jim went straight to the waiter and said
"Please could we have some more spring rolls?"
His sister started clapping in joy and all his family were so pleased with him that he came back with a big smile from ear to ear.
Of course, with about 10 spring rolls on his plate too!!!!
By Pranav Iyer
