November 18, 2007
posted 11/18/2007 4:49 PM

Supermarket Disability Acceptance Test
I continue to learn from other parents and professionals that different disabilities have different visible characteristics. If we spent an hour shopping in a local supermarket, we may not realize some visible characteristics from a child are actually associated with their disability. Here's a quick test to check on our acceptance levels for a Saturday outing in the grocery store.

1.) You are walking down a packed aisle on Saturday at 1:30 pm. A mother is pushing a 10 year-old boy in a wheelchair and pulling the shopping cart behind her. She accidentally flips her purse on the floor spilling the contents across the floor. Do you:

A. About-face your cart and reverse direction. B. Push your cart forward over the contents of the purse. C. Wait patiently until the mother reassembles her purse. D. Offer a smile and kind word while assisting the mother with her spilled purse.

2.) You are walking down a packed aisle on Saturday at 1:30 pm. A mother stops pushing her shopping cart while she attends to her 10 year-old boy who is displaying a physical and emotional outburst. She accidentally flips her purse on the floor spilling the contents across the floor. Do you:

A. About-face your cart and reverse direction and shake your head in disbelief. B. Push your cart forward over the contents of the purse and provide the mother with a disgusting laser stare. C. Wait patiently until the mother reassembles her purse and make eye contact with other customers to share looks of revulsion. D. Offer a smile and kind word while assisting the mother with her spilled purse so she can better attend to her child.

I will offer a hypothesis that if we staged these two scenarios, a larger share of people would choose D for question 1 and choose A, B, or C for question 2.

If you didn't choose D for question 2, you may believe the emotional outburst is a consequence of bad parenting resulting in a spoiled child. By the way, I forgot to mention we were in the paper good aisle, not the candy section so this wasn't a child exhibiting bad behavior, but a child with a disability that resulted in the emotional outburst.

As Chairperson for our VOICE parent group, I spend a lot of time listening and learning. I believe I would have chosen D for both questions, but years ago, I might have conjured an internal thought about the child's spoiled behavior. Now I realize that this type of presented behavior could be associated with different disabilities. I'd ask you to consider an open-mind and kind smile the next time you pass a child displaying an emotional outburst, even if it is in the candy aisle:-)

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Supermarket Disability Acceptance Test

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