Everybody deserves to have friends.

With Kevin starting school I've been processing a lot of memories from my school days. I've been thinking a lot about some of the kids who I remember struggled a lot in school. These were the kids who didn't have any immediately apparent disabilities and looked normal to me, but as an adult I can look back and see that many of them were dealing with ADHD, sensory processing disorders, mild autism, dyslexia, and others. It was easy to be nice to Sophia ("the wheel-chair girl") and Stevie (the deaf guy in our ward) because to me their disabilities were obvious and I knew from Primary that you should be nice to those people. But ADHD and SPD are much less obvious and I didn't understood at the time that the kids who were struggling with things like that were having behavior problems and struggling with their schoolwork for reasons that weren't completely in their control. Those kids were made fun of a lot and had a really hard time making friends, and I think a lot of the "normal" kids didn't realize it was just as wrong to make fun of these people as it is to make fun of someone who can't walk. I don't remember making fun of those kids who were struggling, but in retrospect I wish I could have understood how much they needed a friend and that I had taken some time to be a true friend to them. I hope I can help my kids recognize those kids and be willing to help them, because everybody deserves to have friends.

If you have any suggestions, please share.