Barriers in your mind

Many of the events and experiences I remembered while writing Milly’s story unfortunately did not fit in the text. People who live with a severely handicapped child often encounter misunderstandings and prejudices about the child’s disability(s). For this reason, we have added this page to Milly’s homepage to make you think about common ways of speaking and formulating about people with disabilities.

In particular, I would like to address some of the idioms I have noticed in recent years. Many people are certainly not aware of how some phrases come across. They may, however, be seen as exclusionary or even derogatory. They are not just words. Words can be powerful. They reflect thoughts, create ideas, form prejudices, promote our view of people and shape our attitude towards them. So the barriers already arise in our minds. How important inclusion efforts are in Germany can be seen above all in how people speak and think about people with disabilities.