You know ‘that’ kid?  The one who sticks out in your child’s class.  The one who makes funny noises or throws a fit or is awkward with the other kids?

Well, I had a dilemma this past week.  We are having Caleb’s first classroom party for his birthday this year.  We decided to invite all the boys in his class.  13 invites on the list, or so I thought…

Last week I was helping out at school and saw ‘that’ kid in action.  One of Caleb’s classmates was having a meltdown…in the middle of the morning…in the middle of the hallway.  I watched the poor kiddo and the teacher work with him to help settle him down and I began to think that maybe we could just scratch his name off of our list.  He is only in Caleb’s class for a few hours each day, he wouldn’t even know the difference.  It would be so easy to take that name off the list and no one would know, really.  As I sat there and wrestled with what to do, it occurred to me that at times, my kid is ‘that’ kid!  I couldn’t believe, after ALL that we have been through with Nathan, that I was even thinking of excluding someone from this party.  So when the special transformer invites arrived in the mail, all 13 invites were carefully packed away in Caleb’s folder and sent off to school.

Fast forward to today when I was helping at school again.  The Special Ed teacher pulled me aside and told me that she was glad we had included this little boy.  She was really encouraging his Mom to come to our party.  After all, if anyone can understand different, we can.  If anyone can understand how hard it is to have a child who responds differently to the world, it’s us!  If anyone can understand feeling the weight of judgment from other parents, um…we are the poster children!

So we are excited that that special, unique little boy and his Mom will be at Caleb’s party.  And we have already begun to talk about how to make them feel welcome at our house. Our hope is that they walk into this house and feel nothing but an encouraging pat on the back, a ‘hey, you are doing a great job Mom’, a ‘we get it’ glance.

And the next time you see ‘that’ kid, remember that each kid has a story, some more difficult than any of the rest of us can know.  Take a chance, reach out and give a smile.  You never know how much of a difference it could make.