The Impact of Blindness on My Work as a Child Care Provider

It is 6:45 PM on Wednesday night. My mother pulls the car up in front of the church, and I get out with my dog guide, a young black Labrador retriever. She guides me gently and efficiently through the front doors and follows my commands to turn right and "go to work," ignoring the people who stand around talking before the midweek service begins.

My destination is Nursery 3, one of four rooms in a suite which comprises the area where children under the age of two are cared for during services and other events at the church. Nursery 3 has two doors. I walk through the first, cross the room, put my purse on a window sill, and remove a small, lightweight chain. Getting on my knees, I tell Dori, my dog guide, to go to her place. She lies down in the corner opposite the door. I attach one end of the chain to a hook at the baseboard and the other to her collar. Finally, I remove her leash and put it on the window sill beside my purse.

Once Dori is in her place, I move to the other end of the room, where the other door is open, and put up the baby gate. Within a few minutes, parents begin to arrive with their children. I meet them at the gate, giving the arriving child a hug and relieving the parents of bags and other supplies while they sign their children's names to the attendance sheet and talk with me about any special needs or concerns.

The scenario I have just described was the beginning of a weekly routine for me for three years, when I worked at the North Anderson Church of God in Anderson, Indiana. This was my first experience working in a child care setting since I became a dog guide user in 1991. I had quite a bit of experience before obtaining my first dog, but I was a teenager then and had never considered the impact of my blindness on my ability to provide quality child care. As I begun working in a child care setting again in February, 2000. I began to ask myself certain questions. What if the dog's presence was a problem? What if parents were afraid to leave their children with me because of perceptions that I would not know if something dangerous or inappropriate happened? How would I get to know the children and keep track of everything that was going on in the room? Would I be able to play a truly active role in caring for the children, or would I just be a warm body for crying babies? The only way I would know was by jumping in and starting to work.

When I first began working, I made Braille name tags and pinned them on the backs of the babies' outfits. I soon learned that there were other methods of identifying the children which were at times more effective. Babies' voices are as unique as anyone else's, and I learned that I could recognize a voice after spending a few moments interacting. I also learned that babies' cries were very distinct depending on what the cause of the cry was, and I soon developed an ability to distinguish a hungry or tired baby from a sick or injured baby that was as keen as any mother's.

I also learned that I could recognize babies based on their body structure, and I integrated this knowledge with a mental note about the type of clothing each child was wearing so that I could still identify a child without always relying on a name tag which may be unavailable because the child was in a swing or lying on her back. Meeting parents and greeting children at the baby gate dor enabled me to get acquainted with the child's body structure right away, even if he/she did not want to be held. A quick pass from Mom's arms to mine to the floor allowed me to determine how thin the child was, the approximate height, the length of hair and whether the child was wearing a hairpiece, the texture of clothing, and estimate his/her motor abilities. In some cases, the child was timid, and this knowledge was more important to me than the sound of the child's voice.

I have a small amount of vision, and I also learned that being able to look for children using some visual cue helped me to keep track of them and be alert to the need to monitor their activities more closely in the event that they were nearing an open door or getting too close to Dori, who didn't understand that a friendly paw laid on an infant's arm could leave a painful scratch when the infant rolled away. I learned to move to the tan carpeted area before putting the child I had greeted at the gate down so that I could also look to determine how much contrast existed between the child's clothing, hair, and the carpet.

Diaper bags presented a unique challenge to me as well as to sighted workers. We tried to encourage parents to label them and items in them, such as pacifiers and bottles. Because this was not always done, we began making notes about the order in which the diaper bags were placed on the shelf. If the bags were labeled, I could verify that I was looking for an item in the correct one by asking a sighted worker. However, often I found that we worked together to use a process of elimination to determine whose bag was where. Some bags had special items in them; others were made of unique materials. Sometimes we had to figure it out by listing out the labels on all the other bags and finding out whose name was not on the list.

When I first began working in February, 2000, I worked exclusively with infants. By 2002, the children in my room were anywhere between four and 24 months of age. I learned that each child has a unique personality and way of relating to me, even as young as seven or eight months of age. I spent a lot of time on the floor, moving around and playing with each of the children. In this way, I became acquainted with their likes and dislikes, vocalization patterns, and other traits which were useful to me as I work with them. Sometimes, I took up a position in a certain corner of the room or place where I could listen to the children's activities and focus on a certain area which needed more attention, such as the slide when beginning walkers or climbers were playing on it.

When greeting parents, I asked about any special needs, how old the child was (which gave me a hint about milestones she may have reached), and whether she was afraid of dogs. I pointed out that I had a dog guide, and most parents responded favorably to the idea of having their child exposed to Dori. Bringing Dori's presence up gave me an opportunity to learn whether the child had fears or allergies of which I needed to be aware. I only encountered a couple of children who were afraid of Dori. Because she had "her corner," the children had the ability to confront their fear by choosing to occupy another part of the room for their play. In each case, the child overcame her fear and eventually came to appreciate and respect Dori's presence in the room even though she did not choose to lavish attention on Dori when provided the opportunity.

Most of the toddlers were not afraid of Dori. In fact, many of them enjoyed standing near her or petting her. I felt that it was vital for them to be comfortable with her and accustomed to her presence in the room, so I encouraged this when they first met her. After a few moments, I diverted their attention to toys, stories, music, or other activities if they were very young. If they were old enough to understand what Dori's job was, I spent some time explaining and pointing out her harness and how it worked. When this was done, I explained that Dori wore her harness to church and that while we were at church she needed to rest or "take a nap," so people shouldn't touch her and make her want to play. I found that this approach usually worked best with the older siblings of children I cared for, who often came in at the end of the child care session and wanted to pet Dori.

My work at teaching young children not to pet a working dog had its limitations--it is not practical to expect any 18-month-old to remember a rule about not petting a dog who is lying quietly in the corner and wags her tail when anyone looks in her direction. Dori turned out to be very adept at comforting children who missed their mommies, and I found that this did not negatively affect her guidework. So she was allowed limited pets from the babies while she was in her place.

I spent quite a bit of time being a warm body for crying children; but instead of this being my role because of misconceptions about blindness, I found that it was my role because it was something I was good at. Because I was a familiar face in a setting where many of the workers were once-a-month volunteers, children who were having difficulty adjusting to the child care environment relied on me to provide stability and routine. I did my share of picking up toys, feeding, and diaper changing as well. The delegation of tasks depended on abilities in some cases--it was more convenient for the sighted elderly lady to prepare a bottle since she could retrieve materials from the bag with the right name on it; but it was essential that I lift the 30-pound toddler onto the changing table or walk a crying child who needed to be comforted since she had hip and back injuries. Sometimes the delegation of tasks depended on whose hands were free at a given moment.

Working in the church nursery enabled me to let go of some of my fears about the potential impact of blindness on the quality of care I could provide to children. Quality care in a public setting is based on many factors: awareness of agency procedures and each family's needs, ability to work as part of a team, awareness of my own limitations, and creativity in working around them. Because I am aware that I cannot see, I must make an effort to be aware of details that I don't have the opportunity to notice and to find other ways of noticing them. Often other providers in the room could not identify the child whose hairpiece had fallen on the floor without going over heads for messed up hair or matching hairpieces. But because I had felt the hairpiece at first greeting and used it as an identifier, I knew who it belonged to. Knowing a child's voice also means that I know a child's angry scream, which means that often I know who pinched a crying child even if the offender has walked away after shrieking with rage because the pinched child fought back against the stealing of a toy. Most situations provide multisensory information; but often people focus solely on the visual information because it is prominent. Losing and regaining my own vision so many times over the years has forced me to acknowledge this truth again and again. God gave us five senses for a reason, and if we are to value each other as human beings and members of the body of Christ we must become comfortable with the truth that we are not helpless when we lose part or all of one or those senses.

THE IMPACT OF BLINDNESS ON MY WORK AS A CHILD CARE PROVIDER

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