Choose Joy

Isn’t finding joy what we all want for our children?

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One of the places that I love to visit is a picnic area in Peter Lougheed Provincial Park located in Kananaskis Country, Alberta. The area has kilometres of accessible trails and facilities in some of the most beautiful landscapes in Canada.  The accessibility of the area is the result of the vision of  Alberta’s late Premier Peter Lougheed and his wife Jeanne, who came up with the idea of removing barriers (including financial barriers) so that individuals with disabilities and their families could access the beauty of the Rocky Mountains.  When I was a student at the University of Alberta, I was fortunate to visit this area as a support person for individuals with disabilities.  When my daughter was born years later with a developmental disability, I introduced my family to the area.  I have been visiting this area with my family for over 25 years now.  If you are unable to visit the area, a cheap seat view of this place can be found in movies filmed in the area such as Brokeback Mountain (2012), Heartland (2007-), RV (2006), and Superman (1978).  For those of you who know the area, the picnic site I am referring to is the furthest picnic site (number nine) overlooking Bill Benson Trail at William Watson Lodge, it is a place that has brought me much joy.  

Visitors enter the picnic area through an accessible path which passes through a pine tree forest.  The creator of this path was imaginative and ensured that the path wound through and around the trees making interesting leading lines for the photographers among us.  The leading lines created by the path guides you to heaven on Earth because God’s paintbrush is very evident in this space. The picnic area overhangs a pine tree forest  and beyond the forest Kananaskis Lower Lake draws your eye towards Mount Indefatigable.  On a clear day, the view almost looks two-dimensional, as if someone painted it, or it is a backdrop for a movie. My husband tells me that this two-dimensional phenomenon is due to the clarity of the air which brings everything into focus as if there was no depth of field.  I have tried over and over again to capture the beauty of this place in images and words but I have yet to do it justice. 

When I visit this place, I almost always have my daughter with me.  In our early years, the teacher in me would constantly label things, ask questions, and essentially turn the walk into a teaching moment.  I was not Miss Trunchbull from the movie Matilda, and I wouldn’t drill her, but I definitely did not pass up on an educational teaching moment. Despite my efforts, I often received few responses from my daughter and the more than occasional protests.  My bug catchers, magnifying glasses, binoculars, bird whistles and visual supports did not live up to the hype that was in my mind (which was a definite photo op for the Parenting Special Needs Magazine). And, if I were to be honest, my daughter was often not a willing participant. Usually, by the time we arrived at the picnic area she would be asking to go back to the cabin.  I have become wiser over the  years and have learned to stop always expanding her language and to stop the constant incidental teaching.  Of course these strategies have their place and my daughter has undoubtedly benefitted from them, but I have learned to let her take what she is able to out of this place and in her own way.  There is a balance now and I feel that because I have backed off from the probing and have given her space, I can see her blossoming and finding her own joy in the picnic area that has brought me so much joy.  If you were to ask me which was more influential on her development, the incidental teaching or the passive support of letting her just be or explore in her own way?  I would say that the incidental teaching has taught her to achieve many educational milestones such as reading sight words, counting and sorting.  However, the passive participation on my part, of just letting her be in this space in her own way has brought her joy.  And, isn’t finding joy what we all want for our children?