My Visually Impaired Son Is Getting Upset Because I Treat Him Differently.

It would be hard to decide but here's why i wouldn't let him 1 the risk of injury to himself and others is too great and 2 some bb guns are high powered enough to lodge a bb in a person's skull. I know this fom personal experience. My younger brother's best friend was shot in the head w/ bb gun the bb is still there just above his left eye. if he won't listen to you maybe u couuld have ur local sheriff's office talk to him about the dangers of all guns.

Like Leah, I'm wondering if it would be alright for him to shoot under supervision. Has his brother already let him shoot the BB gun? There are ways to make it safer and easier for him. The brass BBs, getting (or making) brightly colored large targets, and only let him shoot at the large targets against a solid backgroud, such as the side of a barn or a shed. Most injuries cause by carelessness (or sometimes mean-ness) are minor. My brother shot me in the leg with a BB gun from about 5 feet away (we'd been shooting at a target that was about 15 feet away) and it just bruised a little.

I believe that if you teach your children limitations, they limit themselves and never work out other ways to do something. Modification is key - your son has visual limitations, but if you can find a way for him to still enjoy some of life's adventures, such as shooting, it will help keep him from being resentful. (My idea for letting him drive is see if you can find a go-kart track that has bright colors marking the edge of the track. It's not a car, but at least it's something, and it's fairly safe. A friend of mine did this and loved it!)

I've had friends with physical or mental handicaps, and I have been inspired by the parents and the friends themselves for finding ways to experience things that they might otherwise miss out on if they'd said, "I can't do that because I'm ___." Instead they said, "I want to do this! How can I do this while taking my handicap into consideration?"

Who is your ophthalmologist/retina specialist?

Hmm..this is a tough one. Is it an option to agree to let him have the BB gun as long as he agrees to use it only under supervision? That way you could be there to make sure everyone is out of the way, and that he isn't going to harm himself. When you lose one sence, the others get a lot stronger, and if someone took the time to show him by touch how to load, fire, ect...I don't know. I honestly don't think that you'll come to an agreement on this one. He's 16. He may understand perfectly, but think it's unfair, which in all reality, it is! Not on your behalf of course, but it's so unfair that some children are born perfectly healthy and their siblings are not. Bottom line, you're the mom. As much as we like to have our kids understanding, we can't always have it. You have to do what you have to do in order to keep him and everyone else in your family safe.

Well, to be perfectly honest, he's 16, he's old enough to understand the "why?" of why he should not have a gun, BB or otherwise. Sit him down and tell him like it is. There is no sense beating around the bush. He knows he is visually impaired, tell him that BB's don't have a 10 foot range, that he could accidently shoot an animal, a sibling, a neighbor, etc. These things could happen if he weren't visually impaired, they can sure happen since he is. I have a friend that is one of 5 boys and every one of them is legally blind due to macular degeneration. He knows his limits, and yes, sometimes he is still frustrated by them but at some point you must face facts. I think the only thing you can do is sit him down and just explain it to him. It's not about him, it's about the other people that he might not see that could potentially get hurt.