Page 10 - Nutshell 4

Instead he learned to count to ten with both hands outspread,
bending his thumbs sequentially to mark the number.
It was on his third birthday that he asked his parents why their
hands, and the hands of all the people he saw in picture books, were
different from his. They were ready with an answer, glad that he was
not upset.
“Yes, Tommy, your hands are special because they have ten
thumbs,” said his father. “You are going to have great adventures
with them, doing things that other children cannot do. And you will
be the first one to do them! That makes you very important.”
The boy considered that for a minute, looking back and forth from
his hands to his father’s.
“But I want to have hands like you!”
“Tommy,” said his mother kindly, “many people want to change
how they are. They see other people and think they would rather be
more like them. But everyone can be happy just as they are, simply by
getting used to themselves and not being unhappy about not being
like someone else. You see, all of us already are the same, in what
really is important: we can do good things and help other people.
And as you get older, you will see that all the ways in which people
do not look or talk like each other are silly things to think about.”
“I hope so,” said Tommy, not yet convinced.

Soon after this, the team watching over Tommy’s childhood met to
discuss the next step. Dr. Manus and the other therapists joined
Tommy’s parents in a small medical conference room.
“Now that he understands his very visible physiological difference,”
said the doctor, “He needs to move beyond his comfort zone, little
by little. That means matching challenges to achievements. Children
with birth-normal limbs do not need such careful calibration or
monitoring: their social and personal development, particularly
through interaction with their peers, involves an unpredictable and
largely uncontrolled series of interactions that both augment and
diminish their self-confidence. Absent trauma, this combination of
knocking off rough edges and polishing produces a balanced ego. At
the end of adolescence, most of us know a good deal about ourselves
and others, at least enough to enter the adult world prepared for its
greater struggles and rewards.”
He paused to determine if Mr. and Mrs. Tennyson were following
the implications of his words.