EVERY NEW YEAR, we talk about fresh starts. We resolve to be kinder, more inclusive, to do better by one another. We tell ourselves this will be the year things change.

But for some children, nothing changes at all.

My son is seven years old. He has an intellectual disability, and he is non-speaking. In his seven years, there has never been a knock at the door asking him to come out to play. No play dates. No birthday party invitations. No casual message from another parent suggesting a meet-up in the park.

This is not the fault of children. It is the failure of the systems we have built — systems that separate children early, and then wonder, years later, why inclusion feels so difficult.

At home, my son’s version of friendship is gentle and still. His dad sits beside him on the couch, and they connect. My son stays. He leans in. He wraps an arm around him. His calm presence is his communication. I experience it. His sister does too.

With him, friendship looks like peace. Like being entirely at ease with another person. There is no performance required. No words. Just the decision to be together. But outside our home, that kind of friendship has nowhere to land.

Every weekday morning, my son waits at the door with his bag, calm and patient, ready for a day in a school that is separate from his community. Six hundred children walk past. School bags bouncing, coats half-zipped, chatter spilling out ahead of them. Full of curiosity, imagination and kindness. They may have noticed him getting on or off the bus. That brief glance is the sum total of his place in their world.

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He cannot initiate the friendship. Other children could, but they........

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