Ryder Wells from North Carolina is a nearly seven year old boy who had to overcome a lot during his short life and is still fighting. When the boy was only 21 months old, he and his family were visiting friends for Thanksgiving when Ryder was brutally attacked by two 100-pound Rottweilers.
The terrific incident resulted in sweet Ryder losing half of his face. He also had his teeth crushed and suffered from a broken arm and punctured lung. Doctors’ prognosis weren’t bright, but the little fighter survived. Over the course of 5 years, Ryder had to undergo around 50 surgeries to reconstruct his face.
Until he gets mature, he will need to have more surgeries, including nose and teeth reconstruction.
Ryder’s family is proud of their hero son, but they are at the same time concerned for him because he now attends kindergarten and is always starred at, not only by his little friends, but adults too. And although he’s still very young, he is aware of everything. Speaking to The Mirror, his mother Brittany said how “He wears glasses and a cap and sometimes he’ll hang his head to hide his face. But I just tell him every day that he’s beautiful, different is beautiful and it’s ok to be different.”
Recently, the family was at the park when a child pointed at Ryder and started yelling, ‘monster’, before he ran away. This didn’t happen for the first time. “Out shopping the other day someone shouted ‘ew’ at him. It’s hard and it breaks my heart as a parent that after everything he’s been through, people aren’t always nice over something he can’t help.”
Brittany is afraid that things could get even worse once Ryder starts going to school because no matter now innocent children are, they are not really considerate.
She fears her sweet boy may easily become a victim of bullying and is doing all in her power to raise awareness about the effects of bullying on someone like her son. She wants everyone to think twice about how they treat people who are different and hopes her son will be accepted by the society. “I just reassure him as much as I can but I’m absolutely terrified about when he goes to school. There are always going to be a couple of kids who aren’t kind,” she adds.
We should all teach our children to embrace differences and always treat everyone with respect because that would help children like sweet Ryder have a better life.
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