Friday, October 10, 2014

Acceptance? Awareness? Experience.

It's October again and that means it is Down Syndrome Awareness Month! ...But... I don't really like the awareness part there. I think maybe I would prefer it be called acceptance month? I suppose people need to be more aware of those who have Down syndrome to understand how similar we all really are. Then perhaps they can accept them as peers. But when people are raising awareness for a cause I feel like it is usually because there is a problem that needs to be addressed. Something is wrong, people are dying, something needs funding, and research, and help! Down syndrome is not a problem. People who are unable to see those with Down syndrome as equals are the only problem. But how do we make them see that when we are raising awareness? Making ourselves appear to be broken and in need of assistance.

This past Saturday we walked in the South Puget Sound Up with Down Syndrome's Buddy Walk. It was GREAT! It was so much better than it was last year, but my favorite part was the giant groups of highschoolers they had out there helping out. For one it meant I was relived of my face painting duties so I actually got to have fun and experience all the festivities myself, which I had been worried I would miss out on. While prizes were being given out and speeches were being made, a group of football players sat over on a curb. Arden was getting wiggly so I set him down and he immediately ran over to them and started waving his arms in the air and yelling at them, as he does, and these teenage boys who you know usually probably only think about themselves. And girls. And themselves with girls, and I suppose football, well, they all turned to mush over this little boy in their faces getting high fives and yelling at them excitedly for no apparent reason.

 
Photos by : Jason Zimmer
That is how we teach acceptance!


It made me think of a newspaper clipping my Aunt sent me a while ago about an elementary school where she lives in D.C. with a program, Roots of Empathy.  By bringing a baby into the classroom regularly for the children to interact with the children witnessed the babies different moods, smiles as well as tears, making the students aware of the babies different emotions. It was a start to being able to understand and empathize. Experience will teach them to be patient and considerate of others. I thought that was AWESOME! This is how we learn acceptance too!  It made me want to set something up with the boys school where I could bring Arden in to play with some classes because you really do need to experience Down syndrome.

When I drop the big boys off at school in the mornings I walk into the building with them and stand against the wall of the gym. They sit in their respective lines behind a cone with their teacher's name on it. Ephraim still wont let me just drop them off and leave. I have to wait until the bell rings and the teachers comes to collect their class. Then I have to wave and blow kisses back and forth with Ephraim until he is out of sight. But until the teachers come out Arden does his own thing. I let Arden loose in a gym full of children grades K-5. He runs around from class to class interacting with the children. Earlier this week he ran up to a little girl in one of the kindergarten classes. She was sitting at the front of the line quietly, not talking with friends behind her in line or anything. Just facing the front a somber expression on her face as she stared down at the floor. When Arden ran over to her I was a little worried his presence was not going to be appreciated. Maybe she needed to be alone. Just as I had decided to intervene the little girl looked up at him. He leaned over closer so they were face to face, just a few inches between. He furrowed his brow as looked at her like he was trying to see why she looked so sad. Her face softened as she looked into his eyes and she then just reached out and hugged him. He hugged her back. It was just a quick hug, three seconds tops, and then he continued on to other students, waving in faces and stealing lunch boxes, but that little girl continued to look more relaxed than she had before his hug. It was then I realised what I had already been doing by letting him run wild through the gyms in the morning. They were experiencing Down syndrome. I was exposing the future to it before they have time to see it as anything else. They will know Arden as compassionate and loving, and silly, and sweet, before they learn anything about that one extra chromosome that makes him so very different in the eyes of others. I stopped worrying that the teachers might not like it that I let Arden run around free when the children should be sitting quietly in their lines waiting to be collected. What Arden is doing is much more important. He is showing the world that he is not broken. He does not need help, or funding, or research. He is Arden and he is awesome.

Happy Down Syndrome.... uuuuh.... something Month! Go love someone with Down Syndrome, and then keep doing it all year round.