Support Group

Brenda and I attended our first support group for families with Down Syndrome. It was comforting to see that many families willing to share their experience of living through the same thing we are doing. And the synchronicity of it – of eight families there, six had three children, all the same gender, the youngest having Down Syndrome. Most of the children were also the same general age as our boys, between six and two, so our boys had others to play with. So we’ll feel more at ease when it comes time to enter the discussion.

I’m still worried about what we’ll get out of this. Brenda said she learned things that would help her as a teacher, and that’s a plus right away, but I’m a little too judgmental and need to open my mind to what everybody is saying. There seemed to be an anti-special ed vibe going through the meeting, with some parents taking kind of an ‘us against the world’ stance regarding their kids. Brenda and I bit our tongues about Brenda being a special ed teacher, so we in a way allowed this tone to go a bit longer than it perhaps needed to, but tossing that fact out just to shut people up didn’t seem like the right thing to do. I just thought it was funny in this instance, where parents are talking about how they know so much about their kid and Down Syndrome, which they probably do – I am not even suggesting that we in our situation bury our heads, we need to be armed with knowledge – but the oldest kid with Down Syndrome is seven, and my wife has been doing spectacular work for people with special needs for twenty years. So who might actually know more? Given a choice, I’d pick Brenda. One of the first things I realized about her when we began dating was her open mindedness, and her aggressive stance toward learning to teach her population – she is a staunch advocate for her kids and for her methods, and I have always thought it incredible the stuff she knew about her kids, and the stuff they were willing to share with her. She is the special ed teacher I want Leö to have as he goes through the system.

I might be accused of personalizing the individual struggles others have had with the special ed system (and hell, I may be completely misinterpreting what I heard last night, and if that’s the case then I’m a complete asshole, but that wouldn’t be a first), but that’s the prism right now through which I view the world. Others think the special ed doesn't work, because that's their experience. I believe the system works, because I have seen it work. I’m just not looking forward to having to fight the fight of educating others of that while being part of a group that is looking for support from each other for their kids. All this said, it’s still just the first meeting, the first impression, there’s a lot more for me to learn, and certainly these people have experiences about having infants and toddlers that provide plenty of learning opportunities. I’d be a fool to discount that.