Exciting…this story I recently wrote was just published on The Mighty 🙂
View by clicking the following link: Why I’m Grateful for the Team Supporting My Son With Down Syndrome
Story Published on The Mighty
Posted byChristie TaylorPosted inDown SyndromeTags:Awareness, Down syndrome, friends, Inspiration, Life, Unity
Published by Christie Taylor
Christie Taylor is the creator of the website, www.WILingness.com, and author of "Stories of Wil: Puberty Part 1" (Amazon.com: amzn.to/30mFoZ5) Christie believes that if we all had the opportunity to spend a day with our loved ones with Down syndrome, many of the stereotypes and stigmas would dissipate. Christie invites you, through her stories, to spend a day with Wil. The more the merrier! View more posts
WILingness 
Christie, my 15 year old son had problems at school where he lives with his mother. He was sent to me for 5 months and we learned what worked well for him. He had problems on the bus so step mom would drop him off and I would pick him up. He really likes listening to Veggietales music. We had the teacher incorporate his music in class as an incentive. We also learned that a short nap at school helped him and the other girl in class do better with less “meltdowns” , and they participated better the rest of the day. We had bumps at first being in a new school. They gave him a binder that had the school break broken down into morning, afternoon, and evening. Our routine became him showing us his backpack, day planner and seeing notes the teacher wrote about his day. In the three sections for the day, the teacher would either put a frowny face or a smiley face and comments on the bad and the good. We told Robert “Robbie”, that if he could get 3 smiley faces for the day and for that whole week, he could have a pizza party. He was excited about that! Then it became a small drink and a cheeseburger or hot dog, because we learned that he gets grumpy when he is hungry and a nap after school. We learned that if we went to the store if he didn’t have these things, he would throw a fit and sit on the floor at the store. We learned that talking softly and convinced him that he wouldn’t get his way. We told him that if he used his indoor voice and manners that he could get a small something. After a few times it just became to just talking to him and no rewards. He got to the point at school where he was happy that he got all smiley faces that step mom, him, and dad would do a happy dance in school hallway.
Robbie has Down Syndrome and the little girl in his class also had Downs and she didn’t liked to be touched along with being non verbal. For the most part, Robbie is non verbal but he tries to pronounce words and sings with his music and he watches our mouths to see how we form the words. When he tells us what happened at school or in the video game, he gets frustrated if we don’t understand. We ask him if he can show us a picture of what he trying o explain to us. Some of his words is not the characters name in the video game, but it helps that he shows us a picture. Some of his anger is from being frustrated. Another thing we learned was giving him a hug and dancing to music that we sing or play from the phone to help with meltdowns at the store. My phone has a lot of Veggietales music.
Maybe these will help other families and children.
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Hi Tom, this is wonderful! I appreciate the time to share this valuable information. Wil now has a binder with his day in it, which has been very helpful. He enjoys going through it! The visual aids are huge. I love your showing pictures idea. It’s interesting how Robbie tries to pronounce words and watches your mouths to form the words. Wil does the same thing – he was able to sing before he could talk.
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