When my son was born I heard often that our children, children with Down syndrome, learn what other children are learning, but at a slower pace. Be patient, give them time. We would hear that often enough, in various support groups when talking to other parents. I'm not going to lie, I loved hearing it. It gave me hope at a time when I needed a lot of encouragement. I started saying the same, to friends, my parents, everyone asking about my son's developmental prospects. I started to believe it.
And it seemed to be true. It took him longer to walk, but he did it. It took him longer to speak, but he did it. It took him longer to count, but he did it. You get the idea.
I wanted to teach him everything. I wanted the school to teach him everything. I still do, but he is 12 right now and I start to understand that some things are essential, while others are just nice to have. I started thinking about priorities for my kid. You see, math is not the goal. Reading is not the goal. Inclusion is not the goal. The goal is independence. The goal is a full life. So I have a new filter through which I make decisions and prioritize my time and resources.
I used to spend a lot of energy with all his school assignments. Was he learning about rivers? I would spend hours getting the right materials, practicing the concepts with him. Did he know about tributaries? Did he understand the difference between the river's mouth and the delta? Isn't this ridiculous? All that time. Honestly, we could have played instead. Or have a nice conversation. Enjoy each other.
Don't get me wrong. I will fight for him to learn about rivers. To learn about everything his peers are learning. Does he need to know the parts of a river? Well, really, does anybody need to know the parts of a river? But we are still teaching children all these things, in order to open their minds, to enhance their thinking, to stretch their brains, knowing well that they will forget it all. My son has the right to learn and forget about the rivers.
But I will not spend one more minute of my time worrying about that. I needed to have a honest conversation with myself about why I was doing it and what I needed to prove. And what my fear was - that he will be judged, that the school will question the placement, that he needs to prove himself every single moment in the classroom. No more.
Expose to everything. Seek new experiences. Provide an enriched environment. All this stretches the brain. And then spend time teaching skills for independence - time, money, essential math, reading, writing, comprehension, doing laundry, being a good friend.
These days, for every new topic, I asked myself: How am I using it in my life? How it is useful to me?
For instance, he was learning rounding numbers. Rounding to the nearest 10. Rounding to the nearest 100. Seriously? Such an abstract concept. So hard for him. So I kept thinking about this - when do I use rounding? First I couldn't really think of anything, So sometimes you need to think hard. But the reality is that we are using rounding every time we go shopping. The bagel is $1.15. Can you buy it with a $1 bill? What's the minimum you need? So rounding up is a super important skill for independence. Now there is a reason to teach it. This is still different from rounding to nearest whatever, for which I still can't figure a good life example. So I'm not teaching that. I'm teaching rounding to the next whole number.
Optimizing for independence keeps us moving towards our goal and provides clarity on how to spend limited resources - time, money, patience.
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