HUH?

Today I was talking to Angela's teacher, who mentioned that she watched the video from Angela's performance the other night. Her response made me want to post something I recently told another parent who has a daughter with DS.

If you have a child with a cognitive disability, find one thing that she REALLY likes. It doesn't matter if she has the skills or not, just that she LIKES it, and RUN WITH IT! Find a way to get her involved with other kids who like that too. She will fit in, and the other kids will love helping her with it. Angela's special ed teachers are amazed at the things she does outside of school (theater, voice lessons, etc.) because they've never had a kid doing this stuff. Which makes me wonder...what DO they do? There is so much available in our area, why aren't they taking advantage of it? I don't understand WHY no other kids with disabilities in her program are doing this stuff. Maybe parents just assume their kids can't do it? I mean, I've found that Angela doesn't do well with team sports, and so we avoid them. But anything she can do on an individual basis she LOVES!!! Whatever the reason, I just want Angela to be happy and have fun with what she's doing. And just like all my other kids, the moment she says "I don't like it" we're done and move onto something else.