Sunday, September 7, 2008

Not giving my daughter enough credit

Sometimes I think we just don't give our adult children with Down Syndrome enough credit. Like this weekend. My 16 year old, Ross is in the hospital with another kidney infection. Yesterday he was bored and called his sister Danielle on the phone. Danielle hung up without giving Jennifer (23, DS) a chance to talk. So Jennifer grabs the phone and looks for the last number on the caller ID and calls the hospital and asks for her brother by name and gets connected.

I didn't think she knew how to do that, or that the operator would understand her. But it worked. She called him again today. That gives me some hope that she will do OK on her own someday. By on her own, I mean in a group home setting, after we're gone. Not that she'll be leaving this house. We designed this house so that it would make a perfect group home. Someday we'll incorporate it non profit, get a board and hire staff so that the kids can all stay together (The 9 here now are all developmentally delayed.) It would really hurt each one of them if they couldn't live with their siblings.

1 comment:

Emma said...

What a great idea! Thanks for sharing.