I must assume that all the misconceptions about downs kids are due to a lack of contact with them. Kids who have downs are very simplistic in many ways, are very loving and tender hearted. I have a bud with a boy who has downs he's 26 now and will graduate school this year. he loves me simply because I pay attention to him.
At work we have some downs kids come and shred documents for us they love the job, just one sheet at a time and they concentrate so hard to do a good job. If I'm around they all want to give me a high five with this great big smile on their face and the depth of love that is in their eyes is almost frightening. I don't know who's day is better for it theirs or mine.
Downs kids are very limited in what they can do, they have to put in so much more effort than you or I just to get through the day. I got a feeling that kid earned that varsity letter way before he ever met the other kids.
Exactly.
I lettered 3x over in HS. Until this thread, I didn't even recall that. It means that little to me today. To a kid with Down's? Hell, it may be a crowning achievement, and that's not meant as any kind of insult.
Let the kid rejoice; let him have something to have pride in.
JFC, if your life is so tied up in HS letters and who "earns them" or not, especially in a school not your own, or of your own kids, and likely generations removed from when you were in, then you've likely got more problems that the Down's Syndrome kid or his parents simply trying to make the best of it.
