Down Syndrome - Did You Know They Have A Variety of Emotions?

Did you know that people with Down syndrome have a wide variety of emotions?  While you will often hear that people with Down syndrome are always happy, that is not really true!

People with Down syndrome have the same range of emotions as everyone else.  Yes, Gess is often happy and pleasant, but so are most kids!  I have taught children in church for many years and I can assure you that most of them are generally happy most of the time but since they don't have special needs that doesn't get noticed as much.

That's right.  We notice the kids who are not pleasant.  The kids who get in trouble, act out, are mopey, disagreeable or stubborn.  Well I have news for you, Gess has experienced each of those emotions too.  We all have.  I know kids with Down syndrome who smile a lot and kids with Down syndrome who don't.  I know "typical" kids who smile a lot too, and I also know typical kids who don't.  Do you get where I am going here?

People with Down syndrome are not happy all the time nor are they "happy people."  They are people who have a wide range of emotions.  I can tell you that just less than an hour ago my daughter was not happy.  She was quite angry.  She lashed out.  She also lost privileges for her attitude too, but you have to know that she has one and it's not always good. I have often said that Gess' smile could light up the whole world and that is still true.  But you know when she cries her tears are so powerful I feel like they could flood the whole earth. They at least flood my heart.

I think the people with Down syndrome are happy myth bothers parents because we deal with their wide and varied range of emotions on a daily basis.  We are the ones that have to try to figure out why they feel upset and then teach them the appropriate ways to respond to those emotions.  Days like that can be awfully hard.  After dealing with one of Gess' melt downs the last thing I want to hear is how happy she is all the time.  Give me a break, please! 

Remember people with Down syndrome are people first.  They have the same human nature the rest of us do and they are not any better at dealing with stress than we are.  They can often be happy, yes, but they are not always happy and what happiness they feel is due the fact that they are experiencing something that makes them happy.  It's not their extra chromosome that causes a condition of happiness, it's being treated with respect and living in an environment in which they are loved.  I think that would make anyone happy.  Wouldn't you agree?


This post is part of my new Did You Know? About Down Syndrome Awareness Series where I post random facts about Down syndrome to help educate others about DS.  Feel free to post suggestions for future topics in my comment section.  I would love to hear what you would like to discuss!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Printable Family Chore Chart

Image
You know chore charts are not just for children.  As I have been struggling trying to keep the house work up among all my summer activities, homeschooling projects, exercise, blogging, church activities and other every day life events I realized that I needed a hand.  Since Gess is getting older and taking on more responsibility I though it was a good time to put some order into her routine of helping.  Then Chelsie gave me a great idea that she uses.  By breaking up my weekly chores into daily tasks I don't have to give up an entire day to nothing but cleaning house! Taking her idea and breaking up the daily chores I came up with the following list.  There is one for each of us and an extra one that goes beyond the standard chores.  It's the stuff we do at least once a week to keep our house neat and clean.  What I love about it is that if something happens on that one day I had set aside to clean the house, it doesn't mean that my entire house gets neglected for anothe
Read more

Learning the 10 Commandments

Image
As Gess is getting older we thought it was important to stress having some personal devotion time. I think she needs to know that she can pray and study God's Word anytime she chooses. We always begin her day learning something in the Bible together. Then I have her write and meditate on the portion of Scripture that was the focus for the day. Since she was doing some written work each day we thought it would be good to have a place to keep it all together so that could look it over later and remember what she has studied so far. So we made made her a notebook and titled it My Devotional and keep it with her bible. One of our early lessons this year was to memorize the 10 commandments. I recalled that Living Waters had a great resource for helping kids to memorize them so I went to their site and downloaded their 10 Commandments Learning Aids . They use these images to help tie the number to the actual commandment. They have a full presentation but here is the sheet with
Read more

Explaining Baptism to Kids

Image
Gess is 9 now and often asks questions in church. Lately we have had some people come forward for baptism. Gess now wants to get baptized too because others are doing it. She just really wants to be involved in everything we do. However, we are Baptist and believe that the bible teaches only those who are saved should be baptized or partake in the Lord's Supper. It is hard to explain to a child why they can't do these things. Then I had someone else who told me they had an 8 year old girl ask about baptism because she had seen someone get baptized at her church. Being surprised by the question they were not quite sure how to answer and asked if I could write something up to help explain it. I thought, what perfect timing. This is something I want to share with Gess too, so I did more than just write up a paper. I wrote a small booklet made specifically for young kids to help explain baptism. This booklet is meant to explain what baptism is and in doing that it touches
Read more