DISCLAIMER: Parenting is hard. Real hard. The decisions that parents make for their children are personal ones which come from years of experiences – as a child and as a parent. What I’m writing today is not a judgment on others parenting styles or philosophies. It’s just the way we decided to raise Jeffrey.
Like I mentioned in previous posts about Jeffrey, there are a lot of things the kid can’t do, but it’s not for a lack of trying – by him and us. Even though there are obvious developmental delays that he exhibits, we weren’t going to allow that to prevent him from trying whatever activity he seemed interested in. We weren’t going to place limits on him,
We signed him up for the Special Olympics sports – track, long distance running, and basketball. There was also the Special Stars Soccer and Baseball. Then there was the time we put him in a bike-riding class for special-needs children. We bought him a special bike ($$$) with a handle and then adult training wheels (that he only rode maybe 10 more times).
But he wasn’t happy doing just that. He wanted to do the things that his brother and sister were doing. At church, we made sure he was included in all of the choirs, even though he would basically just stand around and watch everyone else sing. That led to him wanting to take music lessons like Megan and Christian. He chose the guitar. At first, it was so wonderful to see him playing and smiling and singing. It wasn’t fun to HEAR him doing those things. Man it was hard to be in our house with all that noise!!!
Instead of excluding him from the Junior High Band, we were fortunate to have leaders at church who encouraged him and included him in the practices and performances. That little opportunity has led Jeffrey to be one of the regular guitarists at the Higher Ground Church Service with the Senior High Band, often as the LEAD guitarist! No limits.
Once he reached middle school, he wanted to join the track team. Without hesitation, we signed the paperwork and it was official. What a great experience for him, the team, and for us to watch! His hard work and perseverance paid off meet after meet and usually ended with both teams lining the track cheering his name as he finished his second lap (always in dead last but first in everyone’s heart) and headed towards the finish line. No limits.
Now he’s a junior in high school, and as you read a few weeks ago, he has been able to participate in events like the PROM! But there’s one special event that took place last weekend that we as his parents are super proud of – Sports Nite. For those of you who are unaware of this event, it’s AWESOME! The juniors and seniors at Pennsbury High School are divided into two teams, black and orange, where they compete in field day type activities such as tug of war and trash can relay; among others. There are also dance competitions that both the girls and boys will participate in and be judged on. It’s a blast.
For the past two years we were there to watch our oldest daughter participate, and we noticed that none of Jeffrey’s special classmates were involved. We wondered if this was by choice or if they weren’t permitted to take part, so we asked around. As he began his junior year, we decided to inquire about Jeffrey’s participation in Sports Nite, it is a class they sign up to take. What we found out was that Jeffrey was more than welcome, and in fact encouraged to take part!! He couldn’t wait for the third marking period to start when his Sports Nite practices would start.
As we drove up to drop him off, it was a pretty cool moment, he jumped out of the car at the assigned time of 5 o’clock to get ready with his classmates. He waited for the opening ceremonies and exercises with his friends, got prepared for his events (the tug of war and the medicine ball relay), got changed into his cowboy costume for the dance, back into his gym gear for the rest of the night, and then hung out in the student section cheering his head off! By the time we got to see him it was almost 9 o’clock. For four hours, he was unchained, free to be a kid…a regular kid participating in something that thousands of Pennsbury students have also done through the years. A night that he told us was the BEST EVER. No limits.
Now it wasn’t pretty! His relay team lost, his tug of war team lost, his dance lost, and the Orange team lost the overall competition. But we decided a long time ago that Jeffrey would not be held back from any activity that he wanted to do, even if it included defeat. We couldn’t shelter him from these activities because he’d get upset or WE were scared something would happen to him – because LIFE is scary. If we held him back or gave him limits, what kind of life would he have? We want him to live life to the fullest. We want him to have a life without limits.
