Saturday, April 11, 2009

Siblings : The policeman and fire engine

About two years after Ricki was born, I realized one day, a strange phenomenon: Ricki's two brothers, aged 4 and 6, where playing “police” and “fireman” every day with their toy cars. Now THAT was not strange. What WAS strange is that the older would comment each time, “I am taking my son with me, and he does not have Down syndrome.” After he would say that statement, the four year old would make a similar comment.
Of course, the really terrible thing is that I realized that this had been going on daily for about a month, without my paying rapt attention to it. So later that day, I sat each of them down for a talk (separately), explaining, in easy terms, that they were not at added risk, as adults, of having children with Down syndrome. Hopefully their children will be “normal”.
The next day they were back to playing “police” and “firefighter”, without any extra comments.

So if you have a special child, and you think that his siblings are not concerned, or even aware, think again. You just may be surprised.

2 comments:

Batya said...

You handled it well. It' so amazing what kids absorb. You never know what others have said in their presence. How do they treat their little sister now?

rickismom said...

They treat her pretty good, although the youngest sometimes get too bossy with her.

[ See
http://beneaththewings.blogspot.com/2009/02/mongol.html
my February 1st post, for a prime example..... ]
But SHE is a real pest sometimes, so I understand that!And because I've had teenage sons with younger sisters before....

All in all, her siblings are very proud of her....