Today, I wanted to share a little bit about growing up in a small town with a sibling with a developmental delay.
My family moved from the Bay Area in California to a small town in Washington in 1980. It was only 5 years into the Education for All Handicapped Children Act. Prior to this many children with disabilities ended up in Mental Health Institutions. In fact, when my big brother was born in 1972, my parents were encouraged to place him in an institution and forget that they have had him. This idea of not hiding developmental delayed children away was new. I am sharing all of this to help set the stage what would happen. When we started in the public school in our town. Individuals with developmental delays were kept separate from all the students. It would not be until I was in the 4th Grade. That the school decided to start integrating some of the students from the special education program into classes like Gym and Music. There was only two of them that would be joining the classes. They both had Down Syndrome and one of them was my big brother. The school decided that with our relationship the best place to put them was in the same class as myself. I was expected to watch and help them in class. I remember thinking, I am 10 years old. How am I supposed to be his teacher and make sure he is doing what he is supposed to do, my big brother. This would start to change the dynamics of how my brother, and I enter acted. I started becoming the big sister and my job was to look out for and take care of him. It was strange to move from being the youngest sibling (chronologically) to the older responsible sibling. I would like to say that this type of thing does not happen anymore, but I think that would be incorrect. Unfortunately, to many adults do not know how to handle or deal with someone with a developmental delay. Whether these adults are in education or not and when they cannot handle or deal with it and a parent is not available, they rely on siblings of the individual (if they have them). If you are an educator and/or an adult who is interacting with a family with a child that has a developmental delay. I encourage and beg you to please help keep the siblings as siblings and not care takers. Let them enjoy being together and interacting like any other siblings without worrying about how to take care of them like they are tiny adults. |
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Diana Atkinson, Administator:According to research done by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) dealing with this level of stress can “make it harder for staff to serve as models and meet the needs of children and families” (Whitaker, 2013, p. 1). Archives |