Adult Life observations

[Guest guest]

Jan is one of three with ds who live in their own apartments, who are

relatively close geographically, and who all currently have their life

skills support from the same agency. is my favorite red head, who

I've known for many, many years. Tracey is someone I've just come to

know a little in the past few years. Each of them is a wonderful person

with a very strong personality.

These three share an art class (private pay by each of them) on Tuesday

mornings. Tracey lives about a mile from the class and recently we

started having Jan get dropped at Tracey's apartment so that the two of

them could interact and then walk to class. That started when Jan was

with us the night before, so she had to have a ride to art class which

was provided by OUTREACH, which services the elderly and handicapped at

very reasonable rates.

As I saw it, that worked extremely well. Tracey wouldn't walk without

Jan and I imagined that they were getting to be friends in their walk.

More recently, Jan has spent the night before the class in her

apartment. She has about a mile and a half to Tracey's and then another

mile to class. I thought she was supposed to pick up Tracey, but that

isn't how it is working. Tracey is now walking (GOOD), but Jan is going

straight to class without stopping for Tracey. Her comment is that

Tracey is too slow (and I thought Jan was slow). The good news is that

they both are walking. The bad news is that they aren't socializing.

So last night, Tracey's life skills counselor invited a few of us to go

watch the Wizard of Oz. I picked up Jan at her place and we joined the

others at the movie theater. It was interesting to watch the social

interaction of these three young women (all in their 30's).

First, they barely interacted with each other. They are all living

isolated lives and have learned to be comfortable within their own

personal sphere. Second, Tracey's counselor bought Tracey and a

big order of popcorn, something I'm working with Jan on avoiding. Well,

it wasn't a problem because one of them announced that the popcorn was

for them and no one else. The counselor did offer Jan some of her

popcorn and with some parental advice, Jan had a little, but not a lot.

We're trying to get her to go to the movies for the show and not the

junk food.

The movie was great. I hadn't sat through it completely since I was a

kid. I was a little upset with the munchkins which used people with

dwarfism (defined as under five feet tall) without any social

sensitivity. I was perhaps sensitized because I was with three young

women who were under five feet tall, but partly defined by ds and not

dwarfism.

The net is that these three, each having a strong personality and all

very capable, were more able to interact with the NDA adults along with

them than with each other. I'm not sure that I can derive any more than

my observations.

BTW, these kids (i.e. young adults) have parents who have worked hard on

the social skills area along with fostering independence. I think it is

a little deeper than that they had negligent parents.

Rick .. dad to Jan who will be 36 shortly