The following article was co-written by Kristen Morrison of Naturally Better Kids in Australia and can be found on her blog as well (links at the end of the article). The article itself will be released to the press in the coming week, hopefully gain some media attention. The beautiful photo was taken when we met in New York. Please share with all who may be interested!

Down syndrome – It’s time for a clean slate.

We two mothers have a similar tale. We both looked forward to the birth of our sons, the third in each of our families. We delivered our babies, with curious ease, and then endured indescribable pain when we learnt that our newborn sons had Down Syndrome.

We had to wait many days for the diagnosis to be confirmed – although we knew in our hearts it was so. We craved information and searched far and wide for answers to help our boys. The questions came from nowhere – how will he grow up, what will his life be like, will he be healthy, will he be loved, how will we cope? Most importantly, in those first few weeks, we wanted to know how to care for our babies.

The need for prediction coupled with the inability to escape, were crippling to say the least.

Our yearning led us to many sources, each one more certain than the last that our son’s lives, our own lives and the future of our families were on a very predictable path. Based on the past 50 years of “research” since the extra chromosome on the 21st level was discovered, we could each predict that our son’s health would be a source of great concern along with poor development, difficulty learning and behavior problems. These issues would predictably strain our marriages, our social standing and the futures of our other children.

We struggled with the inevitability of it all, with the suddenness with which our lives had become so completely predictable – to those ‘in the know’. The idea of being part of a “special” community left us feeling so alone and isolated and despite finding hundreds of articles, books, programs and classes designed for the “special” child, it felt anything but special.

We decided to ignore the gloomy predictions and forge our own paths. These paths led us to each other and today we unite as mothers of 4 year old boys who have NOT conformed to expectations.

We were astonished to learn how similar our approaches had been and remain baffled that assumptions about our children’s potential are based on the observations of adults born decades ago – before early interventions, before supplementations, before developmental programs, even before people believed our children had the right to exist outside of an institution.

The perceived inevitability of things like Alzheimer’s and early onset dementias are based on adults who were born in the 1950’s and 60’s. What of these children of the new progressive age? What of the very real possibility, as stated by the Alzheimer’s Association (USA), that the prevalence of Alzheimer’s in the Down Syndrome population is in part dependent on a variety of variables, environmental and familial among them? For modern medicine to concede they’ve made no progress in the area of understanding Trisomy 21 since the days of the institution is unsettling at best and yet we are expected to take their word on predictability and inevitability?

We are focusing our attention on treatments to optimize our children’s potential and we are getting results. Modern medicine focuses its attention on earlier methods of detection so that the very birth of babies like ours can be prevented and have no interest in our results. How is that modern or forward thinking?

Unless we are directly affected, and have a burning desire to make a difference, there is little discussion of what may be achieved. There is so much “overwhelming evidence” of predictability offered by medicine that the majority of parents – if given the choice – opt not to even have a child who is diagnosed with Down Syndrome. And yet thousands of mothers and fathers do forge ahead and are changing the future for the new generations of children with Down Syndrome. These parents create a unique path and have significant results but they are dismissed as wishful thinkers who are in denial. Indeed our very children who can read and learn and remember, run and climb and pretend, make friends and succeed in school are dismissed as “outliers*” or “high functioning” or “lucky”.

When we find the volumes of articles, foundations, books and websites written by parents screaming at the top of their lungs that this is a journey worth taking, spending their lives to convince us simply to raise our expectations for our children, we are warned by the “specialists” not to believe these parents because they paint too rosy a picture.

So our question is this – here in the 21^st Century, can we not wipe the slate clean for children with Trisomy 21, abandoning these archaic predictions and bigotries? Can’t we teach them with the gift of high expectation and encourage them to be brilliant? CAN’T WE look at the evidence which is there to be observed if we choose to? Would you agree that any person embarking on a challenge with an expectation of defeat will more than likely fail?

Our children are born as if wearing a sign which says ‘substandard’. We think it is time to wipe the slate clean and for the first time in history allow these kids and their parents the opportunity to predict their own futures.

Surely that’s every child’s birthright.

~ Geralyn Spiesz & Kristen Morrison

Outlier: An outlying observation, or outlier, is one that appears to deviate markedly from other members of the sample in which it occurs. ~ Wikipedia

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Geralyn Spiesz is a Master’s level occupational therapist who has been practicing since 1994. She began her work treating clients with developmental disabilities and went on to become a partner at WNY Physical and Occupational Therapy Group PLLC., where she developed programs and clinics to address needs across all service areas throughout the eight counties of WNY. Geralyn was the sitting co-chairman of the Niagara Frontier District of the NYS OT Association from 1999-2000.
Geralyn is the mother of three boys, the youngest of whom has Down Syndrome. She now works to blend her expertise as a therapist and her first-hand knowledge from a mother’s perspective to redefine the ways in which Down Syndrome is approached both developmentally and in society. Geralyn lives in Buffalo New York with her husband and their three boys and is currently finishing a book Redefining the Reality of Down Syndrome; Baby’s First Year and Beyond. She blogs atthedownsyndromeactionplan.blogspot.com

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Kristen Morrison is an Author, an advocate for natural health and lifestyle for children and founder of the Naturally Better Kids website. With the birth of her third child, diagnosed with Down syndrome, she abandoned her career in fashion and embarked on home-based research to help her son achieve his best possible outcome. Encouraging results over a three year period led her to share her family’s story through her book, Naturally Better and to establish a website to help others access resources which were life-changing for her son. In early 2011, Kristen co-founded the Grow Foundation to help other parents improve the lives of their children with special needs.
Kristen works to help raise awareness for the difference parents can make in their children’s lives through natural lifestyle, alternative therapies and by keeping expectations high for children with special needs.
Kristen lives in Melbourne, Australia, with her husband and their three children. She blogs at her website www.NaturallyBetterKids.com

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For more information, contact Kristen Morrison (Australia) 0433 450 804 naturallybetterkids@gmail.com or Geralyn Spiesz (USA) 716-597-7941geralynOT@yahoo.com