Stories of Wil: Define embarrassed
Wil is a 13-year-old boy with Down syndrome. He is the little brother, by 20 months, to twin sisters, Katherine and Elizabeth. Wil’s mom, Christie, knew very little about Down syndrome when Wil was diagnosed shortly after his birth. It didn’t take long for Christie to realize how enriching life with Down syndrome is. Embracing this newfound life, Christie was compelled to share her experiences with Wil. Christie’s desire, in sharing these stories, is to promote an awareness, understanding, and appreciation of the amazing capabilities of individuals with Down syndrome.
submitted by Christie Taylor
One day, Wil came home from school telling me he was embarrassed. I was concerned and sat down with him to talk about it. Wil was very halting in his words, giving me very little information. It took me some time and lots of coaxing to understand the situation. I asked him if it was a person that made him feel embarrassed. He nodded yes, so I asked who it was. He gave me a name. I was very surprised, as the friend he named is always supportive of Wil. In fact, she will modify a game to include Wil. I asked how she made him feel embarrassed.
“We played ball.”
“Ok, and did something happen playing ball?”
“Yes.”
“Ok, what happened?” Then he started naming who he played ball with. Each person he named was a friend. I couldn’t see any of these friends hurting Wil.
“Did one of them make you feel embarrassed?” I asked. He looked at me like I was crazy. Of course not. Nothing he told me about his friends or the situation indicated the hurt of embarrassment. I let it go for a while then circled back to our conversation. Even so, I never uncovered the reason for his embarrassment. The next morning when I took Wil to school, I asked his teacher about it. She said that Wil was asked to play a game of ball, and she was happy to see all the friends he played with made sure he was included. The embarrassment remained a mystery.
A few days later, Wil was watching one of his shows on Nick Jr. I heard the word embarrassed being used on the show, it was theme word of the day. That was it! The same episodes are played over and over. He must have seen this episode before and discovered this great, new word and wanted to use it. Since he had no context in his everyday life where he knew how to use this word, he created one. I sat down with Wil and watched the rest of the embarrassing episode with him. We talked about what embarrassing meant.
Soon after that conversation, Katherine and Wil were having a disagreement. Wil looked at her and said, “Katherine, you are embarrassing.”
“Katherine, Wil just burned you!” Elizabeth said. We all started cracking up.
I think he’s got it now, in full teenage-style.
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