{"id":1270,"date":"2020-12-01T10:19:27","date_gmt":"2020-11-30T23:19:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.downsyndrome.org.au\/voice\/?p=1270"},"modified":"2021-02-09T13:11:20","modified_gmt":"2021-02-09T02:11:20","slug":"the-dignity-of-risk","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.downsyndrome.org.au\/voice\/2020\/12\/01\/the-dignity-of-risk\/","title":{"rendered":"The dignity of risk"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Story by Sarah Fiddaman    <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Risk always seems bigger when the person in question is so small. As a new parent I was pretty anxious, and although I might have been that way with any baby there was definitely an added element having a baby with Down syndrome.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The fiercely overprotective desire to bubble wrap baby Charlie mostly came from fear. And some of that fear was probably warranted \u2013 with a heart condition, a challenging feeding journey, and hypotonia. Of course I wasn\u2019t going to play rough and tumble with my baby! Of course I was going to freak out about every infection!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now that Charlie is a big (not so big) four-year-old I still feel my knuckles whiten as she attempts to descend a flight of stairs. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But I breathe deeply, trust that she\u2019s got this, and know that if she doesn\u2019t she\u2019ll still be ok.<\/p><\/blockquote><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Piece by piece the tightly wound bubble wrap has started to deflate. Our daughter is strong and capable and now I find myself having to encourage others (and myself) to let go a little. To provide opportunities for her to try and fail. To give her a chance to speak, to listen carefully when she does, and to trust her to make decisions in her own time. As I begin to trust my own parenting a bit more, I can hand over some of that trust to Charlie.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Take scissors. For whatever reason I decided to use a pretty minimal amount of intervention when learning to use scissors. She did cut herself (and was an accomplice in cutting a treasured book) \u2013 but she didn\u2019t cut her finger off, she didn\u2019t poke her sister\u2019s eye out and she didn\u2019t require a trip to emergency. Trusting her gave her confidence and expedited the learning process. Charlie has proven to be our greatest teacher.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sometimes I think I push too hard for Charlie to learn skills that will help her grow into an independent young woman. Things take longer and sometimes I\u2019m impatient. I have to remind myself that total independence is not the goal. I want my daughter to be able to do things for herself as she grows, if it\u2019s available to her, but I also don\u2019t want to undermine the value of dependence and interconnectedness. Dependence on others for comfort, support, friendship, guidance. In cultivating independence, I want to make sure what I am really allowing opportunity for is self-determination, choice, agency. For her to have a voice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sarah’s article is available in the following formats to download:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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PDF<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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WORD<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Risk always seems bigger when the person in question is so small. Sarah Fiddaman shares what it is like to watch her daughter Charlie navigate small steps towards independence. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1268,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_relevanssi_hide_post":"","_relevanssi_hide_content":"","_relevanssi_pin_for_all":"","_relevanssi_pin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_unpin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_include_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_exclude_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_no_append":"","_relevanssi_related_not_related":"","_relevanssi_related_posts":"","_relevanssi_noindex_reason":"","inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[97,98,23,99,19,96],"class_list":["post-1270","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-child","tag-children","tag-education","tag-growth","tag-independence","tag-risk"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.downsyndrome.org.au\/voice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1270","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.downsyndrome.org.au\/voice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.downsyndrome.org.au\/voice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.downsyndrome.org.au\/voice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.downsyndrome.org.au\/voice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1270"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.downsyndrome.org.au\/voice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1270\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1303,"href":"https:\/\/www.downsyndrome.org.au\/voice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1270\/revisions\/1303"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.downsyndrome.org.au\/voice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1268"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.downsyndrome.org.au\/voice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1270"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.downsyndrome.org.au\/voice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1270"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.downsyndrome.org.au\/voice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1270"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}