An ugly thing happen to our son yesterday. He was bullied by three teenage boys. The lesson I ended up learning from all of it came from my son which made all the difference. I hope you will follow this link to read my post: What I Learned About Pancakes and Bullies From My Son With Down Syndrome at The Good Men Project.
a typical son
two of us are tall and the other one of us is short and has Down syndrome
a typical son 
Sadly this reflects on their parents and maybe a little on their education. I get that some kids have equipment or body shapes or positions that can interest the uninitiated. We meet this when we take my son out. To notice, yes. To gawp, well yes I suppose. To mock though? Just plain ignorant.
Crazy. It was clear he just wanted me to shut up.
Just blogged about you and your day. :-)
Thank you!
I was going to say “Yay! GoodMenProject! … but then I realized I hadn’t read the story yet. When I did, I didn’t feel quite so much like saying “Yay!” at all. You may have been in ‘education mode’ at one point during that day, but I doubt they were. Hopefully they will be one day, and just maybe there will be some one there to engage with them.
Yeah, I don’t hold much hope for two of them but maybe that one boy. Bullies and cowards are the unreliable kind.
I’m fairly certain I’m going to land in jail when this happens to our son in front of me. What a great boy you have, what a great boy you have raised.
He is great:) What I think in my mind would land me in jail.
Thanks for the post. So often our kids have so much more to teach us, than we do them…
Just wondering, what would you have said to the boys had they been responsive? My daughter has Ds as well but I thankfully haven’t encountered a situation like this yet and wouldn’t know what to say if I did…would love to “hear” your education mode “spiel” so that I can have some of your wisdom to work off of!
Sorry for delay! I think I would have said something like: “My son has feelings like everyone else. Pointing and laughing at someone who is different from you is always wrong. And frankly you are all too old to not know this. I am actually concerned for the three of you that you don’t know this.” Judgy educating I know but that kind of blatant behavior troubles me.
The teen boys were jerks & telling them why their actions were cruel and rude was the right thing to do.
How the teens reacted to your scolding is out of your hands.
(The commenters calling those teen boys hopeless cretins likely to be arrested – on the basis of rude, jerk-like but not all than unusual in 17 yo kids – are stereotyping the teens just as much as they stereotyped your son).
“The commenters calling those teen boys hopeless cretins likely to be arrested…” I can’t actually find those comments you are referencing.
I ran into one of those boys about a month later. They were not in fact the high schoolers I thought them to be but instead college students. I guess they just looked super immature:)