Creating Connections

Our oldest son, Henry, shared this with me recently off Imgur.com. I don't know what touched me more: Grace's understanding and love for her brother, or Josh's love of himself and desire for social connections and friendship. Either way, it's a valuable reminder that we all need companionship, we're all more alike than different, and we all should be encouraged to look beyond differences to the similarities that enable us to connect with one another in a myriad of different ways.

Unfortunately, as youngsters with disabilities grow up, their opportunities for social experiences diminish in comparison to typical peers. Our son's classmates, for example, are all consumed with driver's licenses, girlfriends, house parties and many things still inaccessible to Andrew. We continue to seek out ways for him to enjoy kids his age, with and without disabilities, but they're unfortunately not as frequent or easy to participate in as he would like.

Our kids often straddle two worlds. They want to function independently among their typical peers, but they still need assistance from others and are simply not as independent as they'd like to be, unfortunately. What kinds of social outlets exist in your community that might benefit other teens in other places? I'm trying for the "search and reapply" strategy here. Share and share alike. There's so much room for improvement -- and so much fun to be had.