Looking on Facebook I see pictures of my friend’s kids at birthday parties and/or play dates and I recall the last play date The Boy (TB*) attended. It was a sword-making one last summer where you take tubes, styrofoam and lots of different colored duct tape. I have no idea the last time he was invited to a birthday party.
For those of you that remember the show ‘Cheers’ my son is Norm; everyone knows his name. Any time I’ve been to school or picked him up from after-school care kids constantly come up to him or yell hi. All this makes you think his social calendar would be filled with playdates and birthday parties, right? You couldn’t be more wrong.
My son has pediatric bipolar disorder and, for the most part, that makes him a social pariah. I adore my son and his amazing, active imagination but when he plays with other kids for longer than two hours things start going downhill. The smallest thing can make him explode – someone not listening to him, two Lego pieces aren’t fitting together perfectly – and not much can be done until he’s able to calm himself down. He will also cry when whatever origami project he’s doing doesn’t come out right or talks like a baby because he thinks it’s funny. This means that I usually serve as his primary playmate on most weekends and evenings, except for noon to 1 pm most Sundays. That’s when he plays with his Friendship Circle buddies.
In June 2013, a friend posted a flyer for something called Friends at Home where every week a pair of teenagers visit a special needs child at the child’s home and play with them for an hour. They can bake cookies, play video games, do arts and crafts, and anything else fun. F@H is sponsored by The Friendship Circle, which is a Jewish organization for kids with special needs. Because of the bipolar TB cannot attend Temple for services or Sunday School, so Friendship Circle gives him the opportunity to talk with his buddies about Judaism as well as interact with other Jewish kids with special needs.
The first event we attended was Run-Like-a-Latke in December 2013 and he was paired with two amazing, wonderful buddies that are still “his”. In fact, one of them left for college this past fall, but came back to play with TB during winter break. Since that first event, we’ve attended special needs night at Jumpology, had fun at the Children’s Museum of Richmond, done the wave while watching the Richmond Squirrels play at The Diamond, gone bowling and had a day of games and delicious food at Chabad of Virginia. However, the most exciting even to-date has to be when The Maccabeats came to The Byrd Theatre. Not only did Dr. Sarah Kranz-Ciment, PT, DPT, Director of Friendship Circle of VA, arrange for TB to meet them but they signed a poster for him too. I think I was as excited about it as he was!
I can’t say enough about The Friendship Circle. His buddies have seen him at his worst and are trained to handle him so I have no problem letting them do their thing while I take care of stuff around the house. In honor of Jewish Disability Awareness Month please check out The Friendship Circle at http://www.friendshipcircle.com/ and pass it along to anyone that has a child with special needs, Jewish or not, because every child deserves a buddy.
*Names were changes for confidentiality
Anita Resnick is a mom-on-the-clock with a beautiful adult daughter and pre-teen son that divides his time between making her laugh and wanting to pull out her hair. She lives in Virginia, is addicted to reading and The Big Bang Theory and considers dinner, going to see a superhero movie and hitting up the bookstore an ideal date night with her husband of 20 years. You can follow her blog, I Should’ve Read the Fine Print, here http://anitarezz.wordpress.com/.
Anita is a mom-on-the-clock with a beautiful adult daughter and a son with pediatric bipolar who gives the best hugs and loves playing Lego video games with me. I’m addicted to reading cozy mysteries, paranormal romance and fan fiction, love musical theatre, exercise by hooping and am obsessed with various things geeky (The Big Bang Theory, Doctor Who, Marvel/DC movies)…and my husband.can be reached on her blog