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Kindness Grows Here believes that a huge part of fostering kindness in kids is teaching them to celebrate differences.
As such, we often try to highlight awareness months or days that celebrate and educate our community about various differences. One such day is World Down Syndrome Day (WDSD) which is today! We also honor Autism Acceptance Month (April), Mental Health Awareness Month (May), and others. It can be difficult to keep track of all these days/months/events! Every organization needs to develop a strategy for deciding which awareness events to acknowledge.
Kindness Grows Here, chooses to acknowledge days that celebrate differences that impact children. We may not be aware of every day that falls into this category, but we are always open to learning more from those in our community, and when we learn about a new day, we do our best to work it into our publications and/or social media posts in a meaningful way. When we acknowledge an awareness day, we also know that we aren’t experts in every difference and so we make a concerted effort to research the best resources created by those who are experts, and those are the resources we share.
Recently, a supporter of Kindness Grows Here, Beth, shared with us a hurtful incident that provides a lesson in how not to do things.
Beth has a daughter, Emily (names changed for confidentiality) who has Down Syndrome. Emily attends a public school and has always felt supported and celebrated there. Every year on “World Down Syndrome Day” (March 21st (3/21) to represent the three copies of the 21st chromosome that people with Down Syndrome have) her school would “rock their socks” to raise awareness. The event would be on the school calendar for a month leading up to it. Information would be provided to the kids and their families about this day. Until this year. Beth noticed that WDSD is not on her daughter’s school calendar. She did some inquiring and found out that the educator who had always made certain to honor this day no longer worked at the school and so, this day that means so much to Emily and her family was forgotten.
As we seek to celebrate awareness days, we must make sure that when we honor an awareness day that we do so in a meaningful way that truly joins in the effort to celebrate and educate others about those being honored on that day. It must be a concerted effort, not an afterthought, and not a shallow overture. Celebrating an awareness day one year, and then forgetting the next year can be very hurtful to that community of individuals.
But, when done well, honoring awareness days can be a beautiful way to educate children, families, and adults about the many differences that make our world more interesting and better in every way.
Today we celebrate people with Down Syndrome. We would love for you to check our this "Disability Awareness Toolkit" from the Down Syndrome Association of Maryland. There are videos, booklets, and lesson plans that can help you talk with your own children, other children in your life, or students in your classroom about Down Syndrome.
Also, we encourage you to commit a random act of kindness (RAK) in honor of all people with Down Syndrome. You can give a copy of this sheet to the recipient of your act of kindness.
Also, check out Kindness Grows Here on Facebook, and learn about how you can enter to win your very own copy of "You Are Enough: A Book About Inclusion."
In an effort to be more aware of how to celebrate all awareness days, we invite you to explore this toolkit from Civitan International that provides resources for celebrating many upcoming awareness days/months/events.
Are you aware of an awareness day/month that Kindness Grows Here should be acknowledging? Please let us know by e-mailing info@kindnessgrowshere.com with the subject: Awareness. Thank you!
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