A young boy set in a field looking out and dreaming of his future.
My name is Jeremy and I’d like to tell you about the successes that my boy William has had during his life and journey with FASD.
Sports have had a huge impact on my boy and his first love was football. The physicality, the friendship with his teammates, his wanting to please the coaches all worked wonders for him. He loved pleasing people and 100% needed the physical energy release so football was a tremendous atmosphere for him. We also had a chance to connect with a great group pf mentors and role models for him to look up to as well as create a community environment that would be apart of his life as he grows up.
This was all positive minus the fact that with covid along with budget cuts to EAs etc… what he / us worked so hard to build at the elementary school level that should have set him up for an easy slam dunk in high school completely failed him. Even though it was his dream to play high school football and lift weights where he’d already called home since grade 6 it was a very challenging for him to keep up and with no supports or them following any plan / IEP he had a meltdown. The pressure of him failing at what was his dream along with letting coaches down was very hard on William.
It has taken time but we’ve worked with new schooling and hope for him to have a much more positive time and one that he like every child deserves. This community of support and people caring for his individual needs will help him succeed both in the classroom as well as on the field.
Now to get back to the positive I’m going to talk about our amazing journey in the world of wrestling. When his 1st high school and football experience went south we looked for a new outlet and one that would be very similar. This is where wrestling came in. He’s watched me wrestle, we watch weekly shows and have gone to live events. With a local company in town he gave it a try and loved it for all the same reasons as football. Physical release, please his coaches, as well as the bond and camaraderie with other kids who wrestle made it an unbelievable thing for my boy to be doing. He felt special and excepted , which again is what all kids need.
I’ll close with we’ve worked hard to make our story a success. It’s not over and there are still battles to be won. I encourage as many people as I can stand up and spread the word for all these kids. We need more caring , educated adults to add to our communities. Our world needs to create a culture of caring and we need to do it for our kids futures!
Thank you