09/10/2020

Every night Kareem and his brother calls me to say "good night". Sometimes they call but he refuses to start and I have to say it first. Depending on his mode, he may reply with fast sentences: Good night. I missed you today. See you tomorrow.  Other times he listens to me and puts the telephone down.

Today he came to my house and played with my daughter's dog. The dog is almost the same size as kareem. While I have to repeat an order to her at least twice before she listens, it is enough for Kareem to say "sit" and she immediately does. Kareem gets her to lie down, gives him a paw, speaks, spins around even without a treat.

He also loves Milo, the other dog int he extended family. Milo has the advantage of being small so it is easier for Kareem to handle him. 

 

Tonight he rang to say: good night, see you tomorrow, it was nice to see you today.

PS I have not been writing Kareem's diary because he has been  unhappy at his school and his mum is still trying to sort things out at the school. 

Kareem at the time of Corona

I have collected lots of stories and pictures of Kareem and his family during lockdown but I have been too busy to write them down. So I am starting from today and hopefully will focus later on publishing snapshots of what I accumulated.

Today I had a knock on the door. It was Kareem in T shirt and pants asking for some yeast for his cooking. Apparently, he outgrew all his shorts from last year and his parents bought new but wrong size!

He knows about keeping your distance, but I will ask him next time what he understands about Corona virus.

Later on, his mum sent pictures of the pizza he made with his brother Shadi. They take over the kitchen for themselves and together they make the pizza, adding all the toppings they prefer. Then Shadi puts the Pizza in the oven.

Kareem loves his trampoline and so that was where he and Shadi had their lunch and then their desert: cold watermelon.

I think if my love for Kareem were distributed in the Middle East, all the wars would have stopped!

I saw kareem after 2 weeks afar!

At last and after 2 whole weeks, I saw Kareem! He came to my house and stood outside 3 meters from me. His mum hugged and kissed him for me from afar. He came to show me his new look after his mum cut his hair. I very much miss him during this “stay at home” time. However, since they moved to their own home, he and Shadi, his brother, ring me every evening to say good night before they go to bed. Shadi is normally gives me a short “hi, good night” while Kareem says: “good night. I love you. I missed you today.” “I may see you tomorrow -with his lovely pronunciation of letter r”.  

He has been staying at home and deciding what to do every day. He gets dressed in school uniform in the morning after inventing a game to play in bed with his mum as he used to do during school days.

 

Yesterday he had a painful finger so: “ I cannot do my home work my finger is ill”. But of course, the bad finger does not stop him using the remote control.

When he came to my house, he saw his old scooter that I put out for anybody to pick but he decided to use it and go home riding it.

 God bless you Kareem.

19 Feb 2020

It has been long time since last blog. During that time, Kareem has grown a lot and has continued with his “adventures”.

Some people classify kids with Down syndrome as “lovely peaceful angels” as if they were a special genus of human beings. I totally disagree. Every kid, with or without Down syndrome is a special kid with his own character, needs, talents, and capabilities. Yes, Kareem needs special attention in some areas that -for example- his brother doesn’t need. But Shadi also has different needs.

Personally, I am very keen that Kareem reaches his maximum potential in academic learning. I leave social and other learning to his parents! Talking of social development, there has been some improvement over the past few months since last blog regarding throwing things away.

Kareem still throws his glasses away when he is frustrated, but that has become an uncommon behaviour. He certainly wears his glasses by his own will for much much longer time. This is a great achievement given that he is supposed to wear his glasses all the time. We still cannot be sure that he will keep them on while he is in the street or on his bike from school, so he goes without them at those times. Personally, I am not sure that it is good for him. I’d rather he wears them, and I watch him despite losing the glasses in the street before.

At school his behaviour is naughty. Specialists say that it is his hormones as he is entering puberty time. Last week he threw things in the class and then told the teacher that she was stupid. The school tries a mixture of soft support and assertive “punishment”. Basically, they try to encourage and praise good behaviour and condemn bad behaviour till he recognises that behaving badly has consequences that he does not like, and good behaviour is rewarded. We try to do the same at home. This support requires a great deal of patience and open mindedness. It is also important to always remember not to compare him with any other kid whether he/she has Down syndrome or not. In general, I believe that comparing children is bad for psychological growth so I never do that with Kareem.

My daughter, who always has great positive influence on all the family kids, has special way of treating Kareem and he adores her. He rarely behaves badly with her and I am still learning from her attitude and actions with him.

Kareem's summer adventures in the house!

مغامرات كريم

"امبارح قفل علينا احنا التلاته الباب (أبوه وأمه وأخوه) هو جوه واحنا بره ومينفعش نفتح بالمفتاح من بره وقعد يلعب ف اوضة الجلوس وكأنه بيقول طب وانا أعملكم إيه! بعد مناورات من أخوه شادي وافق انه يفتح مكتب ابوه ويجيب مفتاح الباب اللي من وراه وطلعهولنا من فتحه الجوابات في الباب. بصراحة كذا فِعل بس قدر يعملهم وقلنا ماشي أهو بيتعلم".

"النهارده كارثه سبته يغسل وشه زي كل يوم ونزلت احط الغسيل شويه ولقيت سقف المطبخ بينقط. الباشا سد الحوض وساب الحنفيه مفتوحه وقفل الباب عشان منسمعش وقعد في اوضته. الكهربا فصلت وستنيين حد ييجي يصلح المأساة".

من كام يوم كان عندي بيلعب ف الجنينة وقَع شماعة من علي حبل الغسيل فهل يرجعها ع الحبل عادي؟ لأ طبعا لازم يخترع طريقة مسلية أكتر. بقي يطلع ع الكرسي وينط يرمي الشماعة ع الحبل وينزل يستناها تقع عشان يكرر القصة تاني! ا

Kareem’s adventures

Yesterday he shut his mum, dad and brother outside, and they could not enter the house. It took a lot of persuasion from his brother to convince Kareem to open his dad’s desk and get the house key and pass it through the letterbox.

Today, his mum left him to wash his face as he does every day. She went downstairs to use the washing machine. Then she noticed water dropping from the kitchen ceiling. She then discovered that Kareem plugged the sink and left the tap on and then shut the bathroom door so nobody can hear the sound. He innocently stayed in his room. Electricity was cut and now they are waiting for the engineer to fix the disasters!

Few days ago, he came to play in the garden. The coat hanger fell off the washing line. Would he return it in a normal way? No, he had to create a more amusing way. He got into the chair, jumped and threw the coat hanger to the line, then came down to wait for it to fell. Then he repeated the game again.

Tom, the best of best teachers

Tom Cosford is Kareem’s teacher at St. Nicholas state school in Oxford. Tom is simply amazing. He is highly professional, patient and understanding. However, you may assess a teacher, I am sure Tom will score the highest! He understands Kareem’s character and needs and knows how to deal with him in his best and worst modes and behaviours.

Tom knows how to include Kareem in the class learning and activities. Tom was instrumental in enabling Kareem to participate in the class trip staying for a whole week without his parents.

Tom and St Nicolas school are a great example of how to integrate children with special needs in school learning and activities so that they can achieve the maximum of their potential. I hope that other children are in schools with great staff like St. Nicolas: the headmistress, the teachers, the teaching assistants, and all the team.

Tom was on Oxford Radio news this morning. Kareem and his mum went to the BBC Studio and surprised him!  Here is the interview with Tom and Kareem’s mother- the first few seconds of the news.

 https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/live:bbc_radio_oxford

And here is Kareem having fun at the BBC Oxford studio. 

Kareem scored 48% in year 3 maths! Perhaps this does not sound impressive for the reader especially if one realises that Kareem is actually in year 4. But this is a great achievement for Kareem.

In 2015, when he was 6 years old, Kareem was able to count up to 20 and started to write the numbers. Soon he was able to count till 100.

A year later, when he was 7, he started to learn to add simple sums.

Then Kareem started to challenge himself a bit more adding double numbers, then triple numbers:

I was concerned about how to explain to him how to add numbers such as 98+49. Coming back from travel in early 2019, I was happily surprised to find that he was actually doing just that. When I asked his mum how she managed, she said that it was the school and his wonderful teacher.

Now Kareem knows several timetables: 2,10,11,12 and almost timetable 3 by heart. His favourite number is 12x12. I thought that he might remember the results if the timetable was written in order. Yet today, I jumped around timetable 12-his favourite- and I was happily surprised that he actually knows it all!

Kareem is lucky to be included in a really good state school, which is well-run and has dedicated and excellent teachers. They include Kareem to a great extent in the class in all sorts of learning activities and they really help him to achieve his potential in learning. He has perseverance and self-motivation if he is dealt with appropriately.

Kareem has a very supportive and patient brother, Shadi who helps Kareem sometimes with his learning. Between these 2 boys, there is a great love and affection but that deserves separate blogs.

Well done Kareem on your fantastic progress in maths. I am so proud of you my love.