‘Miracle boy’ preschool graduate is a sight to behold
Published: June 3, 2005
Val and Silvia Peterson walked with their son, Justin, to a makeshift stage and beamed with pride as he was handed his preschool graduation diploma.
But it was arguable just who graduated Thursday - Justin, wearing a red mortarboard with a white tassel, or his parents who were holding cameras.
“The primary challenge here is teaching the parents that their kids have all of these capabilities,” said DeEtte Snyder, a teacher at the Foundation for Blind Children in Chandler, which held the event. “The parents are just as much a part of this program as their children. They grow and learn just as much as their children do, and that’s really encouraging.”
Parental involvement is an imperative at the non-profit foundation since moms and dads struggle with one of the biggest learning curves in their lives - looking beyond their children’s disabilities.
For the Petersons, it was figuring out that Justin, 5, might be able to communicate.
Born about six months into Silvia’s pregnancy and weighing 1½ pounds, Justin lost his sight within months. He also has speech problems.
But here he was on graduation day, performing a series of physical exercises with his seven classmates as parents and teachers packed into the classroom erupted in applause.
To top it off, Justin was honored with an award for being “the best cane user” in his class.
“If he’s grown that much in two years here imagine what he can do in the big boys school,” said, Val, 35, an engineer at Intel.
But Justin’s 30-year-old mother wrestled with the fact he was leaving the foundation school and the security of a learning environment where she was a regular participant.
Silvia looked pensively at her husband as I asked her if she was ready for Justin to enter kindergarten this fall at a public school.
“No,” she said, “I’m trying to compose myself for the moment.”
One of Justin’s classmates, Nikolas Rivera, 5, sat in the lap of his dad, Richard, a Mesa police officer, waiting to be called to receive his diploma.
His mother, Joanne, a social worker, said she felt like she was graduating, too.
“He’s learning to share and have social interaction,” she said. “These kids do things that you don’t know they can do.”
Things that Val and Silvia Peterson never dreamed of for their “miracle boy.”
“I think when parents have a little guy born so incredibly premature it puts them in a life and death situation,” Snyder said. “And with his significant disabilities they have no idea how they are going to parent him. They don’t know where to go and who to talk to.
“But after a day like today they have hope. They know what their child is going to do and how much he can accomplish. They know he can do what he wants to do. He can grow up and become a great adult.”
If you enjoyed this good news Subscribe to Good News Blog
Share this
To share this simply copy and paste one of the below URL's: