While in Orlando we played a game of miniature golf at Congo River Golf, an award winning miniature golf course. The miniature golf course was like everything else in Orlando, incredible. It had a coi pond, an alligator pen with at least 30 alligators, waterfalls, secret passages and twists, it was a very extravagant place. Our story of our time below our thoughts.
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| Anne and Kellena |
Thoughts of miniature golf in our own words.
Anne, 19-year old with Down Syndrome: Miniature golf okay, then she said I was awesome (I love Anne.)
Favorite: Waterfalls and when her golf balls went in
the water.
Least
favorite: Playing, not fun.
Kellena, 'normal' 12-year old: I liked the water and the pipes the balls had
to go through to get to the various levels.
Favorite: Watching you (me, mom) think the alligators were dead
and stuffed (they didn’t move much.)
Least
favorite: “Prizes.” Kellena says to be certain I put quotes
around the word prizes. There was a
scavenger hunt looking for objects around the golf holes, if you found all of
the objects you got a ‘prize.’
Dad Cristo: Fascinating, fun set-up, no real thoughts,
miniature golf. Have played at better
miniature golf places although this miniature golf course is reputed to be the
best miniature golf course in Florida, low standard.
Favorite: The life-sized plane at the top of one of the
holes. I personally think it was really a
helicopter with wings soldered to the sides.
Least
Favorite: Disappointed we couldn’t play
with alligators.
Mom Karen: I thought it was a fun diversion.
Favorite: Hitting balls in the tubes that took the
balls to different places.
Least
favorite: Being made fun of for thinking
the alligators were stuffed.
Our time playing miniature golf:
When
we arrived at the golf course Anne decided she didn’t want to play golf, she
was going to do her crossword puzzles.
Of course that didn’t work out and she ended up playing golf with the rest
of us. After picking out a blue golf
ball and getting to the first green, Anne and the rest of us had a great
time. Anne had no ‘form’ whatsoever but
somehow managed to get several hole-in-ones.
It
was difficult for Anne to wait her turn and to follow a few of the rules but
she was good-natured about everything. I
find special needs kids often have difficulties being parts of groups and
taking turns. One of my favorite
memories was working on turn taking with a group of special needs kids, one of
them had Down syndrome.
The
game we were playing you had to pull leaves out of a toy tree, we kept asking
the Down syndrome boy (7-years old) to wait his turn but of course he
didn’t. My assistant tried to block the
boy’s arms so he couldn’t grab any of the leaves and all of the sudden there
were arms flying everywhere, the boy got all the leaves. Great fun to watch.
It is important that we set expectations that everyone
follows that makes the interrelationships more rewarding for us all. And gives everyone a feeling of equality.
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