TAPA Mom, Samantha Sosnik, put up an annual post in May of 2016, during Williams Syndrome Awareness month. In the funny way that social media works, someone recently saw that post from more than a year ago, commented on it, and within minutes it had skyrocketed to 300 likes with dozens upon dozens of comments. Samantha’s message is ever-relevant, about a topic that doesn’t always get as much attention as it deserves: the typically-developing siblings of children with special needs. Read on for her beautiful tribute to both her amazing daughters!
May 2016: “Today is the start of Williams Syndrome Awareness month. Each year I post about our beautiful daughter Avery and the Syndrome she was born with and I celebrate her. This year I also want to bring awareness to something equally as important and that is the siblings of special needs children. Being the parents of a special needs child is extremely difficult. I have seen though how equally hard if not more it can be for our other children. Our daughter Tatum has had to learn so much about her sister in such a short amount of time. She has risen to the occasion numerous times even when she didn’t want to and has even comforted me. We want to teach our other children how to be accepting and care for their special siblings but at the same time we don’t want to compromise them either. They are the ones that we hope will continue to care for their siblings when we no longer can but also need to remember they have lives as well and they are just as important. So today in addition to WS awareness I celebrate Tatum and her love for Avery.”