Choosing Happiness — Janet Favorite

“Hyperphagia,” or the extreme drive to consume food, is a sizable word that is difficult for me to pronounce. It is a symptom of Prader-Willi syndrome (PWS), which my adult son, Robert, has.

When Robert, my son with Prader-Willi syndrome (PWS), was small, any mention of group homes would cause my stomach to clench in fear. What would the future hold for our darling little boy?…

A mother posted on Facebook recently that she’d let her son with Down syndrome choose between adapted and non-adapted activities in high school; it worked reasonably well, she said. We gave a similar…

I once wrote an essay called “The House of Questions.” In it, I shared questions my husband asks repeatedly, such as, “If you were me, which way would you drive home?” This might be…

Growing up in St. Paul, Minnesota, I was encircled by families with many children. We had action-packed fun and played games during summer vacation and after school. Our children, however, grew up differently. Early…

The spiritual study program “A Course in Miracles” has interested me for years. Among other things, it encourages people to recognize the miracles in everyday situations. I’ve had some experience with such…

Scoliosis is common among people with Prader-Willi syndrome (PWS). I am active in the PWS community and have seen multiple people with the syndrome whose bodies were severely compromised by scoliosis, or…

While I was shopping with my grandson, he spotted a ball in the next aisle. Since we’d experienced incidents of balls thrown at other shoppers, I didn’t want a repeat. “No ball!” I said.

I’m a woman of a certain age, and self-care was never mentioned in my younger years. Today, thankfully, there’s considerably more information about this important concept, and we women should take note. After all,…