Mentally disabled children

[brenalexacamp]

I am teary reading these posts- my child will be 18(gulp) when we go on the Dream in May 2011. We are going with friends and their kids are under 13. They are pumped to go to the clubs for their ages. The little one will be in another group I'm sure. My older son will be 21. He has his own agenda(lol) and my daughter will be 17. While she loves her brother, not too sure if she will want to spend a huge amount of time chaperoning him. I learned alot here tonight- I will get in contact with the cruise line early on- maybe we can set up an evening for him with a chaperone from the ship.

 

[Disneynut25]

I'm guessing I'm the one you are referencing above, however I never thought your adult DS was trying to sexually molest my DD. The facts were he followed her all over the ship for 2 weeks, he stole her photos from shutters, he cornered her in the atrium lobby and grabbed her arm, thus necessitating the calling of security for you to come and get him when fellow adult male cruisers were unable to get him to back off. If I left anything out, let me know and I can edit my post. Perhaps you might edit yours for gross inaccuracy.

I'm so sorry that your DD had to experience this on her cruise. As a mother of 2 girls I would have been very concerned as well. My DD14 probably would not have felt comfortable walking to the clubs after having this happen. Thank God that there were other males around to step in to control the situation. I do feel bad for your DD and I also feel bad for the young man involved in this incident. It's not his fault that he was not properly supervised. What I don't understand is how some people can justify the fact that if you allow a 9 year old to walk around the ship alone then it's ok to allow a grown man with the mental capacity of a 9 year old to walk around the ship alone as well. I'm sure that your daughter could have handled any 9 year old grabbing her arm with a swift kick in the leg but how in the world was she supposed to defend herself against a grown man. What some people don't seem to understand is that if something bad had happened involving this young man then he can (and most likely) will be handled as an adult. I know the PC thing to say is that he didn't mean any harm but the fact of the matter is a grown man should not go around grabbing/stalking young girls no matter what their mental capacity is...period!

 

[grlzmom]

I am teary reading these posts- my child will be 18(gulp) when we go on the Dream in May 2011. We are going with friends and their kids are under 13. They are pumped to go to the clubs for their ages. The little one will be in another group I'm sure. My older son will be 21. He has his own agenda(lol) and my daughter will be 17. While she loves her brother, not too sure if she will want to spend a huge amount of time chaperoning him. I learned alot here tonight- I will get in contact with the cruise line early on- maybe we can set up an evening for him with a chaperone from the ship.

If you contact DCL early on you will be better able to plan and know ahead of time what all of your ds options are for activities and clubs. I can say from past experience we have found DCL to be very flexible and of course they want everyone to enjoy their cruise.

Lots of pixie dust that you have an awesome time in May.