8 April 4 - 10, 2024 dallasobserver.com DALLAS OBSERVER Classified | MusiC | dish | Culture | unfair Park | Contents years. Dyno-Rock in Arlington is head coached by Katie Rogers, a junior special education major at UT Arlington, who has two months of coaching under her belt. Both coaches bounce around to each kid during practice to keep things moving smoothly. As volunteer coordinator, Kevin Cuadrado is responsible for pairing Grapevine volunteers with participants. Climbers can get very attached to having the same volunteer every time. Sometimes that’s a good thing, and sometimes Kevin likes to push kids out of their comfort zones by changing things up. When the climbers arrive, ev- eryone circles up for warmups, led by Sadie and Katie at their re- spective gyms. There are the stan- dard leg and arm stretches, plus some climber-specific hand and finger stretches. Everyone flicks their fingers out “like you’re flick- ing water off your hands.” Some parents participate with their children, while others take a much-needed break after getting the family out on a Sunday morn- ing. Amanda Shaffstall sits with Jonah, shifting his legs into posi- tion, while keeping an eye on Ja- cob and making sure he pays attention. Helpful Challenges B rian Steelsmith, Mariana’s husband and co-founder of the organization says the biggest question the kids have is why? “Why do I climb? Why do I go up there?” Of course, they don’t ask this question at home. At home, they climb all over the couch, the coun- ters, the stairs and their railings. United Rocks helps channel kids’ innate love for climbing into some- thing productive. Jake used to follow Brian up the ladder. Each time he needed to change a lightbulb or dust a fan, Jake’s little legs and arms ambled right up after him. OK, he thought, here’s something he likes to do. Fast forward a few months, and Jake was climbing a 60-foot wall, incentivized by a Hot Wheels car waiting at the top. Mark Brown is another kid who climbed on everything at home. Once they got to the wall, “it took him a while to figure out the goal of it,” his mom, Tara Brown says. One thing the 11-year-old with au- tism loves is numbers. So, they tried something out. Mark counts each step as he climbs, and the volunteers join in. “1, 2, 3, 4, 5,” everyone shouts at him from below as he moves his arms up the route. “Good job! Five more?” Tara wills. Mark goes five more. Finding what a kid with disabil- ities likes to do isn’t always easy. “It’s still a puzzle for me to try to figure out what my son really likes,” says Nicole Le, whose 12-year-old son Aaron Tong has autism and speech impairment. Tong has been attending United Rocks in Grapevine for the better part of a year. “At first, I didn’t see how bene- ficial the potential was going to be when we first tried it out. But the more I take him to practice, the more I realize this is it,” Le says. “This is one sport that combines many, many different challenges that help my son.” Le says climb- ing has helped Aaron’s thinking process, muscle memory, fine mo- tor skills and arm and leg strength. Cost became an issue for Le, who told Mariana she could not af- ford to bring her son anymore. The first month of practice is free, and after that the organization asks for a $60 a month donation. “I was go- ing to withdraw Aaron, which is not something that I wanted to do,” Le says. But Mariana saw the boy’s growth, the improvement in his strength and ability. She offered a sponsorship for him to keep com- ing for free. “We see the commitment that parents have with their kids to come and climb, so we don’t want to turn them away just because they have the extra cost,” Mariana says. A $75,000 grant from the Jor- dan Spieth Family Foundation is helping cover some of the costs of expansion, climbing gear and sponsorships like the one Aaron has. Parenting a special needs child is far from merely the fun and games that rock climbing on the weekends may bring. Taking spe- cial needs kids into public settings can be frustrating for parents. Families often retreat when faced with the looks and stares of others when their child won’t be quiet or can’t quite sit still at the restaurant. Oftentimes it’s simply easier to burrow into their homes. Let’s just order takeout. Why bother with the hassle? Brian Steelsmith has ruminated a lot on the state of mind of parents like him. “Kids with special needs are a handful,” he says. Each word he speaks is heavy with weight, de- livered slowly with intention. He wears a blue North Face beanie and a thick gray-black beard, with no shoes on the soft ground. If you didn’t hear his soft voice and friendly tenor, you might be intim- idated by him. “Parents with kids with special needs have the tendency to har- bor them away,” he says. “They don’t take them out. It’s a handful to go out on our own with the anxiety in our world. To take that kid with you is exponentially harder.” Brian’s direct, to-the-point personality contrasts Mariana’s whirlwind, fast-paced chatter, colored by her Peruvian accent. But both share the same goal and thesis. “We take him everywhere,” Mariana says about Jake. “I don’t care that he has a disability. I don’t care at all, right? We take him ev- erywhere. But there’s some parents that I see that they’re a little bit… Hey, where are you going? Hey!” Our interview is paused as Mariana darts up to chase Jake, who’s run- ning away from the climbing area toward the bathroom. No matter where her focus is, she never loses sight of her child. The point she was making was that there can be guilt and shame thrust on parents when they bring their special-needs child into pub- lic places. The way Brian puts it, speaking broadly about parents of special needs children, “[Parents] are embarrassed. [They] are ashamed. And we often blame our- selves for our kid’s condition. It’s not true, but the human condition doesn’t work any other way. That’s who we are.” A Climbing Community R ock climbing’s positive ef- fects continue to be stud- ied. In one study, 9-year-olds with ADHD spent nine months in a rock climbing program. After the program, par- ticipants experienced a signifi- cant decrease in resting heart rate and increases in duration of breath holding, flexibility, bal- ance, discipline, independence and persistence. Rock climbing has also been shown to improve handgrip strength in children with autism, who tend to have weaker handgrip strength than neurotypical chil- dren. Prescribed exercise programs have also been shown to improve physical and mental development in people with Down syndrome, who are predisposed to reduced bone mineral density and in- creased risk of fracture. In an eight-week exercise program for adults with Down syndrome, par- ticipants significantly improved their physical and cognitive health and enhanced their deci- sion making and critical thinking. “Trust, balance, focus, prob- lem solving, confidence. There’s so many benefits [from Unfair Park from p6 Nathan Hunsinger Adam Moua, 24, considers his climbing strategy. Nathan Hunsinger Luna Silvestri, 5, climbs a wall to reach a rabbit toy. >> p10
