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"Jennifer Kiss-Engele was heartbroken when she learned her 8-year-old son Sawyer &amp;#x2014; who has Down syndrome &amp;#x2014; was the only kid in his class of 23 not invited to a birthday party. &amp;#x201C;The invites were handed out at school and he was the only child to not receive one,&amp;#x201D; the Langley, British Columbia&amp;#x2013;based mom tells Us Weekly.&amp;#xA0;Rather than keep quiet, Kiss-Engele penned a lengthy, moving open letter on Facebook that has since gone viral with 15,000 likes and nearly 5,000 shares. In the post, Kiss-Engele pointed out that the exclusion was &amp;#x201C;not an oversight&amp;#x201D; but &amp;#x201C;an intentional decision.&amp;#x201D;&amp;#x201C;I know it&amp;#x2019;s not because he&amp;#x2019;s mean, you couldn&amp;#x2019;t meet a happier child. I know it&amp;#x2019;s not because he&amp;#x2019;s not fun, he has a great sense of humor and an infectious laugh. I know it&amp;#x2019;s not because your child and him don&amp;#x2019;t get along, he&amp;#x2019;s brought up your child&amp;#x2019;s name on several occasions,&amp;#x201D; she wrote. &amp;#x201C;The only reason you decided it was OK to not invite my son to your child&amp;#x2019;s birthday party is because he has Down Syndrome.&amp;#x201D;Kiss-Engele explained that she was &amp;#x201C;not mad&amp;#x201D; at the parent. &amp;#x201C;I know if you knew more about Down Syndrome you wouldn&amp;#x2019;t have made this decision,&amp;#x201D; the mother of three, who works in marketing communications, wrote. &amp;#x201C;You see, having Down Syndrome doesn&amp;#x2019;t mean that you don&amp;#x2019;t want to have friends. It doesn&amp;#x2019;t mean that you don&amp;#x2019;t have feelings. It doesn&amp;#x2019;t mean you don&amp;#x2019;t like to go to birthday parties. People with Down Syndrome want the same things that you and I want. They want to have close relationships, they want to feel love, they want to contribute, they want to have meaningful lives, and they want to go to birthday parties.&amp;#x201D;&amp;#x201C;Please know that I am here to talk if you would like,&amp;#x201D; she wrote to the other mother. &amp;#x201C;I may be a mama bear but I am not a scary person. I recognize that we all make mistakes and at the end of the day, I think we both could have done better.&amp;#x201D;Since penning the letter, Sawyer has been added to the guest list.&amp;#x201C;I sent the letter to the mom before posting it on Facebook. In her reply, she agreed that it would be beneficial to talk to the kids about Down Syndrome,&amp;#x201D; Kiss-Engele tells Us. &amp;#x201C;I think her child didn&amp;#x2019;t really understand Sawyer. Once the mom spoke to her about him, and they talked about how he&amp;#x2019;s a happy guy who likes to give hugs, her child understood him better.&amp;#x201D;The birthday girl even made Sawyer a special, personalized invitation. &amp;#x201C;Sawyer was so happy,&amp;#x201D; says Kiss-Engele. &amp;#x201C;His teachers told me he talked about it all day. He was beaming when he showed it to me and he&amp;apos;s been excited about it ever since.&amp;#x201D;&amp;#xA0;"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.usmagazine.com/celebrity-moms/news/mom-pens-letter-after-son-with-down-syndrome-is-excluded-from-party-w211381>