a little nervous for tomarrow

[djansen]

I have this elective class in my high school called practical christianity where you help young kids at another school and one day a week you either help at the food bank, talk to elderly people at the retirement home, or assisted living. for the past couple weeks i have been helping stack food at the food bank and tomarrow i have to swich and go to assisted living. i am kinda nervous because i have to do things for an hour with a mentaly handicapped adult like play golf or talk sports and stuff. the thing is i have never really been around a mentally handicapped person before and now i have to be alone for an hour and think of things to do. what could i do? like activities?
thanks

[mlededee]

a lot of times people love just having someone to talk to. ask them questions about what they do or what they like and go from there. if you have to do some sort of activity, maybe take some cards and teach them a simple card game. go for a walk, show them how to make something, teach them a joke. just show them that you care and want to be friends and they will enjoy your time together.

[Freakie_frog]

Just talk to them they are just people allot of mentally challenged have the same mind set as a child. Just ask them what they like to do and then just like a kid you get them excited about doing that and the color, or play with them. I had to do a similar thing with a retirement home. Talk about interesting people think of a 100 year old person that still has a sound mind telling you stories about the teens and twenties now that was fun.

Good luck with that.