He walks dangerously close to the horse

Erez, the little boy in the video, was 4 years old when this video was taken. He has something called Williams syndrome, which is a developmental disorder that often comes with heart problems as well. Approximately 1 in 10,000 kids is born with this syndrome. If you didn’t know better, you might think it exists on the autism spectrum.

150 people
Erez is one of 150 people in Israel who has this syndrome, which isn’t very strange for a country with a little over 8 million inhabitants. This means that Erez is a living rarity. Most people who have Williams syndrome are quite social and love to talk and this faculty is often more developed than their cognitive faculties. This often leads to people overestimating their abilities. Children with Williams syndrome are often musically gifted and good at recognising faces, but they do have motor difficulties.

Attention
Roni, Erez’s mother, explains that she has been working with horses for 15 years and is still in awe with how emotionally intelligent these creatures are, and how well they are attuned to ‘special children’. She also explains that Erez struggles with making the right kind of contact with people. He’s a very sweet boy, but he doesn’t always know how to behave when he gets attention from other people.

Special meeting
In the video below you can see how Erez comes into contact with a horse for the first time. It’s a very special meeting indeed! The horse remains strikingly calm and gives Erez plenty of space to carefully come closer. Roni says: “When I got home and watched the video I realized the power of that moment of my son and the horse. The horse followed every movement of the child, yet allowed the child to approach and contact him.” She also recounts how when Erez hugged the horse’s legs, the animal didn’t move a muscle, as if it was afraid to hurt the boy. Watch the touching video below!

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