International Journal of Rehabilitation and Health, Vol. 5, No. 1, 2000 Reconstructing Life Goals After the Birth of a Child With Down Syndrome: Finding Happiness and Growing 1 Laura A. King 2,3 and Camille Patterson 2 Parents of children with Down Syndrome (DS; N = 87) wrote about current goals and goals they had before they learned their child would have DS (lost goals) and completed measures of salience of the narrative, subjective well-being (SWB), and stress-related growth. Inde- pendent raters scored the narratives on levels of elaboration. We conducted a follow-up study 2 years later (N = 42)) using the SWB and stress-related growth measures. There was an association between investing in current goals and heightened SWB, whereas salience of lost goals related weakly to reduced SWB. However, in the follow-up study, there was an association between investing in lost goals and increased stress-related growth. These results suggest that hopes for the future enhance SWB, whereas over time considering loss relates to increased feelings of personal growth. Growth and well-being may be independent of each other. KEY WORDS: goal change; subjective well-being; personal growth. INTRODUCTION Perhaps one of the most exciting experiences in adult life is expecting a child. One as- pect of this time is imagining what the child will be like—anticipating what the future might hold. For most parents, some or even many of these positive fantasies may become a reality, but for others the birth of a child may require a substantive revision of these rosy expecta- tions. Finding out that one’s infant or unborn child has Down Syndrome (DS) is a major life event. One way to view such an experience is to consider the loss of those future-oriented fantasies or goals that parents may have imagined for themselves and their children. Further- more, a challenge these parents face is to rewrite their future goals to once again envision a future toward which to strive. Certainly these new goals may have positive facets that emerge after this major life change. A large body of research supports the positive role of valued 1 Portions of this study appear in a M. A. Thesis by Camille Patterson, under the direction of Laura King, at Southern Methodist University. In addition, some of these findings were reported at the American Psychological Association Convention, August, 1999. 2 Psychology Department, Southern Methodist University, Dallas, Texas. 3 To whom correspondence should be addressed at Psychology Department, Southern Methodist University, Dallas, Texas 75275-0442; e-mail: lking@mail.smu.edu. 17 1068-9591/00/0100-0017$18.00/0 C  2000 Plenum Publishing Corporation