Photo by Kampus Production

While children with disabilities face a lot of challenges, there are plenty of practical tools to parent your child with disabilities and help them live good lives.

To say that children with disabilities face challenges is an understatement. Throughout their whole lives, they will encounter a medley of obstacles that can affect their physical, cognitive, and social development. The extent of these challenges can vary wildly depending on the disability the child has:

• Children with physical disabilities often have conditions that make it difficult to move, coordinate, and balance. This often means that they will find it hard or will be unable to participate in certain activities that other children take for granted, such as playing sports, running around, or even just sitting down to play games.
• For children with cognitive disabilities, the difficulty with general learning, thinking, and problem-solving constantly fluctuates. This often means that keeping up in school and engaging in mentally strenuous activities can be extremely difficult, and most children with cognitive disabilities may require specialized educational services.
• Regardless, children with disabilities suffer a lot from social interactions. Because of their conditions, they are sometimes unable to engage mentally or physically with others. This makes making friends and interacting with broader society quite distressing and difficult. This leads to a sense of isolation and loneliness that can transform into more concerning habits.

What Children with Disabilities Face 

Physical barriers

Being as it were that humans are physical creatures, there are plenty of physical barriers that make it difficult for children with disabilities to engage with their communities:

Accessibility. Buildings and facilities are almost always constructed with the majority in mind. Being that the majority of people do not have disabilities, this predictably leads to designs and architecture that do not really take into account the needs of people with disabilities, especially children. This can range from the inconvenient (no ramps, no restrooms, etc.) to the egregious (no signage, no railings, etc.).

Transportation. Similarly, when public transit is designed, it also does not include perspectives from people with disabilities. What this means is that for a lot of disabled people, getting from one place to another can often be difficult or near impossible. This often makes going to school, doctor’s appointments, and other far-off location activities.

Technology. While there are plenty of mechanical aids known as assistive technology, such as wheelchairs, hearing aids, communication devices, etc., which can help those with disabilities, they are often quite expensive and not always readily available.

Social barriers

In addition to physical obstacles, children with disabilities also face substantial hurdles when it comes to social contact with friends and interacting with other members of the community:

Prejudice and discrimination. While there have been strides in making disabilities a more accepted and celebrated part of society, there are still concerns among observers that biases against people with disabilities are present at large. This can lead to incidents of bullying, exclusion, and often, in more serious cases, abuse or death.

Misunderstandings. There are plenty of stereotypes about people with disabilities, ranging from the innocuous to the outright dangerous. While it is easy to say that these are only the errant thoughts of a few bad apples, these people may be in a position wherein they have power over children with disabilities, and that can be harmful.

Interaction. There are very few opportunities for children with disabilities to engage with other children. This is because of the aforementioned factors above. While this can be remedied through some means, they do not actually address the broader issue of how children interact with one another, which is merely downstream of how adults conduct themselves.

Taking a Step Forward

For more practical tools to parent your child with disabilities, Lynda Drake’s The Power of Imperfect Parents is a wonderful resource that draws on both a professional and personal background.