Parenting with a Physical Disability

Adaptations for the Disabled Parent to Properly Care for Their Child

May 22, 2009

Disabled parents are often noted as being unable to fulfill a parenting role. However, child maltreatment amongst parents with physical disabilities is difficult to find.

One of the biggest barriers parents with disabilities face is social acceptance. Many people believe that individuals with a disability won’t make good parents or that their children will be subject to a substandard family environment and level of parenting. It is a constant effort to be seen as a capable parent by the rest of the world.

“In most cases, children can develop skills and qualities that are absent in other children. These may come from developing a deeper understanding of difficulties and hardship, learning to give and take pleasure in helping with family chores and respecting and understanding responsibility,” says the Council of Canadians in a 1991 report entitled “Violence Against Women with Disabilities and Deaf Women and Access to the Justice System.”

The Disabled Parent and the Child Protection System

Far too often, children are taken from their disabled parent. Sometimes, the reason for taking children is simply because the parent lives with a disability. Surprisingly, courts have not examined whether this practice constitutes discrimination.

Judges often make an assessment of parental fitness that is not based upon empirical evidence of unfitness, but on the possibility that a parent may be unfit in the future. It is crucial for courts to keep in mind that while the manner in which parents with disabilities perform parental tasks may be different from parents without disabilities, performing tasks differently should not be deemed to constitute unfitness.

Associated Challenges for Disabled Parents

Some of the challenges parents may face in hands-on child rearing are related to their physical abilities. If parents are restricted in movement in the upper body, they may have difficulty holding a child unaided or carrying out general care duties such as feeding and cleaning. If parents are in a wheelchair, they may be limited in the amount of toddler chasing or tantrum soothing they can perform. Some parents’ energy levels are affected, making the already exhausting job of child rearing even more tiring (Council of Canadians).

Parenting is a Challenge Regardless of Ability

From carrying a baby in a wheelchair, keeping tabs on kids at the playground when they’re blind, or giving advice about communicating with their hearing kids’ school when they’re deaf, parents with disabilities make many adaptations in order to properly care for their children.

Naturally, adaptations for a parent with a disability are individual: Some blind parents preferred cloth diapers, because it was easier to feel wetness. Others find that when their toddlers wear disposables, it is easier to hear them moving around.

Parents with a disability are able to raise children who may have a better insight into life and be morecompassionate than many other children of the same age. Whether parents are blind or deaf, are quadriplegic or have cognitive disabilities, all have the same goal: to raise a happy, healthy child. All have the same hope: that the legacy their disability leaves with their child is a positive one.

Beyond helping their children to understand disability, much work needs to be done improving the social attitudes of others. Teaching moments are important in order to help children develop their own understanding of disability.

The copyright of the article Parenting with a Physical Disability in Parenting Methods is owned by Kimberley Powell. Permission to republish Parenting with a Physical Disability in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.