How can I talk to my child about disability?

How can I help a child understand disability?

Many parents wonder how can a child understand disability? How can I teach a child about disability and properly explain disability to a child? This advice article has some handy tips on how parents can talk to a child about disability.

Why should a child learn about disability?

Purple Tuesday, which raises awareness about disability, takes place every year on the first Tuesday in November. The charity Scope states 8% of children in the UK are disabled. It is possible there is a disabled children in every nursery and school.

• The child may already know someone with a disability such as a child at nursery, a family member or neighbour but may not understand it. Even if they don’t know anyone with a disability, talking to kids about disability helps them understand others and develop as individuals.

• England’s Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) highlights that children should understand about the world. This includes making sense of their physical world and their community. They can do this by observing and finding out about people and the environment. 

• Children as young as four-years-old become aware of their culture’s stereotypes. From that age, they may use negative stereotypes about disabilities that they are exposed to. This will guide their feelings and behaviour towards other people. This is another reason why education is important.  

• Greater understanding about people’s disabilities fosters emotional intelligence amongst children such as tolerance and empathy for others.

• How children interact and understand what it’s like to have a disability is important to help create a more ‘inclusive’ society.     

Why do some people look, move or behave differently from others?

A child will wonder why some people look, move or act differently from others. They may have lots of questions. 

It is for parents and early years educators to help a child understand disabilities in a sensitive and informative way.

A child may ask many questions and make statements such as:

• ‘Why does she walk funny?’
• ‘Why does his chair have wheels?’
• ‘He looks funny’.
• ‘Man looks scary’.
• ‘She’s talking weird’.

Top tips: How can you teach a child about disability?  

• Don’t be afraid to give a child facts about a person’s disability.

You can explain that some people are born with a disability. Don’t use the word sick because a child might think the disability is infectious. E.g. explain that a child with cerebral palsy isn’t sick.

If asked ‘What’s wrong with them?’, explain the reason for their disability. For example, ‘his brain works different to yours and he finds it harder to learn’. ‘She was in a car accident and cannot walk and now uses a wheelchair to get to places’. ‘He is an older man and the stick helps him to walk and not fall over’.

When talking about, for example, an autistic person with challenging behaviour, it may be appropriate to explain that ‘they are not being bad or naughty’. ‘They are just upset because they cannot communicate and express their thoughts and feelings like you do’.    

• Explain disability equipment used such as wheelchairs, canes, robotic/prosthetic limbs.

• Ask a child to use ‘kind’ words when referring to disabilities and not unkind words that may include negative stereotypes about people with disabilities. Explain why unkind words are inappropriate. Explain how such words hurt. Teach child to say sorry when they have hurt another person’s feelings.  

• Don’t use the word ‘normal’ to refer to non-disabled people. 

• Explain that if a child has physical disabilities, it may not mean they are mentally challenged.

• Some disabilities are ‘invisible’ but it can help to inform a child what someone with a disability can have ‘hard to see’ difficulties, such as chronic pain. Explain the impact this has on the person e.g. the person gets more tired, needs more rest.  

• Don’t just highlight what people with disabilities cannot do but emphasize what they can do.

• Highlight similarities, such as if a child with disabilities likes the same game or is the same age as the child.

• People with disabilities do not want to feel cut off and ostracized from society. They may feel this way if, for example, a parent moves a child silently away from a disabled person. Encourage the child to ask you questions. Asking questions is welcomed more than blank, silent stares at someone with a disability. 

• Foster communication between child and disabled people e.g. encouraging child to wave, smile and say hello when meeting a person with disabilities in the street, shop, bus stop etc. 

• Help your child become friends with children with disabilities e.g. in play groups that include disabled children.    

• If you do not know much about someone’s specific disability, tell the child you will find out. Then read up on it and remember to have the conversation later with the child about it.     

• Use early years resources such as storybooks to share positive representations of disabilities. Talk about characters with disabilities. Disabled characters should be featured in the books but their disability shouldn’t be the main focus of the story.

Books can explain and teach a child about disability   

What resources are available to parents to help a child understand disability?

There are a wide range of early years resources such as books available to help a child understand disability. Here are a few examples.

• See What I Can Do! By Jon Roberts.

Author Jon Roberts tells the stories of a number of children with a variety of disabilities inspired by the real-life experience of his daughter, Kya who is on the autistic spectrum, and some of her friends.

Autism, dyslexia, dyspraxia, dyscalculia, ADHD, Down’s Syndrome, cystic fibrosis, muscular dystrophy, cerebral palsy, spina bifida, epilepsy and asthma are introduced. The book highlights how these disabilities affect children and how they do the activities they love.

• My Brother is an Astronaut by Michelle Rundle

Lucy’s brother Jake has sensory needs and sees the world differently. She says he lives on ‘Planet Jake’.  The author is an occupational therapist who wrote the book to help children, families and professionals understand what it’s like to live with sensory needs.

• Haylee’s Friends by Emma Birch

A story about disability aids Charlie Chair and Lily the walking frame. 

• Just Ask! by Sonia Sotomayor 

In this children’s book, United States Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor celebrates the different abilities children have. Using her own experience as a child who was diagnosed with diabetes, she writes about children with different challenges and looks at the special powers the children have. The book highlights that when you come across someone who is different from you but you’re not sure why, all a child needs to do is ‘Just Ask’.