Last week, I was walking with my sister after training when we passed a young boy in a wheelchair, with his mother and sister. Recognising him, my sister stopped to ask him a question. Smiling proudly, his mother replied that he was there for a National Day Parade rehearsal.
I didn’t make anything of the brief, ordinary encounter until we entered the lift at the train station. As the doors closed, my sister said with a sigh, “I asked the boy a question, but the mother answered instead.”
I thought of my two-year-old. During playtime, I allow him to wander away from me, only intervening when truly necessary. Known as “free-range” parenting (as opposed to “helicopter” parenting), this idea encourages raising children with the gentle aims of independence and age-appropriate personal risks. Letting children assess their own risks and make their own decisions is a self-fulfilling prophecy: children become more responsible when they are entrusted with it.
Accessibility consultant and senior manager at Muscular Dystrophy Association Singapore (MDAS) Judy Wee strongly believes in affording children with disabilities (CWDs) the same expectations, opportunities and responsibilities as able-bodied ones.
“I think many institutions have forgotten that persons with disabilities should not be treated as [having] no brains. While people keep saying [otherwise], they don’t practise what they say. Many still believe that if you are a disabled person, you can’t really manage yourself, and therefore you need assistance. While it may be so for a person with disabilities, you shouldn’t assume that the person has no ability to think or make decisions for themselves.”
Judy acknowledges that while parents start off with making decisions for their children, the latter also need to learn to make age-appropriate decisions as early on as possible. “Children need to be taught to make decisions. If you make decisions for them as children, how do they make decisions as adults? When they never had to make ‘children’ decisions,” she said.
“That’s why at MDAS for example, we treat the kids age-appropriately, as much as possible. For a start, we get them to make decisions like ‘What do you want to eat for lunch?’, ‘Where do you want to go?’, and ‘Who they want to go with?’ If they make the wrong decisions, then they will be explained to. Like when they cross the road when the light is flickering green.”
Judy thinks that children who seem more reserved often benefit from being treated this way. “You learn how to ask for help. You learn how to communicate and respect others as well. Eventually, you’ll see that they willingly converse with you. They open up. They’ve so many questions to ask, and no one has been able to answer them: about their condition, or when, one day you see your friend, the next day he’s not here.”
Teaching Independence
“I tell parents, teach them. It’s hard today. It’s heart-breaking today. But if you don’t do it today, they will never learn. Even if they mess up your table to feed themselves, they will get it right. If you are going to feed them forever, you will have to continue making sure that someone feeds them forever,” she said.
While it’s not easy to convince parents to let their children go through the often difficult effort of learning, she has good reason for thinking this way. Born with limb defects, Judy was able to walk after several corrective surgeries. “Because I was walking around, I was able to build muscles. I was able to grow my upper body, so that I’m able to do a lot of other things because I have the strength,” she said.
She attributes her family’s humble background as a major influence on how her parents treated her – as any other contributing member of her family – instead of hiring a live-in domestic worker to help with childraising and household chores. “I had housework to do, chores to do. I had to go to school, fold the clothes. Every Sunday, in the kitchen helping with cleaning up, marketing, pounding rempah [spices]. As I grew older, cooking. Take care of [my] brother. We were not well-off, so we had no other choice.”
Crucially, in Judy’s case, there were no special modifications to her family home to facilitate her chores. “Because when I was younger, I was able to walk. I’m still able to walk, but now a bit lazy to walk. But if I had just sat there and waited for people to do things for me, how was I going to learn how to button my clothes? How was I going to learn to do things that I couldn’t reach? [I have] no thumbs, you know. If my parents had never let me do things myself, how would I have learned?”
She recalls that that when the time came for her parents to put her in school, someone invaluably advised her parents to put her in a mainstream school – a message that she passes on today to other parents. She credits her mainstream education with much of her abilities today, as well as helping to positively shape the perceptions of her classmates about children and people with disabilities.
“If a child has just a physical disability, they should challenge themselves to go to a mainstream school. If children in the mainstream school can accept kids with disabilities as part and parcel of them growing up, it becomes easier when it comes to employment.”
“It becomes okay to see another colleague in a wheelchair moving around, getting things done. To them, it’s not ‘Hey, good job!’ It’s life.”
This article is a part of our #AbleFamilies campaign in Singapore. Stay tuned for real life stories, advice and experiences from people who believe in and represent the potential of all kids. By now empowering the thousands of kids with disabilities in Singapore and supporting their parents and caregivers, we strengthen the next generation of citizens to promote a more inclusive Singapore.
