No child wants to be stuck in a wheelchair while his or her friends are running around. This can be particularly difficult if your child is going to be in a wheelchair permanently. Here are some tips for making sure that your child in a wheelchair is able to thrive and live his or her life to the fullest.

1. Help Your Child Find Heroes

The first thing that you need to do is make sure that your child is able to see people like him or her in the community that he or she thinks are really cool. This helps him or her feel more normal about using a wheelchair and see that he or she can still be awesome despite being confined to one. If your child has a favorite teacher that uses a wheelchair, this is a good place to start. Another place to look for heroes in wheelchairs is to check out sports that are for people in wheelchairs, such as modified basketball. If your child can find someone in a wheelchair to look up to, he or she will accept this limitation easier.

2. Get Your Child Involved

Try to ensure that being in a wheelchair does not significantly cause your child to miss out on any fun activities that your child's friends are participating in. This will help your child feel much more included. If your child does get invited to a birthday party that he or she cannot participate in, such as a bounce house birthday party, consider scheduling some other fun activity at the same time. Talk to the parent of the child that is having the birthday party and see if he or she would allow you to come and bring board games, arts and crafts, or some other activity that your child could participate in that kids could do with him or her in between bouncing. 

3. Let Your Child Make the Wheelchair His or Her Own

Get bells and whistles for the wheelchair. See if your child wants you to run streamers through the spokes of the wheels. All of this will allow your child to feel as though he or she has more control over his or her wheelchair and therefore will be more likely to not feel as bad about it.

For more information, talk to a company that specializes in wheelchairs. They might have other ideas for customizing the chair to help your child feel more comfortable.