Additional Needs
Why we need the Special Olympics
by Jodi Shenal
on 3rd May, 2024
Trick or Treat in My Wheelchair
Halloween is near!
My middle child, Oliver, is three years old and finally understands the events that take place on October 31st.
Last Halloween, we chose not to do the stroller and carried him house to house, instructing him house after house to say “Trick-Or-Treat!”.
This year we have his wheelchair, which he loves to manoeuvre himself.
He may not be on the chart for his age group, but for 24 pounds he sure does get heavy after a while. And that is before he gets all the candy in his belly!
With that being said, we fully intend on using his wheelchair for our trip down the neighborhood come the time.
Unfortunately, things do not have to be wheelchair accessible in the local neighborhoods.
This makes it extremely difficult to get from the street to the sidewalk, sometimes up the curb to the pathway leading to different houses.
It can almost be discouraging if we see a pathway that may be too much for us to handle. This means many houses missed, when he may not fully understand why we chose to skip it.
The difficulty doesn't stop there though! It is always challenging when you have other children in the family, and you strive to treat each one as an equal.
If we let the other two kiddos go up to the house we skip with Oliver, he will ask why he can’t go up there with them.
If we have all three kids skip it, they get upset because they can’t get all the candy they could. The battle is forever ongoing.
Each year we learn the ins and outs to having a child in a wheelchair, like knowing when to take the all-terrain stroller over his chair.
It will be our first Halloween with him in his wheelchair, and we can only hope things go as smoothly as they can.
For those familiar with this struggle, what have you done to make things work out for everyone during events like this?
Do your neighborhoods have easy accessible sidewalks?
If you could improve your neighborhood for your child and their wheelchair, how or what would you do?
Let us know in the comment section below! We always love to hear your feedback.
