Wheelchair user shares what to say if your child is staring at a disabled person

A wheelchair user has shared what to say if your child is staring at a disabled person and you don’t know what to do. For , teaching your child about those who are disabled can be difficult as you might be unsure about how it would be best to approach this topic.

Children are generally curious about the around them and people who are not like them in some way. Gem Turner describes herself as a sarcastic northerner and a disabled content creator. Based in West , she uses social media to share her experiences about life as a wheelchair user.

Gem, 32, posted a video on recalling a time when a woman caught her daughter staring at her and how she handled the situation.

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She said: “So I want to tell you about a situation where even I was so impressed with how this mum dealt with it.

“So I was in a restaurant where there was a buffet and unfortunately, I was sat right where the queue is so I felt a bit like I was the animal at the zoo eating and people were just like having a cheeky look.

“Anyway, that’s by the by. Basically, there was a kid and she was naturally like curious and I smiled but she just kept gawping all the way um in the queue, and I don’t blame her cause you know when I was little I used to stare at tall people, like this is what we do, but obviously it’s uncomfortable for everyone involved.”

The content creator added that the mum realised that her daughter was staring at her and in a “neutral but quite stern tone” she told her daughter to “either say hello or stop staring because staring isn’t kind, is it?”

Gem was very impressed with what the mum said to her daughter and found it “so lovely” as she shared that it is “very rare” that she feels a parent is on her side and she felt like the woman was thinking about her wellbeing at that point.

She elaborated: “It wasn’t about just dragging a child away so the way she did that so calmly and she made it really neutral so it wasn’t like…she wasn’t angry, she wasn’t you know panicking.

“She was just like ‘we don’t stare do we but you can go and say hello if you want to’ and the kid just went ‘hello’ and then carried on.”

Gem thought how the mum handled this situation was “fantastic”, and said it would be great if she could have recorded that scenario and played it to every single parent.

Day Nurseries has about how to teach a child about disability. It advises not to be afraid to give a child facts about a person’s and explain that some people are born with a disability, but it urges not to use the word "sick" as a child might think the disability is infectious.

The nurseries website adds that if a child asks "what’s wrong with them?" then you should explain the reason for their disability, for example "she was in a car accident and cannot walk and now uses a wheelchair to get to places".

Gem has her own where she explains that when she was younger there weren’t many disabled people in the media so she wants to make sure she adds her “sparkle” to the “tiny part” of the internet she takes up with her page.

She has a condition called osteogenesis imperfecta (type 3), which is a group of genetic disorders that all result in bones that break easily. It is more commonly known as brittle bone disease.