Samenvatting

Parental involvement is a crucial force in children’s development, learning and success
at school and in life [1]. Participation, defined by the World Health Organization as ‘a
person’s involvement in life situations’ [2] for children means involvement in everyday
activities, such as recreational, leisure, school and household activities [3]. Several authors
use the term social participation emphasising the importance of engagement in
social situations [4, 5].
Children’s participation in daily life is vital for healthy development, social and
physical competencies, social-emotional well-being, sense of meaning and purpose in
life [6]. Through participation in different social contexts, children gather the knowledge
and skills needed to interact, play, work, and live with other people [4, 7, 8]. Unfortunately,
research shows that children with a physical disability are at risk of lower participation
in everyday activities [9]; they participate less frequently in almost all activities
compared with children without physical disabilities [10, 11], have fewer friends and
often feel socially isolated [12-14].
Parents, in particular, positively influence the participation of their children with a
physical disability at school, at home and in the community [15]. They undertake many
actions to improve their child’s participation in daily life [15, 16]. However, little information
is available about what parents of children with a physical disability do to enable
their child’s participation, what they come across and what kind of needs they have.
The overall aim of this thesis was to investigate parents’ actions, challenges, and
needs while enhancing the participation of their school-aged child with a physical disability.
In order to achieve this aim, two steps have been made. In the first step, the literature
has been examined to explore the topic of this thesis (actions, challenges and
needs) and to clarify definitions for the concepts of participation and social participation.
Second, for the purposes of giving breadth and depth of understanding of the
topic of this thesis a mixed methods approach using three different empirical research
methods [17-19], was applied to gather information from parents regarding their actions,
challenges and needs.