Physical problem for a child

There are so many options. Do you want the child to have only physical impairments or mental ones as well? Do you want it to be a disease or a congenital condition present from birth? Should this be a lifelong affliction or one that is cured? Is the condition lethal?

Also in terms of "requiring" the parent to stay at home, this can be fudged to an extent. There are plenty of conditions that do not "require" a parent to stay at home but where a parent would prefer to provide care over having a nurse/institution do it instead.

In what part of the world?

Schools can accommodate physical conditions, so it would have to be pretty severe. An easier road might be fragile immune system, severe epilepsy, heart condition, etc.

I know you said that you don't want it to be mental, but Autism may be a good one. My son is on the spectrum, and I don't really feel comfortable leaving him with a sitter. He has also been diagnosed with ADHD.

I get a lot of phone calls from his school during the day. During a really bad meltdown, he was suspended for half a day and I had to go and get him.

Those with Autism will often have gastrointestinal problems as well. Some will be difficult to potty train and will have lots of accidents.

If you want more info, feel free to pm me.

I was going to suggest immunodeficiency issues, as well. Homeschooling may well be the only option for children with that scenario.

If you want something a bit more compelling, try AT (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ataxia_telangiectasia). One of my friends' daughters has this, and it's astonishingly tragic. (Essentially, symptoms show up around age 2-4, and the body gradually loses its ability to function. Life expectancy is in the teens, although a few kids with very mild cases have made it into their 20's.) AT kids have normal intelligence and emotions, though, and are just like any other kid except for their body giving out on them.

(My friend's daughter is six and is going to be getting her first wheelchair this year. She has balance issues which get worse over the course of the day, but up until now she's still been small enough to ride in a stroller when necessary. Her lungs also quit working on her sometimes, so she has to have a parent or a specially trained nurse with her 24/7 to ensure they can save her life when her breathing stops. She's got a tremor which makes it hard to hold small objects, and the tremor also affects her eyes to the point she'll never be able to read because she can't focus on the letters. The tremors will also get progressively worse as she gets older, until her body or her lungs give out. She does attend public school right now, but that's only with a massive intervention from her mother to ensure she's got an adequate IEP. She won't be able to do that all that much longer, though, as her condition deteriorates.)

I know a guy with cerebral palsy. He has above average intelligence but has to have a full time aide help him with all the aspects of grooming, dressing, feeding, transporting himself from place to place. Although he attended school as a kid, his parents had a very heavy responsibility to take care of his physical needs. I will never forget when he explained to me that he has no private life to speak of--all of his bodily functions are performed with another person watching or very close at hand.

My nephew has duchenne muscular dystrophy, and his muscles are weakening so that he can't do much but sit at home and play video games. There are a lot of different types of muscular dystrophy, so you might do some research on it.

My sister (when she was little) had a heart murmur and couldn't run or move around much. She had to stay home from school a lot. She eventually got better and went back when she was older.

One of my friends has cystic fibrosis. Long term, people who have it don't have a very long life expectancy. Her doctors didn't think she'd make it to adulthood. Her mom quit her job to take care of her, do her treatments and things. I remember her getting really discouraged because of the lack of long term therapies. She said she often felt on edge, like she was just waiting for the breathing treatments to stop working and then die.

She's doing okay, but that's a disease that could definitely inspire someone to get into researching for a long term treatment or cure.

I also thought of autism and cystic fibrosis right off the bat. I know moms who have had to quit day jobs because they were getting so many calls from school about their autistic child. Same thing with boys with a double y chromosome.

Cancer treatments cause immunodeficiency. My mother was a home teacher for a student in treatment. The child could not go to school because of the risk of infection, so she visited the house.

Any of these could work.

Osteoperosis Imperfecta (Brittle Bone Disease)?

Plenty of moms of CF kids go to work nowadays, but those who can stay home usually do. One of their reasons for choosing to home school a CFer used to flabberghast me when I worked with them at the peds pulmonary clinic: many CFers have to take enzymes with their food, but the school will have a strict no-drug policy. The CFer is forced to visit the school nurse (if there is one) prior to every lunchtime and snack, wait his/her turn, get the pills, hurry back to the cafeteria, and gobble his/her food quick as he/she can before the bell rings. For one thing, these rail-thin kids need every calorie they can get, and for another, the CFer becomes prime bait for bullying. Sometimes the bully is one of the teachers, or in more than one case, believe it or not, the principal.

Muscular Dystrophy. Duschelor's (sp?) to be specific.

This causes loss of muscular function over time. The prognosis and life span of a patient varies. It is genetic and there is no cure or really effective therapy.

It's also heartbreaking. I know from experience.

TellMeAStory said:

Plenty of moms of CF kids go to work nowadays, but those who can stay home usually do...

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Not an expert on CF but I also think it depends on the severity of the CF. I had a friend growing up who had CF, and she was out of school a LOT just because she was in the hospital a LOT.

One time I saw a story about a girl with CF running a marathon, and I thought, "oh wow, I don't think my friend could even walk a 5k".

melindamusil is right. Severity differs widely in CF. We had both athletes and terribly sick candidates for transplant at our clinic. You could make your character as diseased as you liked.