Growing Beyond Your Bias to Parent Diverse Kids
Today I’m speaking heart to heart and head to head with parents. It is tough and complicated to parent a child in navigating life and especially if they’re grappling with gender expansive choices, issues like adoption, or are outside learning and/or behavioral norms. In today’s world there are groups of allies who are making space, loving, and seeing all the beauty of diverse groups.
But there also are folks who are trying to legislate what can happen to people’s bodies and what they can or cannot learn in school, where they are allowed to participate, and if they are allowed to be true to their felt sense of what gender or group they identify with.
How do we as parents make sure that we can support our kids in a way that nurtures and helps them flourish? How do we grow through our implicit biases to protect dignity, bodily autonomy, self-determination, and ability for kids to walk in their own skin and be in their bodies and spirits?
If you’re reading this perhaps your child has expressed they want to identify as a gender other than their sex assigned at birth. The gender identified at our births labels physical parts but does not always align with how a person feels inside, the gender that matches their spirit and mind, or that they want to present to the world. So, what do we do as parents if you have a child on a gender expansive, intersex, or sexual identity journey?
I am here today to say, keep your knees bent. The phrase “keep your knees bent” has been equated with the sport of surfing and how you must keep your knees bent to stay balanced on the board and nimble enough to change course or stance. When applied to psychology or resilience, it means: 1) being aware, in this case of your child, family, environment, and own biases; 2)being open and willing to change; and 3) being flexible.
The “sex” or “gender” identified at birth is based on biology, not heart-felt and head-felt gender leanings. Protecting your child’s safety is a gut reaction. You may be fearful for your child when they approach you with a big revelation about their gender identity or sexual orientation. You may wish to shield them from ridicule. But what not to do is whisk it under the rug, think that it will go away, or not discuss it. More harm comes from ignoring their own ideas of how they present to the world.
Studies show, people in the LBGTQ+ community have higher rates of suicidal ideation, attempts, and completion than any other. The biggest factor in those without these issues is that their close family and those important to them confirm and support their identity.
What are the most important steps parents can take?
Determine your own implicit bias and fear
Understand the people are sexual beings from birth
Educate yourself
Listen to your child
Seek out others who’ve walked this journey and listen to their stories
Support and advocate for your child’s choices and your family
Be a bridge
What is a bridge? A bridge is a path between two places, where you are and where you want to go. How do you accomplish this? Talk to parents walking roads less traveled and kids who are walking with different identities. You as a parent don’t have to know everything. Keep your knees bent and be a continual life-long learner no matter the path you find yourself on.
In my most recent podcast, my guest, intersex she/they psychotherapist Eden Atwood, shared a very good analogy. She said there is only one thing in the sheep, shepherd, and pasture triangle that you can’t change as the shepherd, it is the sheep. The shepherd and pasture can be changed, but the sheep is a sheep. Further in the podcast she shares her story along with more insight into how to parent diverse kids.
Don’t hide things, talk about them.
Find support in other parents.
Find diverse communities that your children and family can see themselves in.
And flourish.
Dr. Laura Anderson
Dr. Laura S. Anderson specializes in educating and supporting families, as well as clinicians who support transracial adoptive families, across the globe to overcome barriers, derive strength from their differences, and thrive. She is a dynamic advocate for multiracial families and a strong advocate for supporting "third culture" children and families who may need support with the stressors associated with living out of their countries of origin.
Contact Dr. Anderson here.
