The Sting Of Internalized Stigma
The day our son wished he had different parents
“I wish I had different parents,” our son said one day. I know most kids have said this to their parents in anger at some point in their lives. Maybe they were told no to a particular video game or they couldn’t have their curfew extended just this once.
It seems we’re always the meanest, strictest parents in the world when we enforce a limit. According to our children, we’re also the only parents to ever do so, and somehow none of their friends ever have the same rules as them — or any rules at all, if their stories are to be believed.
Except this particular story isn’t about setting limits or being considered too strict by our child. He was only 7 at the time and hadn’t yet begun the painful process of comparing every single aspect of his life with that of his peers. He wasn’t even speaking out of anger, he spoke calmly and thoughtfully that day.
My son has ADHD, and as it turns out, so do I. Shortly after I received my own ADHD diagnosis at the tender age of 36, my son dropped that bomb on my husband and I:
Son: “I wish I had different parents.”
Me: [feigning nonchalance, while my heart implodes] “…o-oh? Why is that?”
Son: “Because then I’d have different genetics and I wouldn’t have ADHD.”
Ohhh.
Well…
Now my heart is breaking for a different reason, so there’s that.
Internalized stigma
I’ve written previously about how my son’s public school experience got off to a very rocky start. Extremely. More than two years later, we’re both still healing from the trauma caused by his former school.
These and other negative experiences in my son’s life have caused him to internalize social stigma and to form a negative view of himself. He believed his problems were caused by his ADHD, and if he didn’t have ADHD, then he wouldn’t have had to endure such difficult and traumatic experiences.
Perhaps.
Every child and every human being will go through difficult times. Neurodivergent, disabled, and other marginalized people are more likely to experience hardship as a result of their differences — but more often, as a result of how we are treated by those around us.
In this case, the causes of my son’s issues were largely due to ignorance and an unwillingness to learn on the part of the adults employed at his former school. I am not saying his behaviour wasn’t challenging — it certainly was.
Neurodivergent, disabled, and other marginalized people are more likely to experience hardship as a result of their differences — but more often, as a result of how we are treated by those around us.
No one was responsible for him being born with ADHD (except for Mother Nature and genetics). The way these challenges were so badly (mis)handled made everything worse. At only 6 years old, my son bore the brunt of those consequences.
The worst day of my life
My son had a meltdown in class.
I have to stop and take a deep breath whenever I think of that day, and although it was more than two years ago, I still find it very difficult to write about.
I got a call from my son’s school because he had a total meltdown and his grade two classroom had to be cleared. Of course, I rushed to the school to pick him up and bring him home.
Okay. He had a meltdown. This happens. Lots of kids have bad days. Neurodiverse children may express their anxiety, stress, and frustration in much more intense ways than others, and that can impact the people around them.
These things happen. You take your child home, snuggle and comfort them, and help them recover. Then you put them to bed, have a big glass of wine, and cry. The next morning you have an even bigger cup of coffee, dust yourself off, and work with the school to figure out what went wrong.
I had been trying to work with the school all along, but their administration seemed resistant to putting in place recommendations from its own clinical team (but don’t get me started on that).
Anyways…
The school wanted a few days to regroup and improve my son’s support plan. Okay, fair enough. When I directly asked what the school would be doing with the time they had asked me to keep my son at home, they specifically told me this is what they would be working on.
When I met with them a few days later, I asked what the plan was. They had nothing.
Zip. Zilch. Nada.
I was dumbfounded. They’d had three days to meet, plan, and prepare. I looked around the table at a group of educated, professional, intelligent adults. With all six of them working together, as well as my full support from home, they hadn’t formulated a plan for welcoming my son back to class.
At all.
They asked for another day to sort things out on their end. On my part, I had already stopped by his pediatrician’s office, spoke with my son’s doctor, and scheduled a follow-up appointment. I had also been in touch with my son’s psychologist and occupational therapist.
We were not sitting on our hands and expecting the school to do all the work. Not even close. In that first year after my son’s diagnosis, I spent thousands of dollars on books to educate myself, as well as accessing resources to support my son.
I was running a business full-time, but had promoted one of my staff members to assistant manager in order to have more help running the day-to-day. This freed me up to take my son to appointments, attend meetings, and focus on meeting his needs.
Systemic abuse
After at least four days to plan, here’s what the administrator came up with: my son would work in an empty classroom with an EA. Just the two of them. He would not attend any classes with his peers, or even go out for recess and play outside with other children.
I feel sick to my stomach just thinking about it.
When they told me he would work independently with EA support, I thought that might be okay for a week or so. My son is twice exceptional, meaning he is also intellectually gifted.
Even in grade one, he was already incredibly bored with the school work. Despite knowing he needed an accelerated curriculum since the previous year, they had done nothing at all to meet his academic needs.
In my mind, perhaps this was an opportunity for him to finally receive differentiated instruction, as well as have a week or so to decompress, and gradually transition back to being with his classmates full time.
It gets worse.
Three weeks into this horrendous treatment, I learned my son was also being prevented from attending music and phys. ed class with his peers. I had been led to believe he was doing schoolwork with an EA, but was gradually going to be spending more time back in the classroom, and was still able to attend music and gym with his classmates.
Not so.
My son described this heart-wrenching moment when he walked into the music room to join his class. The teacher looked up and, in front of everyone, she said “you can’t be here” and he left.
He was 6.
I can’t imagine the humiliation and rejection he must have felt at that moment.
I wish I had known at the time, but of course, he was only 6. He didn’t know what was appropriate or not appropriate treatment, and he thought this was what he deserved because that’s how the school staff made him feel.
The school was not fully transparent and honest with us, his parents, about what was going on. When I called the principal to confront her about this, she claimed to not know our son had not been permitted to join his class in music.
This is a small, rural school. This is a child who had been subjected to isolation, segregation, and rejection under her leadership. There was no excuse for “not knowing”. In her role as administrator, she was part of the planning team. She had to know. It was her job to know.
Trial by fire
At the time I didn’t know much about the rights of disabled students, our provincial inclusive education act, nor appropriate educational programming legislation.
I sure do now.
I had to learn fast. I have never read so much, written so many emails, or made so many phone calls in such a short span of time. I was burning out hard and fast, but had to keep fighting for my son.
I contacted everyone and their boss, then I contacted their boss’ boss, until I found people who would listen and fight for my son alongside me — which thankfully, I did.
After an entire month of being treated like an inmate before he even reached his seventh birthday, my son finally began a process of “reintegrating” back into the classroom.
But it was much too late. The damage had been done.
Not only was my son psychologically harmed and traumatized, his already-low self-esteem was essentially gone. His classmates viewed him as a “bad” kid, not because he had a meltdown, but because he had to be kept away from them for a full month.
After the day of the meltdown, many classmates expressed sympathy for my son. Their parents reached out to me, telling me their children were asking about him, and they hoped he was okay. Those kids may have felt scared the day they were ushered out of their classroom, but they cared about my son, and were more worried about him than afraid of him.
Until the month-long isolation broke him and conveyed to his peers he was an unsafe kid.
There is a happy ending
I am so relieved to share with you there is a happy ending to this heartbreaking tale.
We endured a few more months at that school, only because their clinical team was amazing and we didn’t want to part ways with them. It quickly became clear the relationship was irreparable, and the trauma just too great, to overcome while still involved with that school.
The principal did not get demoted (she’s still there today). In fact, my son had to continue seeing her and show respect for her as an authority figure every single day he attended that school. After everything their system had done to him, it likely re-traumatized him each time he set foot in that place.
My son now attends a different public school. He doesn’t have any type of EA support at all, only an IEP outlining accommodations for his ADHD. That’s it. I’ve only received one phone call from the school this year, over a relatively minor issue.
My son is certainly not perfect, and he will always have his struggles — just like any other child — but he is doing great. Being treated like a human being worthy of caring, belonging, kindness, and basic decency goes a long way.
With the support of his parents and others, our son has worked incredibly hard. He has developed his own repertoire of strategies to manage his ADHD symptoms, as well as coping skills for emotional regulation. He is well-liked and accepted by his peers and school community.
Being treated like a human being worthy of caring, belonging, kindness, and basic decency goes a long way.
Most importantly, he’s a much happier kid. He’s healing and moving on from these horrible experiences, developing self-confidence, and a renewed sense of self-worth. He’s a fantastic basketball player, and a kind and caring friend. He’s creative and has a wickedly clever sense of humour.
We’re regularly amazed and impressed by him, we love him, and are so proud of who he is.
And that former principal can kiss his skinny white ass. ❤
© Jillian Enright, Neurodiversity MB
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