Your Child is Not the ‘Problem’... It's Actually Society’s Narrow Lens
Many years ago, during an especially stressful period in my parenting journey, a wise and thoughtful friend said something that I’ve never forgotten.
“What if there’s actually nothing at all wrong with your daughter? What if it’s our larger society that’s wrong, by insisting we only see her through one, narrow lens?”
In that moment, I felt something inside me soften and shift.
My friend was saying something I didn’t know I needed to hear. A truth so obvious to me now, yet one I’m not sure I would have come to on my own over a decade ago (at least not as quickly). I could feel myself soften with compassion and relief to know — really know — that my daughter was not “a problem,” as her preschool teachers had concluded when we were invited to find a new school for her to attend.
My friend’s comment opened up something in me as a mother, allowing me to freely accept my daughter in a new way. To see, so clearly, what my friend already knew: my daughter is not the problem.
The problem is society’s narrow view and interpretation of behaviors.
I have another vivid memory, shortly before my friend’s comment, of asking the Head Start physical therapist who was working with my then-toddler daughter, this question: “Do you think she’ll be in a mainstream classroom when she’s school age?”
And when the physical therapist confidently replied, “Yes,” I cried tears of relief.
I look back on that exchange now, and regret that I put this therapist, working with a toddler, in the impossible position of needing to give me, a desperate and fearful parent, an answer that she couldn’t definitively know at that point in my daughter’s life. But asking that question was rooted, for me, in what I believed was the path to a meaningful, successful and happy life: a traditional educational path. Which I imagined to be a “normal” path without any specialized, supported learning environment. These values were ingrained in me by a society that, generally speaking, believed and promoted the same.
Here’s the thing:
My now-teenage daughter has never once been an independent student in a mainstream classroom. She will not graduate high school with a traditional diploma. There is very little that’s “typical” about her progress, when measured against what society tells us are the important markers of success in a teenager’s life.
Yet, she is not a failure or a problem.
The problem is society’s narrow view of what it means to live a worthwhile and successful life.
There have been many moments since those early years when I’ve experienced sadness and indignation, reminded often that there will always be people in my daughter’s life who refuse to see her through anything but society’s narrow behavioral lens. It’s a view that’s deeply entrenched, and nearly impossible to avoid.
Where I see my daughter being overwhelmed, they may see defiance.
Where I see her experiencing extreme cognitive fatigue, they see laziness.
Where I see her lacking the essential cognitive skills required to assume another’s point of view or to “take the high road,” they may see self-centeredness or selfishness.
But there have also been countless moments when I smiled to myself, thinking of the unusual ways my daughter expresses herself, the ways she interacts with the world and those in it. I reflect on those behaviors and think to myself, “Wow, she really is an amazing kid…” Those in her life who have taken the time to see her through a lens other than the dominant behavioral lens would agree.
I’m eternally grateful that I had this alternative, brain-based lens presented to me, and that I had the support to remain curious about it and, over time, integrate it fully into the way I see my daughter. I don’t wonder whether or not she is “the problem.” I know with certainty that she is not, and that it’s society’s understanding of her — a young person living with a serious neurobehavioral condition — that is actually the issue.
After years of this work, I can anticipate the question that frequently comes up next, something along the lines of, “But what about my child’s behaviors that are not good, right, or appropriate? Are you saying they’re not a problem, either?”
It’s an understandable question.
