Family Issues Archives

Self-Esteem, Shame and
The Differently-Abled Child
By Benjamin D. Garber, Ph.D.

In the imperfect mathematics of child development, self-esteem equals one's perceived strengths minus one's perceived weaknesses. Helping our children come to realistically accept and genuinely value the complete package of self that blossoms into "me" can be a parent's biggest challenge, a challenge made harder still when the child has special needs.

Right from the Start. Every child's sense of her own value begins with you, her parent. From at least the moment of birth and certainly from long before your words have meaning in her little ears, she experiences your emotions through the tone of your voice, in the comfort of your arms and in the contingency of your responses. No one can lie at this most basic, emotional level. Your essential love and acceptance, your ambivalence, your fear or your resentment are all inescapably communicated. They become the cornerstones of a child's budding self-esteem.

Because we all expect our children to arrive healthy and well, discovery of a physical, emotional, intellectual or behavioral anomaly piques our emotions. Our reactions are very much like the process of grief. We naturally cycle through stages of anger and sadness, blame, denial and acceptance. In the healthiest of situations, our thoughts and feelings evolve gradually and painfully from "My child is not who I expected her to be" toward "I love her for all that she is."

Your child must grow through a comparable evolution, shaping her preverbal sense of herself around your unmistakable emotions. The tension in your arms and the disappointment in your voice effect her. Rather than invest your finite energy in a futile attempt to deny your feelings, put that same energy into healing.

Let yourself grieve so that you can begin to accept, knowing that you must accept your child before she can accept herself.

The Cycle of Shame. We are most sensitive about those things of which we are ashamed. A child who is raised in denial, whose differences are locked away like so many forbidden secrets, will grow up in shame. She will try to hide her shame behind a defensive screen. She'll might try to compensate for her implicit unacceptability by overachieving in academics, sports, music or art. She might become angry and resentful or withdrawn and depressed, pushing people away for fear that her secret may be uncovered. Whichever among these tacks she takes she does so to hide her shame.

Without the intervention of a caring and insightful helper - parent, teacher, school counselor, physician or mental health clinician - this child's painful defenses will quickly take on a life of their own. On top of the unspoken, unaccepted problem - anything from a speech impediment to a disfigurement, from a learning disability to a seizure disorder - she will quickly be given other labels, confirmation of her own feeling of unacceptability.

Inattentive, distracted by her shame, she'll be diagnosed as having Attention Deficit Disorder and prescribed a stimulant.

Perfectionistic, she'll be diagnosed with an anxiety disorder.

Rebellious, she'll be diagnosed as having an Oppositional and Defiant Disorder.

Isolated and withdrawn, she'll be diagnosed as having Dysthymia, Major Depression or Bipolar Disorder.

And her peer group won't help. As an outsider on the playground, stigmatized in the classroom, awkward in her peer group, she'll be teased and her shame will show through. Kids sense shame the way sharks smell blood. They move in for the kill quickly, implicitly targeting the real source of a child's pain better than most adults, but only making it worse.

Open eyes, open minds. Raised in acceptance, without secrets, taught to take pride in her whole self, the same child faces far less pain. Periods of anger and fear, blame and denial will still erupt in her life - may always be part of each step of her development - but they will be far less likely to take on lives of their own and far less destructive.

In the course of encouraging acceptance and healthy development, as with all else in parenting, we must follow each child's lead. Age and maturity, intellect and circumstance will prepare your child for different degrees of understanding at different times. A typically developing three year old, for example, can begin to understand her own physical limitations in the most concrete terms. A missing digit or limb. A scar or disfigurement. A wheelchair, crutch or cane. With a minimum of bias, most preschoolers can come to accept anything that is different, the more easily it can be seen or touched, the more easily it will be understood.

Later, when she's developmentally between five and seven years old, she may begin to question the less tangible differences. Articulation difficulties. Differences of gait and grasp. Her expanding knowledge of the world may prompt the first serious "why ...?" questions, questions that may require repetition through the years ahead.

"Why did God give me this problem?"

"Why do I have to take this yucky medicine?

"Why am I different, Mommy?"

If you listen carefully, you needn't worry about how much information to give, when or where to give it. She'll bug you with more "why ...?" questions when you're not saying enough, and she'll tune you out when you've said too much. Whenever possible, start by answering her questions with, "What do you think?" in order to explore her understanding, dispel her misconceptions and gauge where to begin. Then listen and watch, be patient and accepting.

"But Why Can't I ...?" Doctors' appointments that interfere with violin practice, therapies that coincide with soccer try-outs, math tutorial during recess, medications that limit diet, braces and wheelchairs and canes and walkers that just don't fit, helmets and hardware that draw unwanted attention. A child's complaints about any and all of these things can become a battle that pushes parents and children apart, or an opportunity to learn and grow together.

Recognize that these practical matters are easy scapegoats for the feelings that linger in the background, looking for escape. Its easier to have a temper tantrum about missing the ballet recital than to grieve the larger illness. Step back from the invitation to do battle to look at the larger situation, then share in the anger rather than defend against it. "I don't blame you for being angry, sweetie" validates the feeling even while it redirects the topic from the missed opportunity to the real source of the upset.

Recognize, too, that anger is part of the necessary grief, itself a wholly natural and necessary part of growing up. Like most parents, you may be an expert in how not to show anger. "Stop yelling!" we scream. But how much thought have you given to the acceptable means of expressing anger?

Start by both practicing and preaching your belief that its okay to be angry. Allow your children to see that you can tolerate your own anger, that anger doesn't sever love, hurt living things or destroy property. Find a calm moment and establish a family anger plan much as you might establish a emergency plan in case of fire. What are the acceptable outlets for my anger energy? (See sidebar.)

Talk about the size of feelings. When frustration progresses from the breadth between index finger and thumb toward the entire arm span (from zero to ten for more sophisticated kids), its getting too big. A feeling approaching the width of the child's shoulders is heading toward trouble, so cut it off at the pass. Use an acceptable anger outlet to "chill out" and defuse it before it gets out of control.

Enable the intellect. One of the most promising avenues toward emotional acceptance may lie in intellectual understanding. Some adults naturally cope with their grief by learning everything there is to know about a child's disability. Rather than hand that information to your child in one overwhelming pile of papers, engage her in the quest. Help her discover more about herself and others like her within her ability. Draw pictures. Make crafts. Read a book. Surf the net. Write a report for school.

Enable the Pride. Pride in who you are does not mean that you are grateful for your limitations. Pride means simply that you accept the whole of who you are; that you hold yourself in high esteem. Pride flourishes when you feel that you are acceptable to others and accepted by family and friends. Pride is nourished when you feel that you belong, one of the reasons that participation in support groups can be so valuable. There is critical self-validation and new hope for the future when a differently abled person gets to know others with similar abilities.

Perhaps the boldest means of demonstrating pride and self-acceptance is personified by a very typically developing eight year old boy who suffered his peer groups' taunts because he had a big nose. His shame and anger created problems of their own, plummeting his grades and instigating playground fights. Once his mother sidestepped his defenses and began to understand the shame at the root of the problem, she came up with an ingenious solution. Together, mother and son created a T-shirt to wear to school. Against the white background in black letters the boy printed the words, "Big nose and proud of it." By shrugging off his shame, this child and his mother reached a new level of acceptance. They defused the problem, and helped the child get back to the business of growing up.

Sidebar:

How can I show my anger?

Strong emotions have a physical energy. Its often important to defuse this energy before attempting to talk it through. Rather than wait for the anger to explode in some random, potentially destructive or aggressive means, plan ahead.

Consider these options:

1. Hit a pillow is a common outlet. If so, identify an anger pillow. Don't use the bed pillow. No one wants to go to sleep with their anger.

2. How do you feel about shredding old newspapers? Can working with your child to clean up the mess afterwards be a good excuse to start talking through the incident?

3. Create an Anger Box filled with cotton balls for throwing, Play-Doh for pounding, black crayons and newsprint for scribbling.

4. Wash out and set aside an empty plastic milk jug. Encourage the kids to scream into it, then slam the lid back on. The anger's now in the bottle, so you can talk more calmly.

 

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