Family Issues Archives

Why Do People Stare At My Child?
By Nancy Miller, Ph.D.

(A background explanation of how I came to write my newly published book, Everybody's Different: Understanding and Changing Our Reactions to Disabilities. My coauthor is Dr. Catherine Sammons. Published by Paul Brookes Publishing Co, Baltimore, MD.)

Since I first began working with families, 30 years ago (gulp!), one of the common themes has been the reactions of parents to the reactions other people have to their child's appearance or behavior. While there have been a lot of positive changes in those 30 years in the ways people react (yes, really), parents continue to experience strangers staring at their child (or telling their own child not to stare), asking rude questions, giving unasked-for advice; they tell of friends or co-workers seeming to avoid asking about their child, or being uncomfortable about what to say. Parents often report times they simply stay away from social events, church, even family gatherings because of the discomfort they detect on the part of others.

Different parents handle all these situations differently, of course; and even the same parents handle situations differently depending on the event, or their mood at the time, or where they are in their own stage of adaptation.

My memories of all these stories were the major influence on my deciding to write Everybody's Different. Parents had forever been asking me, "Why do people stare? Why do they say rude things?" (I was supposed to know the answers to these questions)! But I thought I did know (and wrote a whole chapter about it in Nobody's Perfect): some people are rude and insensitive (although I never thought that was the primary reason for most people); many people are curious and interested, but don't know how to express that to a parent, or if it's even okay to say something - sometimes they end up staring because they don't know what to say or do; some people think it's unkind to look so they avoid looking at all; some people really feel uncomfortable seeing someone (especially a child) who has an "atypical" appearance, or who behaves in an "unusual" way, and they don't know what the heck to do or say.

I was also aware that our society has long-standing negative attitudes, known as stigma, about people who have disabilities. In the past, many people with disabilities of all kinds were institutionalized or just kept out of view; for a number of years - certainly in my parents' lifetime -many people who looked different were considered "freaks" and were part of traveling circuses where people could pay money to go and stare to their heart's content. I grew up and went to school in the 40s and 50s and cannot remember ever seeing or knowing another child with a disability. Not in school, nor in my neighborhood…well, I did have a couple of cousins I wondered about, but no one ever explained anything, and I guess I assumed you weren't supposed to ask.

It is only in the past two decades, approximately, that people with disabilities are not being put into the proverbial closet - institutions are closing, schools are more inclusive, more people with disabilities are working in formerly "able-bodied" jobs; and thanks to recent changes such as accessible buildings, offices, and recreational facilities, more people with disabilities are finally able to join the rest of society. (A lot of legal mandates have helped, too, such as the ADA and IDEA.)

But I was still intrigued with the question of "Why do people stare at my child?" All my answers had been in the psychological, the social, and cultural realms. And then I had one of those "Aha!" experiences as I began reading the exciting current research being published about the brain. I contacted my long-term colleague and friend, Dr. Catherine Sammons, and asked her to join me in writing a book about this. And the "bottom line" we got to in all our discussions and research is that we all react to differences in others who are outside the "typical expected average" of human behavior. Anything about the way a person looks, or a person moves, or a person communicates, or a person behaves, or a person learns that is outside our "expected average" is going to draw our attention! So anything about another person that is unfamiliar to us, or is unexpected in a particular person or situation, or makes us feel uncomfortable or unsettled in some way creates an instant, automatic response in our brain that says: "Different!!" And whenever our brains react to "Different!!," its very first, instantaneous, totally automatic instinct is to also go "Uh-oh! Am I safe?" (One of the most important functions of our brains is to protect us from anything that is potentially harmful. It does such a good job staying alert that sometimes it really overreacts to situations that aren't at all dangerous.)

Well, faster than you are even aware of it, most of the time, another more reasonable part of your brain answers the question and you are able to get a grip and make some decision about how you want to react. One reason is because we all have our own "personal comfort zones" for differences, depending on our personal experiences with people with disabilities (positive or negative), our knowledge about disabilities, our own experiences with feeling "different" in some way, and so forth.

And so we learned that when people look at your child and have a startled reaction, or they stare a little too long, or they look away too fast, it's a normal response to an "uh-oh" message from their brains. The way your child looks or behaves is either very unfamiliar to that person, or very unexpected, or in some way unsettling. The thing is, most people don't (yet) know this about the brain. So a lot of people who have this reaction then feel uncomfortable, embarrassed, awkward, and might say or do something really inappropriate that makes you, the parent, feel angry or hurt.

Many parents in these situations have told me they often want to strike back, such as by saying something hurtful in return. They consider these interactions really painful and stigmatizing, and often avoid further contact with the people who react in these ways, or even the kind of situation where it occurred, like the park or the market. As more people have more contacts with children - and others - who have disability differences, they will see that disability differences are not so unfamiliar. As more people see more ages of people with more kinds of disabilities in more and more places in the community, they will find that disability differences are not so unexpected. And as their contacts are more positive, they will become increasingly less unsettled and uncomfortable about knowing how to react.

My long-time advice to parents in such situations has been "Be Brief, Be Kind, Be On Your Way..." My new advice to parents, now that I have all this new information and have written Everybody's Different, is the same. Except I would now add, "If you have a chance to help another person get past their first reaction, do it." It might be in the way of a compassionate smile, a few caring words of explanation about your child, maybe even a small card with a very brief description to explain your child's difference. (The Autism Society of Los Angeles makes cards available to parents).

Some parents say: "It's not my responsibility to change their attitudes!" I would answer: We all have the responsibility. Our goals are for the kids today who have disabilities to enter society in as many, as great and as successful ways as possible. Anything each one of us can do to increase the circle of people who learn positive ways to react to and interact with people with disabilities (and their parents!!) benefits all of us.

 

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