Help Your Child Accept Themselves, Work With Their Neurodivergence, & Find People Who Understand Them

This month, I will focus on big-picture goals for neurodivergent kids. Setting big-picture goals helps us focus on what we value most and determine which short-term goals are worth pursuing. Discussing big-picture goals for a child can also be a useful communication tool between partners, co-parents, and other important adults in your child’s life. When I think about my big goals for the kids I work with, they boil down to self-acceptance, understanding and working with their neurodivergence, and finding a supportive community that appreciates them for who they are.

These big three goals are true for all kids but are particularly important for neurodivergent kids. I hope all kids accept themselves, lean into their natural strengths, and find people who appreciate them for who they are. However, neurodivergent kids and their families often need to be even more deliberate to make these goals a reality. For neurodivergent kids, this process might require them to accept things about themselves and their needs that are not well understood or supported in our society. It also might mean working harder than a neurotypical person does to seek out a community of people who understand and accept them. 

It is important to note that these are three lifelong goals. Our interests, needs, and relationships change as we move through life. For example, working with neurodivergence looks different in 8th grade than in 3rd grade and will look different with each new job through adulthood. Helping your child think about these goals as a kid and teen will support their identity development and mental health. It will also build the lifelong skill of reflecting and adjusting regularly to prioritize their well-being and happiness.

I created a free reflection guide to help you walk through each of these three goals. It may be helpful to complete the reflection for yourself and do one with your child. If you and your child find this exercise useful, I encourage you to save or bookmark it and return to it every year or two to reflect on how their identity and needs have changed.

Goal 1: Accept themselves 

Neurodivergence describes how someone's brain works; it cannot be outgrown or cured. The brains of neurodivergent people think, process, and store information differently. In a society around how neurotypical brains work, processing the world differently inherently creates challenges and unique strengths. Because neurodivergent people process the world in unique ways, they are disproportionately likely to be inventors, creatives, and business owners. Our society needs and benefits from the creative and novel approaches neurodivergent people bring to problem-solving. 

However, traits that are common for neurodivergent people are often described in terms that are unnecessarily negative and reflect a deficit mindset. This can lead kids to mask or hide these traits instead of embracing them and learning to incorporate them into their lives. Helping your child reframe these traits is one step toward accepting their neurodivergence as one aspect of themselves. 

For example, a child who thinks of themselves as shy and obsessive will have a very different outlook than a child with similar traits who considers themselves introspective and detail-oriented. The introspective and detail-oriented child will feel empowered to pursue tasks and activities that help develop these strengths. The child labeled shy and obsessive may create a masking personality that does not feel authentic and keeps them from developing these natural traits. Similarly, a child who has internalized that they are talkative and bossy might try to mask these traits by not sharing their opinions and ideas. However, if the same child is told that they are outgoing and a natural leader, they will work to develop these traits into the assets they can be. After all, we get more of what we focus on. If we focus on growing their budding leadership skills instead of stopping their bossyness they will too.   

By understanding and positively framing our children’s natural traits, we can help them on the path to fully understanding and accepting themselves. The first page of my free reflection guide is a positive self-reflection. It involves describing your personality, interests, and goals using asset-based language. This means focusing on the positive aspects of a trait or behavior rather than the negative, such as swapping determined for stubborn. I have included a reframing chart to help you find asset-based language for traits often framed as negative. 

It may be helpful to complete this activity independently about yourself and your child before working on it with them. We often have internalized negative framing about ourselves that can be helpful to recognize and process. As a parent, it can also be easy to internalize negative messages we get about our kid's personality traits from school, coaches, friends, and family members. Reflecting on and reframing how we think about ourselves and our kids can help us remember that we are all unique people with unique strengths. This self-reflection can also ensure that we talk about ourselves and our kids in ways that help them see their value and build a strong sense of self-worth.  

Goal 2: Work with their neurodivergence 

Everyone naturally gravitates toward their strengths and interests. For example, if your colleague loves writing and prefers to work alone, and you are an outgoing person with a knack for connecting with people, it would make sense for them to focus on writing the materials for an upcoming pitch meeting while you take the lead on the presentation. Similarly, if you are introverted, curious, and methodical, you would likely choose a career in academics or research over one in sales. 

However, this can be even more impactful for neurodivergent people because they often have more pronounced and unique strengths and weaknesses than neurotypical people. Leaning into strengths while limiting the impact of extra challenging things results in feeling less negatively impacted by neurodivergence. Some people, usually as adults, even get to the point that they see their neurodivergence as a net positive in their daily lives. 

The first step to helping your child work with their neurodivergence is to help them understand their diagnosis and the experiences that often accompany it. You can help your child research and learn about their diagnosis. Look for materials that are written from a positive or assets-focused lens. These resources, often labeled as 'neurodivergent affirming,' acknowledge and celebrate the unique strengths and perspectives of neurodivergent individuals. Resources written by people with the same diagnosis as your children may be beneficial as they can speak to the authentic lived experience. 

The second step toward working with neurodivergence is translating this understanding of the diagnosis into usable information. For example, if your child is a creative thinker who loves problem-solving, they could try strategy-based board games, problem-solving-focused video games, or an engineering club. When choosing elective classes, they may consider classes like debate, advanced math, or sculpture that allow them to try various real-world applications for their strengths. These activities will enable them to feel successful and develop their strengths while meeting like-minded peers. 

On the flip side, if your child struggles with keeping materials organized, strategies like using one folder instead of one folder per class and having a supportive adult support them with a weekly folder clean-out can lessen the negative burden of this challenge. Discussing challenging tasks and working together to find accommodations that help also helps your child build a critical lifelong skill of finding tools and accommodations that work for them. 

The second page of my reflection guide has questions to help your child reflect on how their neurodivergence impacts them. You can use this as a jumping-off point to discuss how you can amplify their strengths while reducing the negative impacts they feel from their neurodivergence. 

Goal 3: Find People Who Understand Them 

Lastly, we want to support our kids in finding people who love and understand them. One reality of growing up is realizing that not everyone is a good fit for you friend-wise, and that's ok! It’s also true that some people might be a great fit for us as acquaintances or situational friends but are not going to be close, long-term friends. One huge way we can support our kids is by helping them build the lifelong skill of finding various types of friends they have a genuine connection to who accept and love them exactly how they are. 

First, we can help our children identify people already in their lives who love, support, and accept them. These are relationships to build on and nurture. Reflecting on these relationships can also help them identify what makes a relationship meaningful to them and what traits they should look for when building new friendships. 

Secondly, we can help our children think through how they can find more people who are a good fit for them. The best way to do this is to find people with shared interests or personality traits. Teaching them how to deliberately seek out situations where they are likely to meet people they have things in common with is an essential skill that will serve them well in new schools, jobs, and neighborhoods. 

The third part of my reflection guide helps you think through these questions with your child. 

Neurodivergent kids working on these three goals are on a path toward being content with themselves, having accomplishments that make them feel successful and fulfilled, and having meaningful and loving social connections. Ultimately, that is what we all hope to achieve, whether neurodivergent or not. 

I hope this was helpful! And, as always, if you are looking for support on a specific topic and can’t find it, let us know here. My team and I are always looking for more ways to support this community :)