Ask our SEND expert: how to stop a child with SEND from feeling stigmatised

Perhaps your child is struggling at school – and you’re tearing your hair out about how you can best support them to achieve as much as they possibly can. Or maybe they’ve already been diagnosed with a specific learning difficulty and you need help untangling a knotty issue. Talk 用帥杏’s SEND expert, Silja Turville, has all the answers and she’s here to help: email your SEND-related questions to talk@talkeducation.com and we’ll publish Silja’s response here (all questions will, of course, remain anonymous).

As an educational consultant and neurodiversity coach focused on supporting families with children with additional needs, Silja is director of Acorn to Oak 用帥杏 – and passionate about sharing her knowledge to help parents. Below, Silja has advice on how to prevent children with SEND from feeling ‘different’...

If my child has been identified as needing extra help, how do I help them feel good about it? How do they explain it to their friends without being stigmatised?

These are great questions to think about and handling these well can help children develop useful tools for understanding and feeling good about themselves. They are also helpful in supporting their interaction with others that will be of benefit throughout their lives.

The language of additional needs and mental health can often seem medicalised and based on deficits. This can mean professionals, teachers and others can focus, at times, on talking about and looking at what is harder, what takes longer and what is not possible for a child.

In all of this, what would be empowering – which is to look at a child’s strengths and abilities – can be missing or not sufficiently emphasised.

We would recommend talking with your child about what has been identified (often called ‘diagnosed’) as their thinking style or the ‘way that their brain works’. In first finding out about what may be tricky for them, you could speak to the educational psychologist or other professional about what they recommend is a good way to describe your child’s needs in a positive and empowering way. You can even ask them how your child could explain this at school.

It is important to make it clear that your child still has the strengths and abilities they have always had. We would advise mentioning these strengths and, also, what makes your child unique as a person. Are they kind, caring, thoughtful, empathetic – and what other character traits, talents or abilities do they have?

It is a good idea to keep reminding your child of their strengths as these will be what will make it easier for them: using our strengths is usually a great way to address challenges. Being identified with a learning-related need does not mean that a child cannot succeed in their education or later life, although it may mean that you need to work together to make sure that they have the right support where they need it. We recommend that parents research well-known people whom your child will recognise who have experienced similar challenges, to show that with the right help everyone can do well.

Another area we suggest parents discuss with their child is that the education system and the wider world tend to assume neurotypical thinking styles and behaviours. So some of the difficulty for your child is coming from the requirements of school being based, in general, upon a different way of thinking. Needing support in a particular area does not mean a child is ‘stupid’ or not capable. It can help to say that.

Talking about what is and is not respectful language can also be useful, as well as asking your child to tell you about any unhelpful comments, so that you can help with addressing them. This is, in fact, an important discussion about boundaries, as it is good for all of us to know when not to take other people’s comments on board and to know that we can choose what we decide to believe.

In order to find the words that a child will feel comfortable using with their friends, we recommend working out together what feels right.

We suggest working with your child on self-talk so that they can tolerate leading with positives, such as ‘I know I can do this work’, before stating what is hard and what they need. For example: ‘I know I can do this, I just need longer to process it because of the way it is presented’ or ‘I know I can explain what I want to say, I just get nervous in groups.’

Perhaps most importantly of all, it is useful to share with your child that they do not owe everyone an explanation – which is again to do with boundaries. If certain people seem not to understand, your child is under no obligation to explain.

The key thing is that your child knows that they have strengths, are valuable, loved and supported by you and the key people in their life. They should only talk about vulnerabilities with people who feel safe and supportive. If people turn out not to understand, this does not need to invalidate your child’s sense of self as they can know and understand themselves.

We would love to think that the thoughts we have shared above are sufficient and that these conversations only need to take place once. However, they may be lifelong questions. To get the answers to these questions ‘right’ with your child may mean returning many times to discussions that touch on strengths, self-esteem, self-talk and empowering language around what helps and is needed for your child to be and do their best.

This work with your child is extremely valuable, as many adults with additional needs can struggle with not feeling good enough and feeling vulnerable about the challenges they face. Learning and trying out these skills with supportive family and friends is vital in helping our children grow up to be confident in who they are and what they can do, with the advocacy skills they need to be independent and empowered adults.

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Ask our SEND expert: how to stop a child with SEND from feeling stigmatised

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