Chapter 2. His Condition Does Not Define Him.
While I was preparing for this chapter, I posted a research question onto Facebook. I simply asked, “What defines you?” Among adults without special needs, I received answers like, “Being a mom,” “The energy I put into the world,” and “My curious and adventurous spirit." A friend who tragically lost her husband when she had three young children said, “I believe we are defined in life by what happens to us and how we respond to it.” I found her response especially interesting because it reflected that what defined her was influenced by what she had experienced. I remember growing up feeling defined at times by the fact that I did not have a mother so I understood how an event could shape how you define yourself. Other than that one insightful response, the other responses felt pretty sterile and predictable without a real trend.
So I took my poll to the next level and asked the same question of a group of adults with a degenerative neurological condition. Their responses were encouraging but, like my friend who had lost her husband, also reflected what they had experienced. For example, some of their responses were, “Not what l look like but by what I do,” “My resilience,” “My strength,” “My sense of humor and stubbornness,” “Plowing through the obstacles and doing it with grace," and “My acceptance of what is happening to me.” The trend in their responses encouraged me because it reflected a positive spirit of resilience. There was one response that made me sad though and perhaps it was the most vulnerable. One gentleman replied, “My ability to fake normalcy.” The response that bubbled up inside of me was that I don’t want to raise a kid who has to fake a state of being in order to fit in or make others comfortable. I so appreciated this man’s honesty but I want more than that for my child.
My original question of how do people define themselves was now evolving more into what influences that definition. I will be honest and say that I had a pretty narrow hypothesis on the front end. While I hoped that some people would define themselves with some sense of purpose or calling, I expected the vast majority of people under 20 to be defined by what they were good at like basketball, school, art, etc. I expected special needs kids to run the risk of defining themselves by what they couldn’t do. I then expected people beyond high school age to define themselves by what role they played and how they performed at it such as exhausted college student, busy mom, successful lawyer, etc. Can I just go ahead and say that I hypothesized flat wrong. How we define ourselves is way more fascinating and complicated than what I expected to find. The results from the next stage of my little survey made me want to change careers and go into legit psychosocial research.
So after I saw the response about defining yourself by your ability to “fake it” and determined that was not what I wanted for my child, I decided to explore how teenagers from different backgrounds define themselves and look for trends for what influenced that. I asked some friends of mine, who are teachers, to offer the prompt, “What defines you?” to their classes and then share the results with me.
The first responses to come in were from a friend who teaches at a junior high in a Houston suburb where 94% of the students are on free and reduced lunch (a program for students who are considered to be living in poverty). The school is 29% African American and 58% Hispanic. She was kind enough to poll several of her classes and send me the results. Several of the students reported identity markers that you would expect like being shy, happy, or good at a certain skill. When I removed those and evaluated what was left, the first thing I noticed was the common theme of behavior-associated identity. They had statements like, “I get angry easily,” “I act good and make good grades,” “I don’t think before I say something,” “I act normal so I don’t get in trouble," "I act nicely so no one gets mad,” and “I am a bad person who never gets anything done. I am told something and I do the opposite.” I wondered if this was developmental because kids that age are learning what behavior is not appropriate or if it was environmental because I had been told that the kids in this school came from tough homes and tough economic conditions. I would have to wait for my comparison groups to come in before I would know. Several students also commented on how they are known for standing up to bullies or not being a bully. I asked my friend about this and she said the district pushes anti-bullying heavily. Finally, several of the students reported that what defined them was how well they played a certain video game. I found this especially interesting because it came up several times with this group but not once with any of my other groups. I don’t want you to think that all of the responses from that group were concerning. The most encouraging response was “I love making people feel happy in their darkest moments” and perhaps the funniest was, “My belief in God, chicken, and ramen noodles”.
My next friend to report her results works in a completely different environment from our Houston suburb kids. She teaches at a private Christian Classical school outside of San Antonio. It was clear in the first few responses that the kids in this program defined themselves by a completely different standard. Of course I had the responses like “I am good at gymnastics,” and “I make good grades,” but once I moved those aside, what was left to stand out was clearly a reflection of faith and teaching. One response was, “Following Christ’s example of transforming people through loving them.” That was certainly a far cry from saving the world on your PS4. These kids also gave me, “That I believe in God and hold myself as close to him as possible,” “I try to honor Jesus by being the best form of myself,” and “My merit and my integrity. It not the cards you are dealt but what you choose to do with them that matter.” Perhaps the most honest response from this group was, “I should find my identity in Christ but I struggle and find it in my friends and achievement.” Like the kids from Houston, how these kids defined themselves had clearly been influenced by their environment but in a completely different way.
The third response to come in was from the other side of the world. A good friend of mine is a teacher at an International school in Dubai. She teaches students from many different countries and cultures whose parents pay a lot of money for them to attend her school. This vision for the school is reflected in a document that they call their Community of Practice. In it they have learning principles for their students to help them maximize their learning through a common culture of independent thinking, self-awareness, risk taking, and reflection. When the students of this school were asked what defines them, their answers were more much more intuitive. They included responses like, “I am defined by my passion and positive attitude towards learning,” or “I am defined by my introverted personality and few close friendships," "I am defined by my creativity and interest in things others would pass over," and "I am defined by my inspirations, which can come from anything.” I was impressed by the empowered thinking across the answers like from this student, “I am defined by my hard work to get what I want. When I really want to achieve something I'll work at it and do my best until I achieve it.” Of course this school had answers that mirrored other schools and my expected responses of, “I am defined by my love of soccer” but my goal was to see what common themes set them apart and for this group it was their culture of higher-level intuitive thinking.
My fourth and final response came from a group of kids who live in a small Texas town with a population of less than 20,000. It is 75% Caucasian, 10% African American, and 15% Hispanic. Only 10% of the city has bachelor’s degree or higher and the city ranked in the top 10 on the list of "Top 101 cities with the largest percentage of people in other types of correctional institutions (population 1,000+)." My friend who teaches in this community reported that a large percentage of his students have at least one parent in jail due to drug-related crimes. I expected this group to look a lot like my students from the Houston suburb and while there were some similarities, there was also one difference that really stood out. There were behavior-based responses like we saw in Houston but then there was an overarching theme of family and hope for the future. Some examples include, “What defines me is my dad’s rough past. It inspires me to keep going,” “My mom gives me direction and my decisions define me,” “My future gives me direction and keeps me out of trouble,” and, “My mom and my idols give me direction. They make mistakes but that is okay because we all make mistakes.” I am not a psychologist so I am not going to try and interpret these results except to observe that it appears someone is speaking into the lives of these kids and pointing them in a direction that it not determined by where they came from or what they have experienced. When asked what defines them, they produce answers that suggest that positive teaching is working.
So why are these findings significant and worth sharing here? I believe they are significant because what they suggest should be encouragement to this parent of a special needs child who wrote, “Alex is 15 and it is hitting him hard. He has always been a go-getter and sunshine child. But when he hit the teens, things have changed as to how he sees himself. Something shifted for Alex that influenced his identity and self-esteem.” She is experiencing what I watch for in my children every day. Their special need or life experience has the potential to affect their identity but it is not out of my ability to influence. After looking at the findings of my survey, I feel more empowered than ever with my ability to speak into what defines them.
Based on these results, there are 4 main influences to our identity: our obstacles or life experiences (that which we cannot control), our faith, our strengths, and our people. Next I want to talk about each one of those a little more in depth and discuss how we as parents can influence them.
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