Identity
Identity
These pages are about who your child is becoming, and who she’s being asked to be: race, faith, sexuality, gender, growing up as a third-culture kid, an adopted child’s questions about her birth family, and the young teenager redrawing her sense of herself. We go carefully and don’t rush to an answer.
What the library says about this, on one page. It is also online at theparentbook.com/help/identity
What to do first
If your child has told you she’s working out who she is, she has paid you a big compliment. Before you agree or disagree with anything, she needs to see that telling you hasn’t cost her anything.
- Respond to her trusting you before you respond to what she said: “Thank you for telling me. I love you and nothing about that has changed.”
- Ask questions, make fewer statements, and be willing not to understand yet.
- Take your own reaction, whatever it is, to another adult, not to her. There’s nothing wrong with finding this hard, but she shouldn’t have to manage it.
Some tips to try
Short pieces from the library, and a first thing to try from each.
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Faith in a Household Where Parents Differ.
If you and your partner differ on faith, tell your child openly, in words that suit her age.
- Tell her about the difference openly, in words that suit her age.
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Growing Up Between Two Cultures.
A child growing up between two cultures learns two ways of doing things, and both are hers.
- Acknowledge both ways of doing things without ranking them: “We do it like this here. They do it like that at school.”
- Use BAATN’s directory to find a counsellor who shares your cultural reference points.
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When She Refuses the Food You Grew Up On.
If your child has started refusing the family’s food, keep cooking it and take the pressure off.
- Keep cooking the dish, offer it without pressure and eat it yourself.
The rest of each tip, with more to try and why it works, is in the library.
Something to do together
You go to her thing. She chooses a film, a book, a song or a game she cares about. You watch it, read it or play it, and ask one curious question.
What it is for. A teenager working out who she is often does it through the things she loves. Going to them on her terms, without laughing at them or correcting her, shows her she can work things out at home.
- The first step. Ask once: “Choose me something that matters to you, a film, a book, a song or a game, and I’ll watch it, read it or play it.”
Safety. Check the age rating first; if her choice is well beyond her age, ask kindly for another. If it is an online game, play beside her; this is not the evening to look through her messages.
When to get help. If she tells you that someone is hurting her, that she is hurting herself, or that she does not want to be alive, stay calm, thank her for telling you, do not promise to keep it secret, and act that day, using the routes under “If you need help right now”, at the foot of every page. If her mood has been flat, and she has been withdrawing, for several weeks, talk to your GP.
The other four steps, and your part in it, are in the library.
If you want to read further
- When Your Child Is Working Out Who They Are. For parents whose child has raised a question about who they are, and who weren’t prepared for it. theparentbook.com/reader/when-your-child-is-working-out-who-they-are
Worth your time
- A book for you: Quiet, Susan Cain. Not a parenting book, but its chapter on raising quiet children is excellent, helping parents see introversion as a temperament to respect rather than shyness to fix. uk.bookshop.org/p/books/quiet-the-power-of-introverts-in-a-world-that-can-t-stop-talking-susan-cain/3b5d2e5485e8fca7
- A book to read together: And Tango Makes Three, Justin Richardson and Peter Parnell. The true story of two male penguins at New York’s Central Park Zoo who hatch and raise a chick together. A gentle, factual book about a family with two dads. uk.bookshop.org/p/books/and-tango-makes-three-justin-richardson/01a816a5d623a862
- Something to watch: The power of introverts, Susan Cain, TED. Susan Cain makes the case for quieter temperaments in a culture that prizes the outgoing, useful for parents of reserved children who are being nudged to be louder. www.ted.com/talks/susan_cain_the_power_of_introverts
- Something to listen to: Rebecca Duffus & Lyric Rivera on Supporting Kids Autistic Identity Development, Full-Tilt Parenting: Strategies, Insights, and Connection for Parents Raising Neurodivergent Children, 41 min. The authors of the Autism, Identity and Me workbook discuss helping autistic children understand their diagnosis and build a positive sense of who they are, and how parents and teachers can support that. podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/rebecca-duffus-lyric-rivera-on-supporting-kids-autistic/id1102055778?i=1000738307245
Who else can help
This usually starts at school rather than at the surgery. The adults who see your child every day are the first people to tell, and often the fastest route to a change. The GP is there if it persists or deepens.
- Your child’s school. The pastoral lead, the head of year, or the form tutor. Free, already knows your child, and often the quickest way to get something changed at school. Before or alongside anything else. A school cannot act on what it has not been told, and what you bring is often what it did not have.
- Your GP. The gateway to everything the NHS offers a child: paediatric assessment, a referral to CAMHS, and support for you as the parent. Ask for a double appointment. Describe the pattern over weeks rather than the worst single day, and say plainly what you are worried about. Bring a written list; the ten minutes go quickly. www.nhs.uk/service-search/find-a-gp
- YoungMinds. The UK’s young people’s mental health charity, with a free Parents Helpline, webchat and email, and a plain A to Z of the things parents worry about. When you want to talk through a worry about your child with someone who has heard it before, or read a clear first explanation of a named concern. Not a crisis line. Parents Helpline 0808 802 5544 · Mon, Thu, Fri 9.30am-4pm; Tue, Wed 9.30am-6pm · Webchat Mon-Fri 9.30am-4pm; email parents@youngminds.org.uk · Outside those hours the parents line is closed. The urgent routes on this page are open when it is not. www.youngminds.org.uk/parent/parents-helpline
- The Black, African and Asian Therapy Network (BAATN). The largest UK directory of therapists of Black, African, Asian and Caribbean heritage, searchable by area and specialism. When it matters that the therapist understands your family’s cultural reference points without being taught them. A directory; BAATN does not provide the therapy itself. A directory of therapists rather than a helpline. BAATN does not provide the therapy itself. www.baatn.org.uk/find-a-psych-therapist
The full list for identity, with what each organisation does and when it is the right call, is at theparentbook.com/help/identity/services
Published by Kensington Square Therapy. Company No. 16707111. Written by therapists registered with the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy (BACP) and the National Counselling and Psychotherapy Society (NCPS). This page is not therapy, and not a substitute for professional support. The full library is at theparentbook.com.
Everything the library holds on identity
Go further
Quick tips
- Faith in a Household Where Parents DifferIf you and your partner differ on faith, tell your child openly, in words that suit her age.
- Growing Up Between Two CulturesA child growing up between two cultures learns two ways of doing things, and both are hers.
- When She Refuses the Food You Grew Up OnIf your child has started refusing the family’s food, keep cooking it and take the pressure off.
- When She Wants to Be Someone ElseTrying out new tastes and opinions is how a child starts to work out who she is.
- When the Family Tree Project Comes HomeAssignments like the family tree can be hard for adopted children, and most schools will adapt them if asked.
- When the Heritage Tongue SlipsIf she used to answer you in Urdu and now answers only in English, keep speaking Urdu to her.
- Finding the Words for Gender and SexualityAsk her which words she uses, use them, and let her tell you when you get it wrong.
- The First Questions About Birth ParentsWhen she asks about her birth parents at seven, a short, honest answer is what she needs.
- The Grandparent in the Heritage LanguageIf the weekly call with Grandma is in Urdu, keep it that way.
- The Language Spoken at HomeKeep speaking your heritage language at home; the research supports it.
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Things to do together
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