Parents often struggle with understanding the gender and sexuality of their children, even though they think they know everything about them. However, as children develop, they gain more autonomy and are able to decide who they are themselves. Some children grow to realize that the gender given to them at birth does not fit them, so they relabel themselves as a different gender and might start presenting as such. As children reach adolescence, they will start to experience attraction, sometimes in a different direction than their parents expect. Despite this change, it is still the parents’ responsibility to give them the necessary support they need.

It is understandable that parents assume they know every aspect of their child, although false. Parents spend most of their time with their children, so they know exactly what environmentally will help them develop. However, parents might assume that development is primarily biological. They might think that their child’s personality and sense of being are tied to their genetics. However, if child development was primarily driven by genetics, there would not be much diversity in behavior among humans. Development is not all nurture either, as this would result in wildly different behaviors across cultural contexts. This would not account for the similarities that we have observed across cultures. Rather, it is a combination of nature and nurture that shapes a person to be who they are (Keil, 2014, pp. 12-14). Children develop self-autonomy and an ability to eventually control aspects of their environment, thereby controlling aspects of how they are nurtured (Keil, 2014, pp. 468-470). Around this time frame, 18-24 months, is when children will start to think about their internal experience of gender as well as label other people according to their gender presentation (Diamond, 2020).

Supporting gender and sexuality diverse children can start early. It is important to have a good relationship with your child. The earliest aspects of your relationship are temperament and attachment. The temperament of a baby will determine its emotional and behavioral reactivity (Keil, 2014, p. 247). Some babies are more difficult to care for than others, based on their temperament. However, the parents' responsiveness to the needs of their baby will determine attachment (Kleinknecht, 2020). A parent who is receptive to the emotionality and behaviors of their baby will form a secure attachment, while a parent who is not will form an insecure attachment. However, an insecure attachment is not the end-all-be-all in maintaining a relationship with your child. A mix of attachment and temperament will feed into personality later in life. An infant with an insecure attachment will have trouble socializing as a child and may need some extra attention in school. Establishing a good relationship with your child will help them navigate their own gender and understand their own sexuality.

Using the information on child development mentioned, we hope to create a series of visual internet media using a variety of methods, including recommendations of gender diverse age-appropriate media and informational videos. We hope parents will take the information at face value and adapt their parenting style to accommodate gender and sexuality diverse children. This method should work because many parents try to find ways in which they can provide a better environment for their children. Internet media provides parents with easy to consume information and a good starting point to begin their own research. It is important to support children of all kinds and to recognize when extra support is needed. Many children who do not fit the cisgender heterosexual norm often struggle socially due to homophobic and transphobic ideologies. Parental support is a key component of protecting the mental and physical health of children with a wide array of genders and sexualities.

References:

Diamond, L.M. (2020). Gender Fluidity and Nonbinary Gender Identities Among Children and Adolescents. Child Development Perspectives, 14(2), 110-115. https://doi.org/10.1111/cdep.12366

Keil, F. (2014). Ch. 1: Approaching Psychological Development. In Developmental Psychology: The Growth of Mind and Behavior. W. W. Norton & Company, Inc.

Keil, F. (2014). Ch. 6: Connecting with the Social World. In Developmental Psychology: The Growth of Mind and Behavior. W. W. Norton & Company, Inc.

Keil, F. (2014). Ch. 7: The Origins of Emotion, Temperament, and Personality. In Developmental Psychology: The Growth of Mind and Behavior. W. W. Norton & Company, Inc.

Keil, F. (2014). Ch. 13: Knowing Ourselves, Knowing Others. In Developmental Psychology: The Growth of Mind and Behavior. W. W. Norton & Company, Inc.

Kleinknecht, E. (2020, January 6). PSY-344 Social and Personality Development [Lecture to Xandre Couchot, Charlie Kerns, & Michaela Kirkmire].

The goal of parenting is to develop a person who is happier and more successful than their parents (Gopnik, 2016). Parents do this by providing resources to the child that will help them. Queer people face a lot of social challenges. They are bullied in school more often than non-queer kids and do not always get the support that they need at home. This leads gender and sexuality diverse children to have serious mental health problems without the adequate resources to seek help (Diamond, 2020). As parents, it is important to be aware of that and provide extra support to your kids, as supporting them can help prevent self-harm or suicide later on (Diamond, 2020).

Children first learn about gender from their parents. Children form gender stereotypes and roles early in life by watching and learning their parents' behavior and stereotypes (Keil, 2014, p. 515). While these schemas of gender can be developed further in life if given the right environment, it is important to set an example by sharing responsibilities as much as possible. A baby who has a mother who does all the work and a father who does very little might grow up thinking women are supposed to work more than men. This is an unfair dynamic for women and the baby. Often when a baby is born without external genitalia, they are raised as girls. Our culture has a toxic relationship with women and girls, causing an increased probability of mental illness in people born without a penis (Keil, 2014, pp. 473-474). Parents should be aware of this sexist culture and its effects on their children. To help support children, it is important to allow them to pick their own toys rather than buying them toys based on the gender they were assigned at birth. This will combat sexist stereotypes as well as allow children to think more critically about their own gender later in life.

Raising children to be happy and successful is a daunting goal for a lot of parents. To help understand how parents do this, we also have to understand why. Some examples of how parents can support their child are by providing quality nutrition and financial support. These are things not often afforded to LGBTQ+ children with unsupportive parents. If the goal of parenting is to produce a happier and more successful person, parents who do not provide these resources are not parenting. Parents are not made to shape the identity of their children but instead are made to provide adequate support for their child's generation to form their own identity (Gopnik, 2016). Parents who willingly do not provide the support necessary to survive to their child based on the child's identity have failed. If parents try to change and control the identity of their to fit a more heteronormative model resulting in a less happy and traumatized person, they have also failed. The best thing a parent can do for their queer child is to continue providing support.

Parents also provide social resources that help development. Parents pass their culture, tradition, and morals to their children through parenting (Gopnik, 2016). Children watch their parents to learn how they should behave and listen to what they have to say to determine what they should think. If parents show a trans or homophobic morality, children will internalize it. If that child finds later that they are gender or sexuality diverse, they will develop internalized trans or homophobia, causing them great psychological distress. Parents should consistently check themselves for these harmful biases, so they don’t pass them along to their children. However, these ideologies will eventually be encountered as the child learns to interact with the world. In these cases, it is important to correct the thought, thereby helping the child learn to accept others and saving them from possible mental health issues later in life.

References:

Diamond, L.M. (2020). Gender Fluidity and Nonbinary Gender Identities Among Children and Adolescents. Child Development Perspectives, 14(2), 110-115. https://doi.org/10.1111/cdep.12366

Gopnik, A. (2016). Introduction: The Parent Paradoxes. In The Gardener and the Carpenter. Picador, New York, NY.

Gopnik, A. (2016). Chp 1: Against Parenting. In The Gardener and the Carpenter. Picador, New York, NY.

Keil, F. (2014). Ch. 13: Knowing Ourselves, Knowing Others. In Developmental Psychology: The Growth of Mind and Behavior. W. W. Norton & Company, Inc.

Keil, F. (2014). Ch. 14: Becoming Part of the Family. In Developmental Psychology: The Growth of Mind and Behavior. W. W. Norton & Company, Inc.

People who are LGBTQ+ are members of the population and operate in the community, which means they contribute and consume the surrounding culture. Some children might find that they belong in the LGBTQ+ community. As children mature, they form peer groups and socialize outside their immediate family. These peer groups generally influence things such as personal aesthetics, while parents have larger control over career and social values (Keil, 2014, p. 545). This is often observed in LGBTQ+ groups as variations in clothing choices that might be distinctive from their other peers. In middle childhood, as children start considering gender and attraction, friendships are formed based on mutual trust and reciprocity. With these friendships also comes a schema of how to organize personal aesthetics and behavior (Keil, 2014, pp. 546-547). Queer children will seek out friends with similar experiences and will assimilate into the group behaviorally and through fashion choices.

Television can also influence values in children. Children learn about the world and prosocial behaviors from the media they consume (Keil, 2014, p. 560). If provided with the right media, children will develop behaviors that help them be happier and more successful. Television also helps children learn about cultural issues (Keil, 2014, p. 563). When children are exposed to a variety of people, they sympathize more with people who are not like them. When children are exposed to media with people who are gender and sexuality diverse, they will understand how gender and sexuality is a spectrum. Some children might find that they do not fit the gender they were assigned at birth or the heterosexual model that has been normalized in our culture by relating to the LGBTQ+ characters. When children are allowed to express this, it makes for a healthier and happier adult in the future.

The dominant culture often causes children to internalize binary gender based on behaviors they observe and how they are treated (Keil, 2014, p. 576). This internalized gender is flexible, however, if given the appropriate media that allows for the child to think more critically. However, younger children are still learning to categorize people, thus might hold stronger gendered stereotypes than older kids. Once they learn to categorize, these stereotypes become more flexible as children develop (Keil, 2014, p. 577). However, the flexibility develops more efficiently when provided with examples of gender diverse people in media. A part of this developmental process is called “gender stability”, the idea that gender is unchanging over time, a concept present in both cisgender and gender diverse children (Olezeski, Pariseau, Bamatter, & Tishelman, 2020). Children also show private regard to their gender, meaning they feel either positively or negatively towards their internal experience of gender and its outward expression. Gender flexibility, gender consistency, and private regard are all a part of child development. Because of these concepts, research has had to expand its definitions of gender and adapt the methodology to accommodate genders outside of the binary (Olezeski, et al., 2020). As parents, it is important to teach children about diverse genders via information and media. When the social experience of gender is at odds with the home environment and acceptance of the experience of gender, the child can experience mental distress, which can lead to self-harm or suicide. Parents should be aware of the socialization of gender and provide support as their child navigates their own experiences.

References:

Keil, F. (2014). Ch. 15: Becoming Part of the Community. In Developmental Psychology: The Growth of Mind and Behavior. W. W. Norton & Company, Inc.

Olezeski, C. L., Pariseau, E. M., Bamatter, W. P, & Tishelman, A. C. (2020). Assessing Gender in Young Children: Constructs and Considerations. Psychology of Sexual Orientation and Gender Diversity, 7(3), 293–303. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/sgd0000381