Five tips to help you advocate for your neurodivergent child at school

Our wonderful Awhi community often share their wisdom, lived experience, and knowledge with each other. Here Tara Davies shares what she has learned about how to navigating neurodivergence, disability and education. Thank you Nicaela for your generosity in sharing your thoughts with us.

I listened to a fabulous interview with Dr Karen Waldie from the University of Auckland recently on neurodiversity and activation in the brain.  What excited me most about this interview and her research is the clear, scientific evidence that neurodivergent brains are wired differently and activate differently than neurotypical brains.

Our education system is built on a neurotypical model of learning. As parents we fight hard to get support and accommodations in place for our neurodivergent kids so they can thrive in a neurotypical education world. It’s hard, often thankless, exhausting work; both for us as parents and for our children, navigating through a system that isn’t designed to accommodate and include them and doesn’t have the resources or understanding to adequately change.

There are plenty of educators working incredibly hard out there. However, even with people working with the best of intentions, the current system requires us to correct the perceived deficiencies that are our children’s innate selves.

The science demonstrates that there is simply different wiring, not innate deficit.

Neurodivergence is not a deficit and is not a construct that requires fixing.

Many children are disabled simply because the expectations and environment are not flexible or accepting of differently wired brains.

I’m not so patiently waiting for our education system to catch up with neuroscience.

We wouldn’t ask a physically disabled person to try a bit harder to get out of their wheelchair and walk. Why is it still considered acceptable to ask a neurodivergent kid to stop being lazy, try a bit harder and behave better to fit in at school and complete their work like everyone else?

So, are neurodivergent people disabled by their diagnoses or are they disabled by society?

While there is a long way to go to address the inequities in education, very slowly, the lens through which we see neurodivergent disabled people is changing and we can absolutely be part of the change.

So, with a view to navigating the education journey, here are five ideas for supporting our tamariki to thrive.

1.Focus on individual strengths and find opportunities for success. 

Neurodivergent people have amazing strengths and skills that neurotypical people don’t have and may never have.  Having a strengths-based focus with lots of flexibility, rather than trying to correct all the tough stuff that is considered important in a neurotypical world, can be a real game changer.

2. Protect mental health and well-being. 

Dr Ross Greene states that kids do well if they can.  As parents we are perfectly placed to connect with and support our kids to enable them to find their way through life so they can do well. Supporting mental health is so important.

3. Be a curious self-advocate.

Advocate for your child, and whereappropriate, encourage them to advocate for themselves.  Why is something not working?  Why do you want to trial a change?  What are some ideas you’d like to facilitate? Model advocacy.

4.Trust your gut. 

You know your child best.  Protect them.  Neurodivergence is not a result of poor parenting.  Sure, we can all benefit from assistance and tips for helping us parent our kids, but if something doesn’t feel right, it probably isn’t.

5**. Create a network of people who live and breathe neurodiversity.**

People who you can authentically chat to, listen to, and seek ideas from. Seek advice and support from neurodivergent adults – what do they wish their parents knew?It really doesn’t matter whether you chat to a parent of a child with dyslexia or a parent of a child with ADHD - the diagnosis doesn’t matter, the experience does.  Sometimes we all just need to get the thoughts in our head out without advice or judgment.

Awhi Ngā Mātua

This article has been developed by Awhi Ngā Mātua with research support from the IHC library.