Sexual identity and orientation anxiety issues in children

I’m not going into the issues of sexual identity and orientation in detail here. What interests us here is your child’s anxiety – and whether these or any other issues around LGBTQ+ (to give it the usual acronym) are involved in the cause of their anxiety.

Whenever a topic comes into the news regularly, as sexual identity has recently, it will probably become the talk of the playground. If nothing else, it will doubtless be discussed among parents outside school, and children will: 

• hear and wonder about it
• spit words out uncomprehendingly as insults to other children
• ask themselves if they’re okay or different
• fear to be seen in any way that isn’t “one of the crowd”.

According to their age and understanding, and their own feelings and thoughts, children will also perhaps:

• either worry about the whole subject, because they’re at a curious age but don’t understand it much 
• or worry about their own position in the world if they do have growing feelings on the subject.

Although a child’s path through their sexual identity or orientation worries will be different according to the exact issue, anxiety is still anxiety, and needs to be dealt with in the same way as any other anxiety-provoking issues. Children need help to talk and plan a way through. 

But can I offer one proviso?

From my experience helping children with these worries, I think perhaps it’s not a good idea for parents to talk to other parents about their child’s worry in this area when they've finally disclosed it to you. Parents often share worries with other parents, and rightly so. No one gave us a manual.

But before you jump in with “what’s all this about secrecy?”, let me explain! 

The reason is this. 

Children and some other parents are quick to label others. Those other parents will not be very good at keeping your child’s issues private if they’re also worried about the effect on their child or their child’s friends. This “leaking of information” shouldn’t happen, but it does.

And this leakage can be hugely damaging to your child, who might be 

• just going through a normal stage of development, or 
• seriously wondering about themselves and who they are, or 
• desperately trying to fit in until or unless they wish to announce themselves to the world.

The main job for parents, therefore, is to be a safe place for your child to confide and think. You may have to contain your own anxiety – by yourself or with your spouse or partner – for quite a while until your child has worked through what’s worrying them and some resolution is in sight.

Which age of children think about sexual identity?

We’re mostly dealing with younger children on this website, not teenagers – although most ways of dealing with anxiety are the same. They just need to be modified to the right age and character of your child.

But it’s a fact that the age for coming out as gay or lesbian has moved downwards in the last 10 years until it encompasses top juniors too. 

Obviously, for human developmental reasons, bisexuality has stayed mostly in the teen years and upwards, on account of the maturing process of a human body. 

But the discussion about ever-younger children being unhappy with their sexual identity and asking for treatment has been at the forefront of news recently. It's affecting many children, and especially girls, partly due to the emergence of trans influencers on social media.

So, taking all this together, we have some worried, anxious and unhappy children, and some fearful parents.

What are the main concerns seen among children when sexual identity raises its head?

• In schools there’s nearly always a hidden, homophobic atmosphere, whatever the official school guidance. Anyone seen to be different is called “homo”, “gay” and other derogatory terms. Most children spend a lot of time anxiously trying to make sure they’re not labelled in this way.
• If they are labelled, this gives the child an inner identity of “bad” – even when it’s totally unjustified. If you feel bad, you worry. “Good” people are the loved and chosen ones, aren’t they?
• If a child is simply different in some other way (more sensitive, interested in different things), getting labelled as “gay”, “homo” etc causes real frustration and anger. They maybe hide it skilfully beneath a veneer of constantly altering their personality to what they think’s expected of them.  But the build-up of stress and anxiety needed to carry out this charade is almost unbearable. Even an adult finds it hard to lead a double life.
• If the child doesn’t manage to avoid the labelling, they may well be bullied, verbally or physically.
• If they're isolated by bullies, they'll have few friends, which can lead to anxiety and/or depression.
• If a child is unhappy in their assigned gender and questioning whether they’re a boy or girl, (and the public conversation has brought this into many children’s thought processes), they’re totally alone with their anxiety and worry unless they can confide in a parent.
• And if they feel attracted to the same sex as they get older, say in upper juniors, they have a good idea by then of how their family will react. They’re understandably anxious that it will go badly for them. Awareness of same-sex attraction exists frequently by ages nine, 10, 11 years (but occasionally earlier). That’s several years of severe anxiety building up.

How can you help your child if this area of sexual identity is causing them anxiety?

1 Listen with what we like to call unconditional positive regard. I dislike jargon, but it does nicely sum up that you’re not expecting one thing or another, you’ll love them either way (ie unconditionally). That you will respond positively – life affirmingly, not critically. And with regard for their (still) immature understandings as little humans and therefore take them seriously.

2 Show infinite patience because any worries they have in this area will be ongoing for quite some time. Help them with the worries, but don’t expect a resolution any time yet. Most children who come out eventually are aware of their sexual orientation by the start of adolescence. But fear of rejection is still huge. And you need to watch them at that stage because they're vulnerable and at risk of self-harm and suicide attempts if the anxiety gets too bad.

3 Help them develop an internal mantra about coping. It doesn’t have to be linked to the worries they have, because, as we saw above, they may be quite varied according to what’s happening. Something like “Just hold tight, you can get this right”. If they’re simply "a child who does things differently", maybe try (I think it was Claire Rayner who said this) “Not better, not worse, just different”.

4 Recognise how their worries might be affecting their school work and achievement. This might mean talking to the school about bullying (without naming any of your child’s confidential anxieties about sexual identity until they want you to). Or it could mean helping them in the calm atmosphere of your home to understand some of the things they’re struggling with, work-wise, so they don’t fall behind.

5 Of course, for dealing with any worries, try some of the suggestions on the strategies pages and also ones scattered throughout this site. Working out what the worries are, what’s causing them, how to ease them, how not to maintain them by avoidance – all this applies, whatever. Building self-esteem and resilience will be especially important.

6 Answer questions about sexual identity and orientation simply and transparently according to their age. The straight, obvious answer will often suffice. They’ll ask more later if they want. You have at least shown you’re open to discussion. 

Some more suggestions for helping with anxiety caused by sexual identity issues

Have a look at my Being bullied page

Your child’s own 15-word anxiety scale

Non-judgemental listening

Breaking anxiety into manageable steps

This involves spending some time with your child to work out how they construe or think about their anxiety.

You may or may not yet know what the cause is, or you may suspect.

But we parents need to not make assumptions – I can make assumptions for Britain, so I, too, need to keep remembering that.

So – you need to ask your child what they feel like now. They may say “anxious” or “worried”. Jot it down on the left of the page.

Ask them how they’d really like to feel. You may be surprised. Perhaps they’ll say “popular”. For them, the opposite polarity to anxious is being popular. That’s fine. It’s how they think about things that counts!

Jot that down at the far right of the page.

Ask them how they would feel half way between anxious and popular. “Things are improving.”

Jot that down in the middle of the page between the other two jottings.

Now – and this is crucial – ask them what is half way between the middle and the right-hand side, between “Things are improving” and “Popular”. The order we ask in is important. You’ll see why in a moment. Maybe the answer is “I’ll have a new friend”. Jot that in the correct place.

Finally, ask them what is half way between the first two jottings, in this case between “Anxious” and “Things are improving”. Perhaps this invented child will say, “I’ll be trying to ignore the bullies.”

You now have five items, five stages from left to right.

This example for our invented child goes like this:

• Anxious 
• Trying to ignore the bullies
• Things are improving
• I’ll have a new friend
• Popular

Check back with your child about this sequence, explaining it to them:

“So you’re feeling anxious now, but you’re going to try and ignore the bullies and when you manage that it will feel like things are improving a bit. When you feel a bit better you will be brave enough to find a new friend and then you’ll feel popular. Is this right?”

Maybe they’ll want to change something when they hear it back. Our invented child changes “popular” to “more confident”.

Now, the reason you asked about step 2 last was because the hardest thing is to get from step 1 to step 2, and your child needs to have engaged positively with the whole idea of managing things better in the later steps before facing that first hurdle!

What have we done here? 

We’ve started looking at your child’s thoughts about anxiety and what they’d prefer to feel like. We've also found out their "spectrum" that goes from anxious to confident (initially "popular") – and that this change to "confident" is more in their control and desirable to them. And therefore achievable.

You may not yet have discovered it’s about accusations of being gay, or being left out for being different in some way. It may not be the case.

But while you’re talking, your child is practising speaking about their worries. Explaining what is happening. Deciding, with you, what can be done in small steps. Working on a strategy they can adopt in small steps.

If they really are thinking about their sexual identity, you’ve made an opening for further discussion. Use the suggestions for how you can help them that I listed above and keep the conversation going.

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Remember, I can only make suggestions on how to help with your child’s anxiety. 

I can't give you guidance on whether you should allow a child to always wear clothes "supposedly" meant for the opposite sex or go by a different name when they're questioning their identity. 

I can't advise you on consulting a professional if your child wants gender reassignment because they suffer gender dysphoria. 

I can't advise you on how to bring up an intersex child. These are your decisions. 

But I can suggest some extra resources in case they’re of help on your journey with your child's sexual identity...

Resources relevant to anxiety and sexual identity

Girls are spreading rumours that my daughter is gay – a question answered by John Perry in The Irish Times in 2018. Perry is founder of Parents Plus Charity.

What is homophobic bullying? – an article with advice that appears on the BullyUK website. 

Could my child be transgender? – an article on Parents Magazine site. This site also has a wealth of interesting articles on all aspects of parenting including many that link to this topic. 

A team of researchers from San Diego University reported in 2018 on the percentage of children aged 9-10 self-identifying as gay, transgender. 

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ALWAYS:

Trust your instincts,
use your judgement, protect the spirit
of your child