Families standing up to shame and stigma by responding directly – on our own or with help

This fact sheet is part of a series we created with families who have been through tough times to spark hope and share new ideas about how to stand up to shame and stigma.

We hope these resources have something to offer all families, but recognise they are simply a snapshot reflecting the lived experiences of the families who helped us create them – other families will have different experiences and stories.

We also intentionally create resources that reflect Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander ways of knowing, being and doing with guidance from our National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Consultancy Group and partners.

See more about how Emerging Minds collaborates with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander practitioners, families and Community.

Emerging Minds acknowledges that families come in many forms. In our resources, the term ‘parent’ encompasses biological, adoptive, foster and kinship carers as well as individuals who have chosen to take up primary or shared responsibility in raising children. Our resources aim to support families and the children in their care. We acknowledge that every child is unique and has different strengths, vulnerabilities and experiences that shape their health and development.

‘I ignored stigmatising actions by staring at the perpetrator and then moving away. Staring and moving away communicated my disapproval of the stigmatising action without escalating the matter by me moving away, and helped me to preserve my self-esteem by not just moving away in the first instance. I used to run away when I was young. As I grew up, I developed the courage to take a stand by staring before moving away. The greatest support has been from my parents who encouraged me to stand up rather than take stigmatising actions lying down.’

– Zac, young person from a rural area

‘My daughter was having a hard time at school with another girl saying mean things to her about how she acted and the things she liked. So one day my daughter said in response, “I’m just wondering if you meant for that comment to be really mean?” I thought that was such a smart and curious way to stand up to these comments.’

‘I have a foster sister who I count as my sister. When people ask me, I say she is my sister. I have a friend who has met my foster sister, but doesn’t know we aren’t biologically related, and thinks we look so alike. I laugh to myself and say, “Yeah, we do!”

– A child in foster care

‘If a family member says something stigmatising I try to call it out but in a light hearted way … like I might say, “Well that is a Karen thing to say”… so I am still calling it out, but trying to keep it light, so the person doesn’t feel attacked and it doesn’t start a problem.’

– KC, young person from a rural area

‘If my children get bullied at school, firstly I need to tell my children, “You have to make sure you’re safe, walk away for whatever reason. But you can defend yourself if people are getting too much.” I found that’s a dramatic difference because all my white friends, they never mentioned you can defend yourself. But my point is, you can tolerate people’s behaviour. But to a point, you have your right to defend yourself – but make sure you’re safe.’

This story and others like it can be found in Families responding to racism.

‘I have a bigger vocabulary now and that truly changes the way people perceive me, which in itself is a stigma. We have a weirdly classist idea and ideal around language in this country, and unfortunately, it affects kids who have no reason to know what the word “epistemic” means. But when you’re a kid, you can’t properly advocate for yourself because people don’t trust you, they think you don’t use proper language, which you have no reason to know – you’re a kid. For me, the biggest change has been expanding my vocabulary and educating myself and making it so that I can say the big fancy words that make people listen to my opinions.’

– Harley, young person from a rural area

‘I’ve made a complaint about a worker when they were really rude unnecessarily. And I’ve advised other people to do the same if I’ve heard stories that are unjust. If you could turn that lens away from yourself and outside, that’s one way of being an activist. And that doesn’t mean going to marches and things. I didn’t have the energy or the ability to do that. It means doing it in whatever capacity that you can. I think it’s really, really important. I tried to do that in the times I was able to. Standing up against ignorance and discrimination.’

‘One way to complain is when you just get angry and you say then and there, you know, “Your service is stupid.” That’s the one way, and it’s completely valid, but that’s probably not gonna be that efficient. So have a think about why you’re complaining and what you want to complain about. So, if you want your complaint to have an impact, then you wait till you’ve calmed down and you write it out and you work out how you’re gonna do it. Are you going to do it in writing? Are you going to phone someone? Does the organisation have a complaints process? You can say, “I want to hear what the resolution is,” and you can ask for it to be anonymous or to have your name to it. So you need to put some time into it. And then if you’re going to do that, you’ve gotta think, is it worth it? You know, how important is this to me?’

‘I had one experience that was distressing and I made a complaint and the complaint went nowhere. And there was so much emotion and it was completely wrong and unfair. Sometimes you’ve just gotta let it go. And that’s what I decided to do with this service, to just let it go. Even though I knew that it was wrong completely and I knew that they made assumptions and judgements and did the wrong thing, I had to let it go.’

‘The Women’s Information Service saved my life because I didn’t have anyone to take with me to the court. And when I realised that service is available, that they send a female – it was like a really, really big support. Just someone to sit next to me because I didn’t wanna sit in the courtroom alone.’

You can find this story and more like it in Collaboration and care between families and service providers.

‘I remember we were at this family reunification meeting and child protection was saying all the s*** about us. And we ended up getting so angry that we just got up and walked out. And the advocate for our kids, she comes running out after us and she was like, “Hang on, hang on. Have a chat with me.” And we stopped and had a cigarette and she said, “Let me tell you one thing: your kids really f***ing love you. And they really wanna come home.” And I was just like, “Well, I will do whatever the f*** it takes to get them home.” It was people like that. They didn’t care if we swore. They didn’t care how we acted. She was more on our level. Not like, “I’ve got a degree – I’m better than you.” They were more interested in actually helping us do the right thing.’

You can find this story and more like it in Collaboration and care between families and service providers.

‘When I first started to take proper steps to get stability for the kids and I after escaping violence, I was a very scared and struggling person. I was very deep in trauma and a lot of conversations that I needed to have to get support would put me in a trauma response where I couldn’t communicate. I was in a 12-step program and my sponsor at the time was an amazing person. She became my unofficial support person. She would come with me to key legal appointments or health appointments and when I couldn’t communicate, she would talk for me. She was amazing, kind and gracious.’

‘We had an advocate to mediate with us for the children at primary school. When you have neurodivergent children and are battling distress, it is a bit difficult to keep up the fight and that is why we wanted someone to help advocate for us. The experience was unfortunately not successful for the children because the school staff weren’t willing to admit they weren’t experts in neurodivergence and learn and work with us.

‘But it was definitely worth a try having the advocate, as we were running out of steam, options and patience. They were from a children’s disability advocacy group. There was only one person in our region. The advocate came to any meeting we asked them to and reassured us that it wasn’t us doing anything wrong. We felt supported and understood, even though the school was dismissive and the outcome wasn’t what we were hoping for.’

‘I asked the first time at school and said, “I don’t want to be in here. Can I do my work elsewhere?” And I got told “no”. If it stopped there, I don’t think I would’ve ended up finishing school. So being persistent or asking somebody else, talking to the guidance counsellors or one of the other people … Just keep asking, find that person that you do feel comfortable with and that is advocating for you. Keep asking different people. It is definitely exhausting, don’t get me wrong. I think it still took me a year or so to find the right person that really cared about not only me but my education. And they could see that I generally wanted to do my education and I just was struggling with the school system of how they wanted it done. So, I just had to keep asking. It takes a lot of patience and a lot of spoons* get wasted, but eventually you’ll find someone somewhere.’
– KC, young person from a rural area

*Curious about spoons? Watch this YouTube video of Ben Carpenter explaining spoon theory (please note the video contains a few words that not all may consider appropriate for young ears).