Thread by @JuliaMasonMD1

I recently re-read a super useful article about how adults can respond to children who express gender dysphoria. It's from 2012, by David Schwartz Ph.D. and it's called "Listening to Children Imagining Gender: Observing the Inflation of an Idea."

tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.10…

I'm not the first person to admire this article, but I've just got to share a few lines because they really spoke to me as a pediatrician.

I spend my days advising parents on the sometimes confusing behavior of their children. A line I use a lot is "kids do what works."

By this I mean that young children are pre-logical - they don't figure things out like adults (hopefully)do. What they have are AMAZING memories. Your 3 yr old remembers what happened three days ago far better than you do.

(Your brain is full! You've got a lot on your mind.)

Remember that game Concentration, where you turned over cards and needed to remember where the matching picture was to make a pair? A small child will beat an adult every time at that game.

Kids are excellent scientists. They try lots of things, and they remember what works.

So while you are trying to keep it all together, your kid is trying to get what they want. They do lots of things, and they remember what works. Precisely.

This is how I end up with a parent saying "How have I been snookered by a three year old?!?"

It happens to the best of us.

You can't really use logic with a kid until they are 7 or 8, but all of us try to do so with kids who can talk. Even me!

Trying to reason with young children leads to trouble.

Thomas Phelan PhD calls it the "Talk‐Persuade‐Argue‐Yell‐Hit Syndrome" when it comes to bad behavior.

You can't deal with children like they are little adults. They are not. And yet, most of us do, because they are speaking to us in English and they *sound* like rational beings.

Kids are wonderful, there's a reason I chose to work with them, but rational is not their strong suit

Finally I get to Dr. Schwartz's wisdom. He said:

"It seems to me that trans children, in response to great psychic pain (and adaptively or not) have engaged the rhetoric of gender and, thus, stumbled upon a communication of such potency that their parents and therapists . . .

. . . are detoured from listening to them as children, instead crediting them with adult-like cognition."

And I spoke out loud as I read "Yes! We all do this!"

He went on to explain how the adults taking the child literally encourage the child to reiterate . . .

. . . their complaint in those terms. And thus the misunderstanding blossoms between a well meaning adult and their child.

One more quote:

"The most immediate lesson that the trans child has learned, and then enacts, encouraged by these interactions, . .

. . . is that the idea of gender is very powerful, and if you want to get a rise out of people, play with it daringly. The lesson for the parent or clinician should be:

🛑Stop🛑talking about gender."

☝️This. 100% this. Thank you Dr. Schwartz.

If your boy wants to wear a dress - get him a dress! Let him paint his nails.

Let your girl cut her hair short if she wants to - it can always grow back.

Any kid should be able to play with whatever toys they like, without approbation.

However!

Watchful waiting is a time tested strategy. There's no need to change the pronouns and the name of a kid who expresses gender dysphoria.

Lots of gay men and lesbians report feelings of gender dysphoria, which they eventually left behind. It's OK to wait and see what happens.

@4th_WaveNow has an excellent essay on this same paper, with more extensive quoting, here:

4thwavenow.com/2015/07/30/one…