As I sit at my desk, adjusting my reading glasses, I find myself reflecting on how something as simple as this tool – these glasses that help me see clearly – represents a profound truth about labels and support. By definition, needing glasses means I’m visually impaired. That’s a disability. But no one would ever think of denying me these glasses or questioning my need for them. In fact, most people would go out of their way to help me obtain them, offering support until I could get them replaced if they broke.
Why, then, do we hesitate when our children need different kinds of support?
My name is Latina Nickelson, M.Ed., and as an Educational Advocate and a mother of three beautiful Black boys with neuro diversities, I’ve learned some of my most important lessons through my failures.
With my firstborn son, I made choices that I now recognize came from a place of generational trauma. Let me ask you something: If your child was diagnosed with diabetes, would you refuse insulin? Would you say, “I don’t want my child labeled as diabetic,” and deny them the medical support they need to thrive? Of course not. You would move heaven and earth to get them the proper medication, monitoring, and support.
Yet when my first son showed signs of struggling, I listened to those who said he “just needed discipline.” I fell prey to our community’s deep-seated fears about labels, choosing to handle everything “in-house” rather than seek the support he deserved. Just as refusing insulin wouldn’t make diabetes go away, denying my son’s needs didn’t make them disappear – it only left him without the tools he needed to succeed.
Dr. Joy DeGruy’s work on Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome helps us understand why – this hesitation isn’t just about today’s concerns, but about centuries of medical exploitation, educational discrimination, and systematic dehumanization of Black bodies and minds.
It took a jarring encounter with a school psychologist who declared my second son “will never learn” to shake me awake. Those words, intended to limit and dismiss, instead ignited a fire within me. At that moment, I realized that avoiding labels hadn’t protected my first son – it had only limited his access to the support he needed to thrive. This harsh awakening transformed how I advocated for my children and eventually led me to become an educational advocate for our entire community.
I recently served as an expert witness in an Atkins case that mirrored my early mistakes. A mother had spent over three decades – thirty years – seeking help for her child. Without proper diagnosis and documentation, doors kept closing. Support services remained out of reach. The system that should have protected and nurtured her child instead became a maze of dead ends and denied services.
This case hit particularly close to home because I saw in this mother’s struggle the path I might have continued down had I not received my wake-up call. As Dr. DeGruy’s work illuminates, our fear isn’t paranoia; it’s a rational response to historical and ongoing systemic racism in educational and medical institutions. But sometimes, our attempts to protect our children can inadvertently limit their access to crucial support.
The journey from avoiding labels to embracing them as tools for advocacy wasn’t easy. Each step required confronting both personal and generational fears. But watching my second and third sons receive the support they needed because I was willing to fight for proper identification showed me what was possible. Each evaluation, each IEP meeting, and each therapy session became an act of advocacy – not just for my children but for our community’s right to appropriate support and services.
To my fellow Black parents navigating this journey:
As an educational advocate who learned these lessons the hard way, I’ve seen how early intervention and appropriate support can change trajectories. As a mother who initially resisted and then embraced the power of proper identification, I’ve experienced both the cost of hesitation and the relief of watching my children thrive when given the right tools and understanding.
The journey of parenting neurodivergent Black children requires us to hold multiple truths: the validity of our community’s historical trauma and mistrust, the importance of proper identification for accessing services, and our children’s right to be fully seen and supported in their beautiful complexity.
Let’s work together to create a future where seeking support for our children doesn’t feel like a betrayal of our community but rather an assertion of our right to appropriate services and understanding. I share my story – including my initial failures – because I want other parents to know they’re not alone in their fears but also that there’s a path forward. Our children deserve nothing less than our fierce advocacy and the full range of supports available to help them thrive.
Latina Nickelson, M.Ed., is an Educational Advocate and mother of three neurodivergent boys. Her work, born from personal experience and professional expertise, focuses on supporting families navigating special education services while honoring their cultural experiences and concerns.