When a child comes out as LGBTQ to a parent,Brussels International Festival of Eroticism they're hoping to be embraced and supported. But for a parent just learning what it means to raise an out child, there can be a lot of questions and complex feelings to sort through on the road to acceptance.
To help, a comprehensive and sensitive e-care package titled "Coming Out With Care" was released Tuesday by My Kid Is Gay, an offshoot of the popular LGBTQ website Everyone Is Gay. The organization created the resource to help parents support their LGBTQ children soon after they come out.
SEE ALSO: Love, Your Queer Daughter: Coming out to my Chinese parents"Coming Out With Care," launched to coincide with National Coming Out Day on Oct. 11, is equal parts education and self-care.
"There needs to be a time when ... you are giving yourself time to think and process."
My Kid Is Gay co-founder Kristin Russo says there's a lot of pressure on families of queer kids to learn a massive amount of information right away. But from proper terminology to queer history and culture, there's a lot of ground to cover -- and parents can sometimes struggle to find the support they need, too.
Russo has seen this struggle firsthand. She says the inspiration behind the e-care package is personal, stemming from her own coming out experience.
"I came out to my parents in 1998," Russo tells Mashable. "My mom especially had a really hard time with it from a religious standpoint, and from a standpoint of not having a lot of information. A lot of the work [that I do for parents] comes from that personal place of wishing she could have had something she could access that would answer her questions."
Instead of simply wishing that resource would exist, Russo helped create it in collaboration of the My Kid Is Gay team. Parents and guardians of LGBTQ or questioning kids can sign up to receive the care package via email by signing up through an online form.
But Russo says the care package is merely the first step, and an additional monthly newsletter will be sent out as a complement to the kit to help continue the learning process.
The package includes links to My Kid Is Gay articles, providing parents with essential information on terms, identities and tips for sensitive parenting. One of the most vital elements, Russo says, is the encouragement for parents to acknowledge their own feelings, facilitated through a journaling page, a coloring page and an uplifting Spotify playlist that reinforces acceptance.
"For family members, reading things and learning things is huge in acceptance and support," Russo says. "But there also needs to be decompression and self-care. There needs to be a time when you are not cramming information into your brain, but you are giving yourself time to think and process."
In a society where the celebration of LGBTQ identity is still often discouraged, families serve as a vital support system for queer youth. Russo says she hopes the package helps parents embrace their LGBTQ kids while also supporting themselves.
"We have to be accepting of the fact that we may struggle and stumble," she says. "We have to take care of ourselves and we have to have patience with ourselves to get to where we want to be ... And we just hope this can help."
You can sign up for the e-care package here, and check out the curated playlist from My Kid Is Gay below.
Topics LGBTQ Social Good
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