"Niche Construction" & Society's Rejection of Diversity

I've felt tension and struggle in my relationship to certain traditional expectations for a very long time. The tension has always been there, but it used to be accompanied by a sense of shame and failure because I wasn't doing what I was supposed to be doing. Now that I've begun the journey toward embracing my differences, creating a life that suits me feels different - more freeing than shameful.

Last month I started reading a book called The Power of Neurodiversity by Thomas Armstrong and it introduced this concept called "niche construction." This concept is a psychological take on the original, which hails from evolutionary biology and refers to the way that an organism can change its own environment. Basically, we all find ourselves in life circumstances which hold certain expectations of us and which require certain strengths. This is our niche. But to some extent, this can be modified. An ideal niche takes advantage of our personal strengths and doesn't rely overly-much on our weaknesses. "Niche construction" is the act of consciously creating a life that is well-suited to us instead of beating ourselves up for not fitting into a square hole.

"...niche construction is the act of consciously creating a life that is well-suited to us instead of beating ourselves up for not fitting into a square hole."

Admittedly, high levels of niche construction require some degree of privilege. We have more freedom to hack our jobs and schedules when our basic needs are met and we are only able to request legal accommodations if we have access to extensive medical care. But many of us do have a variety of areas in which we can at least rethink how they might be customized to better suit our needs and strengths. One way I diverge from accepted norms is in choosing a part-time work schedule that breaks up the traditional 5-day work week. This works really well for me, partially because knowing that I only have three days to get through before an off-day is really helpful.

The pressure to fit mainstream expectations also shows up for our kids in a way that I find especially heartbreaking: the expectation that they fit seamlessly into institutions like schools. Medication is often the first solution offered to parents whose kids are diagnosed with psych labels or found to be struggling - probably because it's easier to prescribe than to admit that schools don't work for many people for totally valid reasons, to accept that our society is incredibly prejudiced against people with differences, or to advocate for systemic changes that would actually improve this.

I once read about a teacher who said her classroom had two desks for one student who struggled to sit still. When he felt like he needed to get up, he walked to the other desk and sat down there to work. This was a creative, effective accommodation, but most people would have never been willing to give it a shot. They would have said it was too weird, too distracting, too impractical. Yet she had tried it, and it had worked.

I can't count the number of times I've heard adults or teachers tell kids to sit on their bottom in a chair. Yet this is a totally unnecessary expectation that hurts a lot of kids who aren't doing anything wrong and who can't sit totally still, but who are still somehow managing to stay in their chair. When we lack an understanding of diversity, we allow systems to routinely punish people for differences when they should actually be accommodated or congratulated (as in the case of the kids in chairs) on their awesome work accomplished in slightly unconventional but totally acceptable ways.

"succeeding differently doesn't mean succeeding less."

Niche construction is an idea that I think is helpful on an individual level but which also points to societal issues that can make constructing a viable niche difficult or impossible. And that can seem like a big issue to tackle, but tackling it begins individually because it starts with all of us realizing that people succeeding differently doesn't mean succeeding less. We have to start to realize that we've internalized so many ideas about what people should be able to do that we've never stopped to question why many of those things (like having our butts flat on a seat) even matter. And that, I think, is when we can become the kind of bosses and teachers and parents who understand that the best way for people to succeed is on their own terms.