When Everyoneā€™s Neurodivergent: Parenting Through the Overwhelm
If you’ve ever wondered how you’re supposed to co-regulate when your own nervous system is already frayed…
If you’ve ever locked yourself in the bathroom just to cry or stim or breathe...
If you’ve ever looked at your kid melting down and thought, I get it, I feel the same way right now...
This post is for you.
Because parenting neurodivergent kids when you’re neurodivergent too isn’t a quirky plot twist. It’s often the default, and it’s real, valid, and hard in ways most people don’t talk about.
Why This Feels So Overwhelming (and You’re Not Doing It Wrong)
Neurodivergent parents, whether you’re autistic, ADHD, PDA, bipolar, sensory sensitive, have anxiety, or are otherwise wired a little differently, bring so much wisdom and empathy to parenting.
But we also bring:
- Lower capacity for chaos, noise, and multitasking
- Greater need for downtime, transitions, and predictability
- Intense feelings of guilt when we’re not the parent we wish we could be
- Burnout that’s not a metaphor, but a full-body crash that can last weeks or months
And when our kids are also neurodivergent. Also struggling with big feelings, sensory needs, executive dysfunction, or demand avoidance, the load doesn’t just double. It compounds.
We can’t just borrow spoons from tomorrow. Tomorrow has its own demands.
We can’t just push through. It breaks us.
We can’t just “regulate first" because we never had time to regulate at all.
What Burnout Can Look Like (and Why It’s Not Your Fault)
Parental burnout isn’t always dramatic. Sometimes it’s just...
- Staring at the pile of laundry like it’s written in another language
- Snapping at your child and immediately feeling devastated
- Crying every time you drop something or hear a loud noise
- Losing your words, your memory, or your ability to make basic decisions
- Feeling numb to everything you know you care about
This isn’t a personal failure. It’s your body telling the truth. You’ve been doing too much, with too little support, in a world that often expects you to parent as if you’re not disabled (or as if your kids aren’t.)
You’re Not Weak. You’re Wired Differently.
Neurodivergent parents often try harder than anyone else. We spend hours researching nervous system science, learning how to honor our child’s wiring, unlearning toxic parenting models, and showing up again and again with patience and intention.
But here’s the kicker:
You can know all the things and still get overwhelmed.
You can believe in connection over control and still yell when your body is overstimulated.
You can love your child’s uniqueness and still feel exhausted by the relentless needs.
That doesn’t make you a bad parent. It makes you a human. One with a differently wired brain, trying to raise another differently wired brain, without a manual or a village.
What Helps (and What You Can Gently Let Go Of)
You don’t need more discipline or willpower. You need more support, more rest, more gentleness.
Some things that actually help:
Micro-replenishment: 2-minute moments to stim, breathe, text a friend, or lie down with your eyes closed.
Visual supports for you: Think whiteboards, alarms, checklists. Externalizing helps unburden your working memory.
Low-spoon connection tools: Games you can play while lying down, shared playlists, parallel play. You don’t always need to do more to feel close.
Permission to drop the ball: Not every ball is glass. Some are rubber. Letting some things go is not only okay, it’s essential.
And most importantly:
Name your capacity, out loud to your kids. Not as an apology, but as a model of honest, respectful communication.
“My body is really tired right now. I want to help you, but I need 10 minutes to rest first.”
You Deserve Support As You Are
If you’re parenting while neurodivergent, you don’t need to fix yourself before showing up for your kids. Your awareness, your insights, and your compassion are enough.
The world isn’t always designed for us, but that doesn’t mean we’re broken.
We parent best not by masking harder, but by leaning into what we uniquely bring:
deep empathy, creative problem-solving, fierce love, and lived understanding.
You are not behind. You are not too much. You are not alone.
You are a neurodivergent parent doing your best to raise neurodivergent kids in a world that wasn’t built with either of you in mind. And that makes your efforts radical, courageous, and worthy of deep care.
