originally posted 8/5/2025 on previous project
The more I have been consuming online content about parenting, neurodivergence, and parenting neurodivergent kids, the more I’ve been seeing that a lot of the challenges I have had with parenting are challenges of neurodivergence.
Some examples:
“Twin 1,” age 8, strongly attaches to her belongings and will not consent for me to get rid of literally anything…so we have a LOT of toys and other stuff. (I can’t just throw them out when she’s not looking—she will know—and that would violate her trust in me.)
“Twin 2,” age 8 (the “younger” twin, who has been diagnosed with autism and who may also have a “PDA profile”), had a lot of struggles with brushing her teeth. For a long time, the only way I could get her to brush her teeth was if I would brush my teeth at the same time with her.
I can’t just say “clean your room” or “get ready for bed” and expect them to do it—those are overwhelming and impossible tasks to them; they need me to accompany and “co-regulate” with them for each small step of the process. (However, if I say, “Put on a show for us,” they will plan, coordinate, and execute the whole thing, including costumes and choreography.)
We usually need to rely on screens to get them to sit down and eat.
Twin 2, who’s always had trouble sleeping, still wakes up every night and comes to our bed (unless I just sleep in her bed with her).
Culture seems to expect that kids should be able, by the twins’ age, to independently do their daily hygiene routines, keep their rooms clean, go to sleep and stay asleep in their own beds, cooperate with helping to keep the house clean and get to school on time, and so on.
I have so often felt like a failure because we weren’t meeting those expectations.
But now I understand that those expectations are based on neurotypical models…and we are not neurotypical. In fact, according to what I’ve learned from other neurodivergent parents online, all of those struggles I listed are typical in neurodivergent families.
So it’s not that I’m just a failure!! We are genuinely a “special needs” family, even if our special needs aren’t visible to others on the outside.
I will, of course, keep learning, experimenting, and trying to find strategies that make our lives better. But knowing that it’s not just me, that our struggles are common to neurodivergent families…this feels like a lens of grace.
A photo I took the other day of a lily with unusual coloring — unusual but beautiful — maybe like us…and like me…because this lens of grace also applies to me personally: realizing the ways in which I’m neurodivergent myself has helped me look back at my own life and realize “I’m not just a failure!”