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Episode Transcript

Hello and welcome to another podcast episode of the Go Beyond Therapy podcast. I'm Sam Taylor, occupational therapist, and today I wanted to have a real chat around parenting from a unique space where you are neurodivergent yourself whilst also raising a neurodivergent child. Now, let's just be honest. Parenting is hard. [00:02:00] Parenting a neurodivergent child is harder, and when you as the parent are also wired differently, well that just makes it all the more challenging. If this sounds familiar, please know you are definitely not alone. In this episode, we are going to explore why this space is uniquely challenging, why it's important to normalize your own emotions and reactions, and we'll share gentle strategies that you can start weaving into your day to support yourself and your child. Let's get started.

I hear parents all the time say to me, I should be able to stay calm. I should know better. I shouldn't be triggered by my own child's behaviour. But here's the truth, when your nervous system is already running on empty and your own sensory cup is overflowing, of course it's hard to stay calm. You're not a robot, you are human. You are doing your best in circumstances that most people will never actually understand. And here's something I want you to [00:03:00] take away with you today. Self-awareness matters more than perfection. Let's take a sneak peek. When both you and your child are neurodivergent, it's really common for your triggers to overlap and interact. for example, your child's noise sensitivity, and your own sensory challenges. clash a lot. When your child needs the sameness, but you're also ADHD driven for a novelty. It just causes friction. And when you're a child's emotional dysregulation, then challenges your own emotional relations, oh, it's just, it's hard. This can create. a loop of escalation where you react to their dysregulation and they react to yours, and it just keeps building and building and building. Understanding this loop is really empowering because it reminds us that it's not about being a bad parent. It's not having a child that behaves badly, it's just too nervous systems doing their best to co-regulate in a very tricky moment. And. Both of you are [00:04:00] just doing your best.

 Now let's explore what can actually help. Again, spoiler alert, it's not going to be a quick fix. It's not going to be a magical wand where everyone regulates perfectly and you don't get triggered but here's very easy, gentle, doable strategies to support both yourself and your child.

Strategy number one, prioritize your own regulation first. I know this can feel impossible some days, but hear me out. Your regulation is the foundation to your child's regulation. I'll say that one again. Your regulation, is the foundation for your child's regulation. When your child's having a meltdown or struggling with a transition, your nervous system is naturally going to respond with frustration shutdown overwhelm or even panic. It's actually biology. It's not bad parenting, but when you can find ways to ground yourself first, it creates a [00:05:00] calmer emotional anchor for your child to attune to. This is called co-regulation, and it's at the heart of how children learn how to manage their emotions. Put simply co-regulation means that our children borrow our calm when they can't actually access their own. Their nervous system looks to ours for safety cues. Think of it as being on a small boat together in choppy waters. If you're both swaying wildly, the boat tips really easily. But if one person can steady themselves even just a little, it helps stabilize the whole boat. Now, this doesn't mean that you have to be perfectly calm all the time because honestly no parent is. It's about having small tools that you can use in the moment to slow things down for both of you.

Here are a few simple ways to prioritize your regulation while supporting co-regulation. Notice your cues early. Pay attention to the first signs when you are dysregulated. Your tight jaw, shallow breath racing heart [00:06:00] clenched fists. The earlier you notice your regulation and your dysregulation, the easier it is to intervene.

Take a micro pause every 10 seconds can help. If safe to do so, step into another room. Take some deep breaths, deep belly breaths, and regulate where you are. Next, we've got physical grounding, so press your feet firmly into the ground. Hold a cold object in your hand, run cold water over your wrists. These sensory inputs can help signal safety to your nervous system and help calm yourself down.

Narrate out loud. This model co regulates for your child. So, you might say something like, I'm feeling a bit overwhelmed. I'm going to take some deep breaths so I can help us both. Give yourself permission to basically just give yourself that moment. I need a moment to calm my body so I can help you. And this model's self-regulation and shows them it's actually okay to pause. If your child is a safety [00:07:00] risk, of course you need to stay with them. So, in those moments, even internal grounding, slowing your breath, softening your tone can be a powerful co-regulation tool. Remember, self-regulation isn't selfish, its leadership, and through co-regulation, you're helping your child build the capacity to eventually regulate on their own.

Strategy number two is create predictable routines where possible. I know this is really challenging for a lot of our families when things are so unpredictable at the moment. School pickups are unpredictable, appointment changes, kids getting sick work commitments, everything. Is just so up in the air. But for both neurodivergent parents and children, predictability creates safety. That when the world feels chaotic and when our own executive functioning is overloaded, routine helps like a bit of an anchor. They reduce the number of decisions we need to make. They lower stress, and they can help both us and our kids know what's coming up. [00:08:00] Now, this doesn't mean that life needs to run like a military operation. Flexible kind routines are often more helpful than really rigid ones. It's about building rhythm in your day that supports you and your child, like an island of predictability, where your little household can just stay on your little island of predictability, and then when they have to go on and off this island over the course of their day to school and to work, you can come back to the normality and the predictability when you get home. here are a few ways that you can weave in predictability routines at home. Start with one or two key parts of your day. You don't have to look at your entire week or overhaul everything. Often starting with mornings or bedtimes is most helpful. what are three to five steps that are happening every single morning? What is a consistent bedtime flow? Even simple order like bath pyjamas, story, lights out, can create this sort of powerful predictability with rhythm.

Use visual support. [00:09:00] many neurodivergent brains, both kids and adults process information visually. having a visual schedule, either pictures or written steps to help make routines really clear and reduce the need for constant verbal prompting because. When you probably know yourself when you're just talking at a child, trying to verbally prompt them, it's just, it's not going to work really. You can use a whiteboard, print out pictures, use an app, whatever works for you in your family. But using visual supports as a bit of a checklist in those routines that happen every single day will help relieve some of that stress and anxiety.

Next, we can have a look at build in transition cues. Transitions are often challenging for neurodivergent kids and parents. A transition cue can be a gentle warming that change is coming. putting on a five-minute timer, putting on a particular song or a simple verbal cue of two more turns, and then we're going to pack away. These cues can help sort of shift from one activity to the next with less stress [00:10:00] basically.

Next, keeping routines flexible but predictable. Life with additional needs often comes with unpredictability. So, these are appointments, meltdowns, fatigue days, but that's okay. The goal isn't perfection. It's creating a scaffolding that helps everyone feel more secure. you might prompt your family to say, normally we do X, but today we're doing Y and here's what will stay the same. This helps maintain a sense of stability, even when things change. So yeah, keeping flexible routines, but keeping them predictable, not changing the whole routine, but keeping things flexible that maybe you have an extra 10 minutes up your sleeve for the school run, because the teeth brushing's going to take an extra few minutes today because it's just one of those days.

Use routines for your own regulation too. As a neurodivergent parent, having simple routines can really help support your regulations. So, things like a morning checklist. So cognitively you don't have to hold all that information in your [00:11:00] brain. A short evening, wind down routine. Which is not scrolling on your phone. this might be a warming cup of tea at the end of the day. It might be a hot shower, it might be some breathing exercises, journaling, whatever this looks like. But it helps remind your body that you're coming into bedtime, regulate self-care book ins in your week. So actually, book in self-care if that's, going for a 15-minute walk before you pick your kids up on a Friday afternoon, but actually booking in time, it's not a negotiable because I find a lot of parents these days are having to, they feel like they just have to do it all, which you don't. You need to find time to help yourself first. These small actions can help reduce fatigue and help you feel more grounded, making it easier to actually co-regulate with your child.

Our final strategy that we're going to talk about today is practicing self-compassion. Now, this one is an absolute close topic to my [00:12:00] heart because I hear so many parents talking about how bad they are at parenting and managing their children's behaviour and kindness and self-kindness goes a very long way. When things go off the rails, and they will, how you speak to yourself matters more than you might think. so often as neurodivergent parents, they carry an invisible backpack full of shoulds. I should stay calm. I should be more organized. I should have handled that better. I should be able to do it all. But when life gets messy, and it always does, those shoulds turn into this shame spiral, and they often then translate into, I'm hopeless. I failed my child. Other parents would cope better than I do. And it becomes sort of this identity that it goes from being, I should have stayed calm to, I feel hopeless, to, I am hopeless. And it becomes part of these parents' identity, which is really, really heartbreaking. So, let's pause, breathe, and we're going to [00:13:00] flip this on its head. self-compassion is more about learning how to treat yourself the way you would treat a friend. With kindness and understanding and a huge dose of reality because the truth is, parenting in this space is really complex. You are navigating your child's needs and your own needs. You're navigating a system. If it's NDIS, education system, therapy, and it's really overwhelming, you have to wear so many different hats between a parenting hat, a therapist hat, a teacher hat, a co-regulation hat, usually a friend hat too, that it is normal to have these really hard days, and it's normal to lose your cool, and it's normal to feel burnt out and stretched really thin.

So, here's some ways you could start practicing self-compassion. You need to catch your critical voice. When you notice harsh self-talk, you need to pause and ask, would you say this to a friend? Would you say this to another parent in a same situation? If not, then it's not [00:14:00] helpful. It's not a helpful story that you are telling yourself.

You need to use a self-compassionate reframe. So rather than I'm hopeless, we need to say that was a hard moment. I'm learning and we're both learning. Parenting is hard and I'm doing my absolute best and it's okay to be human. Acknowledge the invisible load that you are carrying. Many parents minimalize the mental, emotional and logistical load that they are under. Naming it really helps validate your experience. this is a lot and I'm showing up. I'm carrying so much more unseen effort. Remember, progress over perfection. The goal is not to be flawless, endlessly patient, parent. The goal is to be parent who is growing, modelling, self-awareness, and repairing when things go wrong.

Kids learn so much better from us taking responsibility and returning to connection after tough moments. And one last truth I want you to take away with [00:15:00] you are You are enough, not perfect enough. Right here in this messy real human parenting journey. Self-compassion isn't about exercising unhelpful behaviour. It's creating emotional safety. You need to keep showing up for yourself and for your child. When we treat ourselves kindly, we model for our children that they too can treat themselves kindly, even when life is hard.

That is, it for our strategies for today. I'm going to make a part two episode where we can discuss some of the other strategies that I had listed because it's taken a bit of time to actually pick apart some of these strategies.

I find people just say, oh, just do some deep breathing. Oh, just do some reflection where you need to actually go into a bit deeper, like how does deep breathing actually help? It seems a bit silly and it seems a bit funny, but how can we actually help properly? Thanks