I’ve always known that my role as a parent is to support and guide my children as they grow into whoever they’re meant to be. My biggest hope is that they reach adulthood feeling happy, safe, and confident in who they are—whatever form that takes.
What I didn’t expect was just how deeply healing that role could be.
I didn’t realise how fiercely I would burn with the need to protect them from the things I experienced as a child. Not because my parents were cruel or neglectful—but because they simply didn’t know. They didn’t see the signs of my neurodivergence. Like so many children in the ’80s and ’90s, especially those of us who weren’t “high needs,” I was left to cope with big emotions and confusing experiences completely alone. I was dismissed as hysterical or just plain difficult.
And that led to a lot of distress, confusion, and a broken adult who learned to mask everything just to survive.
Read about my personal journey here: How Do I Human? Discovering I’m Neurodivergent After a Lifetime of Misunderstanding
The Camping Trip That Shifted Everything
This week, we decided to brave a camping trip. Our previous attempts had ended in sensory overwhelm and screaming fits. Both years, we gave up and stayed home.
But this year felt different.
Things had been calmer. We were learning each other’s rhythms more and the kids were coping better at school. So we gave it another go.
About thirty minutes before we were due to leave, our six-year-old, H, called a family meeting in the front room. He launched into one of his now-familiar, adorably grown up monologues—but this one stopped me in my tracks.
“I would like us to all have a discussion because we are going camping today, and I want everyone to have the opportunity to talk about anything that is making them nervous. We need to talk about the things that make us nervous because we can find out more information and help each other. I am nervous about going to this campsite because I have never been there before and I don’t know what it’s going to be like. What are you feeling nervous about?”
As I stood there, slacked jawed, processing what had just happened, our four-year-old chimed in—worried we hadn’t packed enough food. And H reassured him gently:
“I’m sure Mummy and Daddy packed enough, but I know we can always go to the shop if we need something.”
That’s when it hit me.
The Parenting Approach I Needed as a Child
My day-to-day interactions with my kids—how I respond when they’re overwhelmed, how I explain things when the world feels too big—those things were working. Not only were my children learning to express their needs safely, they were learning to listen to each other with empathy. They were problem-solving, regulating, connecting.
And that broken six-year-old part of me just wanted to cry.
This was the approach I needed growing up. To be heard, not hushed. To express fear without shame. To trust that my needs would be met with compassion instead of eye-rolls or punishment.
I can’t rewrite my childhood. But I can make sure my kids never have to unlearn their authentic selves just to feel loved or accepted.
If You’re Parenting Neurodivergent Kids, This Is For You
If parenting an autistic or ADHD child sometimes feels like climbing a mountain with clown shoes on, please remember: your kindness is doing more than you realise.
Every time you offer a hug instead of a lecture, dim the lights instead of saying “you’ll get used to it,” or listen instead of dismiss—you’re giving your child what most of us never got.
Validation. Safety. A sense of being seen.
This is something I desperately needed as a kid, read about how it affected me here: When You Learn Your Needs Don’t Matter: The Emotional Toll of Being Undiagnosed
They’re learning how to self-advocate, how to show empathy, how to move through the world as their true selves.
You’re doing an incredible job. Keep going.
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