Parenting Neurodivergent Children, Teens,
and Young Adults

Contemporary parenting is challenging. Add on a neurodivergent brain and the daily stressful experiences your child encounters, and parenting demands take a quantum leap to another level entirely. While there is no singular definition of the neurodivergent brain, several diagnostic profiles are often associated with this term resulting in unique challenges to the individual as they navigate a neurotypical world:

  • Gifted children often absorb and process the world around them more deeply and broadly, at a faster pace, and in more intense ways than their peers. This can lead to anxiety, periods of low mood, challenges with flexible thinking, and executive functioning challenges among other areas of difficulty.
  • Autistic children are incredibly diverse, but many share a set of common challenges in rigid thinking, sensory perception, unique social needs, struggles with communication, bullying and exclusion, regulating emotions, among other areas. 
  • Children with ADHD like their autistic peers are highly diverse. ADHD is a disorder of regulation resulting in children struggling to manage emotions, organization, impulsivity, behavioural needs, problem solving, flexible thinking, and a host of other responsibilities inherent to the pre-frontal cortex.
  • Children with specific learning difficulties such as dyslexia, dyscalculia, dysgraphia, DCD, SPD, and others, face academic hurdles from an early age, but also often struggle to connect with peers, and engage with ease in activities of daily living.
  • Anxious children including those with OCD often view the world as dangerous until proven safe. They remain on high alert even at times of rest and safety. These children can be rigid, emotionally sensitive, persistent, and overly demanding of parental support.​
Picture

Despite the diversity amoung and within these profiles, the common thread is that typical parenting strategies are insufficient to support and nurture a complex and unique mind. The needs, wants, and ways of being of the neurodivergent child require a unique set of parenting skills. Battling for control, relying on rewards and punishment, coercion, threats, giving in, or giving up, tend to fail. And these standard parenting methods often leave parents exhausted, ashamed, and even sacrificing important areas of their own lives including their health. Fortunately, there is another way. When we learn how to stand alongside our child and help them:
  • Identify their emotions
  • Link emotions to unmet needs
  • Communicate these needs to others
  • Brainstorm solutions to meet the needs
We become the parents they need and we want to be. When we can listen to our children without needing to control or direct, we can really hear them. From this position we can be confident in the child/teen's ability to explore their world and  rejoin them when they need our help or to rejoice in their victories. Using a variety     of empirically supported treatments Dr. Martinez can help guide you towards a  better and more fulfilling relationship with your neurodivergent child/teen.