We may never know as much about parenting as we did before we had children. After all, we all had the experience of being parented, and we were able to observe others – siblings, friends, classmates – being parented as well. We knew what seemed helpful, and we knew what strategies we wanted to avoid. Many of us approached the addition of a child to the family with the assumption that all of this “experience” would be useful in parenting the children who would enter our lives.
And then the child arrives. In many cases, it’s a neurotypical (NT) child being parented by NT adults. Both have brains that work in (very) generally the same way. We have a lot of resources to draw from, because most of what we’ve observed, most of what we’ve read, and often most of what we’ve experienced have been strategies and expectations geared towards an NT child. This isn’t to say that parenting an NT child doesn’t have challenges. But most of those challenges are similar to the ones we see other families having.
The arrival of a neurodivergent (ND) child can play out a little differently. An ND child isn’t going to fit the NT mold. As a result, a cookie-cutter approach to parenting may not result in the learning and behavior change we expect. When this happens, there is usually a chorus of well-meaning (and not so well-meaning) people telling you that you “just” need to be more consistent, or “just” need to set consequences. They say that you should “just” make your child do what they’re supposed to do. We” just” need to parent our child in the “right”way. But if we cling to the idea that there is a “right” way to parent, the only alternative is that something is wrong with us as parents or that there is something wrong with our child.
This leaves us with a choice. Do we accept this assessment, or do we try something different? Do we examine each idea that we’ve brought into parenting through the lens of what works, what doesn’t work, and what is consistent with the kind of parent we want to be? Giving up the idea that there is a right way to do things is scary, but it’s also incredibly liberating. Letting go of what we thought we knew opens up space for who we – parent and child – can be.