“I have two neurodivergent kids and they couldn’t be more different. My older son’s teachers always told me he was “a good kid” — he never acted out or hurt another kid in frustration — but he did sleep through class sometimes. It wasn’t until he was a junior in high school that I realized he wasn’t sleeping — he was dysregulated and “frozen with fear!”
My younger son was, as we called it, a “much more effective self-advocate.” We always knew when he was having a hard time! After he put the school into lockdown for the fourth time, we started taking parenting classes and reading every book we could find.
What made the biggest difference was understanding how stress behavior looked for each of my kids. Once we knew what to look for, it was easier to help them.”
— SARAH