Back to School When Your Child Is Neurodivergent (An Ode to All of the Moms Who Worry With Good Reason)

Written by Dr. Colleen Reichmann, owner and clinical director of Wildflower Therapy

The back to school season brings up worries for every parent. It feels nearly universal, right? But there is a particular kind of back-to-school anxiety that comes with being the mom of a neurodivergent child. It’s worth putting words to this. Because it can feel a little crazy-making to hear “every parent worries!” over and over, without an acknowledgement of the real differences in the level, intensity, and legitimacy of this worry that parents of neurodivergent children carry. Their worries are not only in the “will my child like their teacher?” realm, but also in the “will the teacher like my child?” one. 

Because for most mothers of neurodivergent children, fears around acceptance are not limited to peers. These fears expand and unfold into the adults in their lives. And with good reason. Often, moms of neurodivergent children have lived experience of watching  their child actively be told “you are not welcome here” from other parents, activities, and sometimes classrooms.  

 If you are the mother of a neurodivergent child, I am guessing your brain sounds a lot like this these days:

Will their teacher understand them? Will someone mistake their overwhelm for defiance? Will they be allowed to move, take breaks, ask questions, or do things differently? Will their accommodations actually be followed? Will they make friends? Will they experience outright bullying? Will they experience that more subtle exclusion and covert cruelty that is just as awful, but just harder to get others to notice? Will they come home exhausted from spending the entire day trying to fit into a world that wasn’t designed with their brain in mind?

And perhaps the hardest question of all:

Will this be a year when my child feels like they belong? Or a year when they feel like something is wrong with them and that they are inherently bad?

All this to say: if you have a neurodivergent child, you may find that back-to-school season brings up feelings that you assume other parents don’t always understand. You are correct in that assumption. The weight of these worries is uniquely heavy.

Because you aren’t just worried about the right school supplies- or even just about grades. You’re preparing for another year of advocacy. Another year of meetings, emails, accommodations, teacher introductions, IEPs or 504 plans, homework battles, social challenges, sensory overload, and trying to explain your child to people.

And if you’re already feeling that familiar knot in your stomach as summer winds down, I see you. 

When back-to-school means more than a new classroom

For many children, returning to school means adjusting to a new teacher, a new schedule, new classmates, and new expectations. This can be challenging for EVERY child. But for neurodivergent children, those changes can involve additional layers of sensory, executive functioning, social, communication, and emotional demands. And it doesn’t take away from how universally challenging this all is to name the added layers that neurodivergent children face. 

The transition back to school itself can be difficult for these kiddos. Because for so many of them, there are needs that may not fit neatly into the expectations of the school environment. And as parents, there are so many fears that come up about how those needs are going to be perceived (and maybe even how we ourselves will end up being perceived as parents)

You might be worried that your child who struggles to sit still will be viewed as disruptive.

Or that your child who becomes overwhelmed by noise may be seen as difficult.

Maybe you’ve seen your child labeled as not listening, when you know that they truly have differences when it comes to processing verbale instructions.

Or you have a sweet kiddo who doesn’t make eye contact routinely, doesn’t participate in “the expected way,” or has an intense interest- and you’ve seen all of this being perceived as off putting to adults and peers. 

All of these examples fall under the shared umbrella of the painful reality that many neurodivergent families encounter: the behavior people see isn’t the whole story when it comes to our children.

As a mother who has known your child from day 1, you have probably tracked some of this from infancy. You’ve turned into an expert in terms of your child- a detective around what the why is-because you’ve had to! So many parents of neurodivergent children speak to this experience of years-long detective work. Neurodivergence doesn’t come with a textbook or manual, so parents discover that they will need to become the lead researchers on their own child. 

As that lead researcher, you have probably discovered that his defiance is actually linked to overwhelm. Or that her avoidance has a clear thread back to crippling anxiety. Or that what others label as laziness is actually executive dysfunction at play. 

You’ve gained a clear understanding that your child’s nervous system is a clear player in how they present, and that the capacity of their nervous system might truly be different from a lot of other children. 

You have learned the all too important lesson that behavior will only truly begin to make more sense when we ask what is underneath it. And you’re likely just so worried that the people in your child’s life won’t think to ask this question. 

And then there is you.

One of the things we don’t talk about enough is what it is like to parent a neurodivergent child in a system that can sometimes feel like it was designed for someone else’s child.

You may have become an expert in your child’s needs, and you know which environments are too stimulating. You also know the teeny signs of hunger, exhaustion, or sensory overload, and you spot them long before most others might.

You know that your child needs a little more time to transition. You know that the seemingly small change in routine can have a very big impact. You know what happens when they spend the whole day masking.

You also know that your child is funny, creative, intense, sensitive, curious, loving, determined, and deeply themselves. But you have the lived experience of having to prove all of this to others, so there is a level of hypervigilance around it all at this point.

This can be so exhausting. Please know this. There are real reasons for this hypervigilance. AND it’s all so draining, and fundamentally hard in a way that others may never quite grasp.  

It can make school feel personal in a way that is difficult to explain. When a teacher misunderstands your child’s behavior, there can be this understandable defensiveness off the bat, because your shackles are already raised. 

When your child comes home saying they are “bad” or “weird,” you may feel heartbroken and immediately broken, because you were already on edge and waiting for this to happen. 

When you’re asked to come to another meeting about something your child is doing “wrong,” you may find yourself making list after list of talking points, and feeling like you need to immediately jump into the protector role. But at the same time as all of this is going on, you have constant worries about being that parent. (You know, the one who is seen as demanding, overly sensitive, or helicopter-ish). 

So now I’m going to be your hype-woman here and repeat to you what you likely already know: advocating for your child’s needs is not the same thing as being difficult.

You can be collaborative while firmly standing up for your child. You can trust teachers, but also ask questions. Teachers will read that genuine desire to collaborate, by the way. They will likely feel this from you over time if you try to come from that earnest, genuine place of wanting to work with them on supporting your child. You can appreciate what a school is doing well and still say when something isn’t working.

These things can all coexist- and it’s important to remind yourself of this repeatedly (especially because it’s so hard to remember when emotions are running high.) 

You don’t have to make your child “school ready”

August approaches, there can be enormous pressure to get everything in place before the first day.

Earlier bedtimes.

New routines.

School supply shopping.

Classroom visits.

Social stories.

IEP meetings.

Teacher emails.

Practice runs.

New lunch containers.

The list can feel endless. And yes- some preparation can absolutely make the transition easier. (For example, predictability, gradual routine changes, classroom visits, and communication with school staff can be particularly helpful for children who find transitions difficult.) But I want to offer you something different, too:

Your child does not need to become less neurodivergent in order to deserve a good school year.

They don’t need to be perfectly regulated. They shouldn’t need to sit still all day. They also don’t necessarily need to make friends in exactly the way other children do.

If they are neurodivergent, what they likely actually need? Accommodations. The goal isn’t to prepare your child to tolerate an environment that doesn’t work for them at any cost (even though I know it can feel that way, and the urge can be so intense!) But truly, the goal is to help create an environment around them with enough support, flexibility, understanding, and connection that they can participate as themselves.

And that may look different from child to child-and may change from year to year. 

What your child may need most from you this school year

So with all of that in mind, I deeply understand why you may be tempted to focus on all the things that need to be fixed before September. But I want to be one person in your corner telling you to take a deep breath, and focus on what you want your child to know: 

You are not bad because school is hard for you.

You are not lazy because your brain needs more breaks.

You are not too much because you experience the world intensely.

You are not behind because your development doesn’t look exactly like someone else’s.

You don’t have to earn my love. Ever. 

And perhaps most importantly:

I believe you when you tell me something is hard.

Because you already have the lived experience to know that you won’t always be able to change the situation immediately. Not every request can be accommodated (not by a long shot, as it would appear…) And you have seen that your child will continue to have to experience frustration and repeatedly be stretched outside of their comfort zone.

None of those things are truly solvable- because they are too often actually just truly outside of our control as parents. But what is in our control? Reminding them doggedly that they are not alone, that you are in their corner, that they are not broken, and that you and your home will be their soft place to land, always. 

And what about your anxiety?

I’m going to be totally upfront here- I have truly yet to meet a parent in these circumstances that does not experience a ton of anxiety. So many are incredibly accepting of their child’s neurodivergence, and yet they still feel scared of how they will be perceived. They believe in neurodiversity, and they still dread the school meeting and having to explain it. They know their child is wonderful exactly as they are, and still worry about whether the world agrees. They are proud of their child and exhausted by advocating for them. They are hopeful about the school year and afraid of it at the same time.

I say all of this because I want to make the next point very clear: You don’t have to choose one feeling. You carry fear and hope, dread and excitement, and exhaustion and passion all at once. It’s the nature of this kind of parenting journey. 

But also, please know that carrying all of those feelings can be exhausting. As is keeping the running list of what if’s in your own head. (What if they hate the teacher, What if they stop eating lunch, What if they have a meltdown, What if they don’t make friends, What if the school calls, What if they get suspended, What if they lose their IEP, What if, What if, What if…) 

Sometimes therapy can be a place where you can share the what-ifs, and unload the fears. Your one space where you don’t have to advocate, explain your child’s diagnosis, justify an accommodation, or figure out what to do next. It can also be a space where you don’t have to listen to the “have you tried, have you considered..” advice (all of which you have already tried and considered 20 times over). It can be an hour where you get to be a person too, and where someone who deeply understands this journey can sit with you in the hard, andremind your of you fierce resilience. 

You are allowed to want support, too

If you are the mother of a neurodivergent child, you may spend much of your time thinking about what your child needs. But you have needs, too. You need somewhere to put the worry- a space to process the anger, grief, guilt, exhaustion, and uncertainty that can accompany this unique parenting journey.

You may need help navigating your own anxiety around your child at school so that you can actually see clearly to help your child navigate theirs! 

Alternatively, you may need support communicating with your child’s school without losing yourself in the process. It can be so helpful to work with a therapist who has innate knowledge of this world so that these discussions can feel less mysterious.

And sometimes you simply need someone to say:

I understand why this is hard.I understand why you’re tired.I understand why you are worried.AND you are NOT failing your child.

You are parenting a child who may experience the world differently in a world that does not always make room for difference easily.

That is hard work. And you awe-inspiring for showing up in all of the ways that take incredible strength, that no one sees.

A different kind of back-to-school goal

As this school year begins, I want you to take a deep breath. And then, while you are scheduling in the pre-school visits and meetings, or picking up the sensory-friendly outfits- take a moment to remind yourself of the most important foundational beams underneath all of these in-the-moment-needs: that you see your child as inherently worthy, that you show up relentlessly as an expression of your love, and that they know they have you in their corner no matter what 

Maybe the true goal is for your child to know that when school is hard, they have somewhere safe to land, always. And maybe the goal is for you to remember that you deserve that, too.

 Neurodiversity-Affirming Therapy for Children, Teens, and Parents in Philadelphia and the Main Line

At Wildflower Therapy, we believe neurodivergent children do not need to be taught that there is something wrong with the way their brains work. Our therapists provide neurodiversity-affirming therapy that recognizes both the challenges and strengths that can come with ADHD, autism, learning differences, sensory differences, anxiety, and other forms of neurodivergence.

We also support parents who are navigating the emotional and practical realities of raising a neurodivergent child-including school anxiety, advocacy fatigue, parenting stress, and the complicated feelings that can arise when your child’s needs don’t always fit neatly into traditional expectations.

If back-to-school season has you feeling overwhelmed, worried, or simply tired of carrying everything on your own, therapy can be a place for you, too. Please reach out today to schedule your free consultation call.

Wildflower Therapy offers therapy for children, teens, and parents in Philadelphia, Devon, and throughout Pennsylvania via telehealth.