Have you ever looked back at the parent you were before you understood your child's neurodivergence and felt a quiet, heavy wave of regret? Not because you were a bad parent, but because you just didn't have the information you needed yet.

In this week's episode of the ADHD Women's Wellbeing Podcast, we’re doing something a little different! I want to share an episode of another podcast (from Understood.org) with you called Everyone Gets a Juice Box, and I want to share it with you as I know so many of you not only have ADHD, but are also raising kids who are neurodivergent.

In this episode, Jessica is joined by Dion Chavis. A few years ago, Dion's son was diagnosed with autism, his teenage daughter received an ADHD diagnosis, and shortly after, in his early 40s, Dion was diagnosed with ADHD himself. Instead of looking away, he looked back with honesty, compassion, and a willingness to do things differently.

In this episode, we explore:

• Why a late diagnosis so often sends us back through our children's childhoods and why that grief is valid
• The difference between parenting from selfishness and parenting from selflessness, and how awareness changes everything
• Why social connection matters just as much as academic achievement for neurodivergent children
• How Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria shows up in ADHD teenagers and what it looks like in friendships
• The power of openly normalising conversations about diagnosis, medication and therapy within your family
• Why giving your child grace starts with giving yourself grace first
• How fathers of neurodivergent children are finding each other — and why that community changes everything

If you've ever whispered "I should have known better" to yourself, I hope this conversation reminds you that you were doing the best you could, with what you had, in the moment you were in. And that is enough.

This week’s episode is sponsored by Understood.org, the leading nonprofit dedicated to empowering the millions of people with learning and thinking differences, like ADHD and dyslexia. If you’re parenting a neurodivergent child, I’d recommend listening to their podcast, Everybody Gets a Juicebox, as it’s full of relatable stories and practical tools to help your family thrive while protecting your own wellbeing, too!

The ADHD Women's Wellbeing Live Event Recording is here!

My first-ever ADHD Women's Wellbeing Live event sold out, and now the full experience is available to you wherever you are, whenever it feels right.

Alongside three neuro-affirming experts, we spent four hours exploring the questions that matter most to late-diagnosed women. Get lifetime access here!

Inside the ADHD Women's Wellbeing Live Recording, you'll find:

• Kate Moryoussef on post-diagnosis growth and her gentle framework for what comes next
• Dr Hannah Cullen on the neuroscience of ADHD and why your brain works the way it does
• Hannah Miller on reconnecting with purpose through a neurodivergent lens
• Adele Wimsett myth-busting on hormones, HRT, progesterone and perimenopause

Understand yourself more deeply, feel less alone, and finally access the expert knowledge you deserve. Because every woman with ADHD deserves access to the knowledge, expertise and understanding that for too long simply hasn't been available to us.

To get lifetime access for £44, click here.

Join the More Yourself Community - the doors are now open!

More Yourself is a compassionate space for late-diagnosed ADHD women to connect, reflect, learn and come home to who they really are. Sign up here!

Inside the More Yourself Membership, you’ll be able to:

• Connect with like-minded women who understand you
• Learn from guest experts and practical tools
• Receive compassionate prompts & gentle reminders
• Enjoy voice-note encouragement from Kate
• Join flexible meet-ups and mentoring sessions
• Access on-demand workshops and quarterly guest expert sessions

To join for £26 a month, click here. To join for £286 for a year (a whole month free!), click here.

Links and Resources:

• Find my popular ADHD workshops and resources on my website [here].
• Follow the podcast on Instagram: @adhd_womenswellbeing_pod

Kate Moryoussef is a women's ADHD lifestyle and wellbeing coach and EFT practitioner who helps overwhelmed and unfulfilled newly diagnosed ADHD women find more calm, balance, hope, health, compassion, creativity and clarity.

Foreign.

So hello everyone.

Welcome to a more yourself episode.

And I wanted to welcome you with a different style.

Today we're doing something a little bit different and as you may have noticed that over the past couple of months I've been partnering with understood.org a trusted partner in the work that I do here at ADHD Women's Wellbeing, and an organization I genuinely respect for the way they are supporting families, people, organizations, anything with regards to neurodivergence and learning differences.

And as part of this partnership, I wanted to share an episode of another podcast with you from the Understood.org library of resources.

And I know that so many of you are who are listening, who are maybe long time listeners, are not only navigating your own ADHD or neurodivergence later on in life, but you are also raising children who may be neurodivergent too.

Perhaps they are the reason why you have sort of found yourself in this diagnosis chapter of your life.

And whether that's adhd, dyslexia, dyscalculia, language disorders or differences, autism or other differences that shape how your children are learning, feeling and moving through the world.

That is why I wanted to tell you about a podcast called Everyone Gets a Juice Box for Parents of neurodivergent kids from understood.org now I've been listening to it myself and what I really appreciate about it is how honest, thoughtful and compassionate it is.

It doesn't pretend that parenting is neat, linear, straightforward, easy.

It actually makes space for the complexity of raising neurodivergent kids alongside our own neurodivergence with the love, the grief, the learning, the evolution, the guilt, the shame, the growth, all of the messy stuff.

And the episode I'm about to play for you is such an important one.

It's actually about giving yourself grace as a parent after your child has been diagnosed with ADHD and autism, and what it means to look back, to reflect, and to realize you were doing the best that you could with the information and the support you had at the time.

Now, none of this is easy and it involves lots of self compassion, maybe some grief, maybe some forgiveness, and lots of love and self kindness and and I think that so many of you will feel deeply seen by this conversation, especially if you've ever questioned yourself revisited those past parenting moments.

Maybe when you lost your cool, maybe there was dysregulation, maybe when just things just felt really, really out of balance or wondered how differently things might have been if you'd known sooner.

I'm sure we've all had those moments.

And this is a tender, very honest conversation about regret, self compassion and learning how to parent with more understanding.

So here it is.

It's called Parenting regrets and giving yourself grace after an ADHD and autism diagnosis.

And the podcast is called Everyone gets a Juice Box for parents of neurodivergent Kids.

Here it is.

You got a 15 year old, they don't always want to hear what you got to say, right?

It is, you know, why are you breathing so hard, dad?

Like, why are you closing the refrigerator so many times?

It's all of these things you feel like you could do nothing right.

And for me, it was like I had lost my best friend and, you know, trying to help her navigate her stuff, but also me navigating the grief that comes along with losing the child that you have built this connection with for the last 15 years.

Today I speak with a dad with some regrets.

What regrets?

As a parent who has those?

Dion Chavis lives in North Carolina.

He's a former radio DJ and a current family engagement educator.

More on that in a minute.

He has two kids, a daughter who's in her early 20s in college and a young elementary school aged son.

A few years ago, all three of them got new diagnoses.

First, Dion's son was diagnosed with autism at age 3 and then his daughter in high school at the time got an ADHD diagnosis soon after, Deon himself also got an ADHD diagnosis in his early 40s.

Any one of those diagnoses is a lot for a family to take on, let alone three in quick succession.

He found himself simultaneously looking back on how he parented his daughter, looking forward on how he wanted to parent his son, and looking in the mirror and I so get that.

I remember when my second kid was born, I remember thinking, oh my gosh, this is my chance to do things a little bit differently.

And it's a little bit shame filled and a little bit hopeful.

And ideally, if you do things right, you do change a little bit.

So on today's episode, Deon reflects on his parenting journey so far, including what he's learned and where he went wrong with his daughter and hopes to correct with his son.

This is Everyone gets a Juice Box and I'm Jessica Shaw.

Here's our conversation.

Tell me about figuring out how to on some level, did you feel like you're playing catch up when you have, you know, a diagnosis at 15 with your daughter?

Are you like, oh my God, I like, she's only home for a few more years.

I have to like Cram in so much stuff.

Yeah.

To me, it was more of a looking back at the way that I parented her and really kind of analyzing how I parented her.

And that was my first experience, of course, as a parent.

And I realized, you know, as I look back, some of the mistakes that I might have made.

Right.

And I knew that with raising my son, I didn't want to make those same mistakes.

I knew that, you know, with this new information of, you know, parenting a child that is neurodivergent, I knew I had to handle it different.

And I knew that there were some things that I had done in my parenting with my daughter that I needed to, number one, apologize for.

But also I needed to be sure that I didn't make those same mistakes going forward with her and with her brother.

I had to be more sensitive.

I had to be more open minded.

I had to educate myself more.

Right.

Because growing up, like you said, I grew up in the 80s and 90s, and we didn't, especially in black communities, we didn't have diagnosis of adhd.

We didn't accept oftentimes that there may be medicines to help us, to treat us, to give us the things that we needed to help us thrive and to help us survive those rough years.

So it caused me to be very retrospective, to look at things in a very retrospective way, from the way that I was parented to the way that I was parenting both of my kids at the time.

So when you say that you feel like you, you were looking at mistakes that you made.

What, what were, what were the mistakes that you identified?

Yeah, I think that, you know, and I, I've told my daughter this and I've kind of processed this through therapy.

One of the mistakes that I think that I've made was having so much focus on academics and, and not enough focus on her social development.

Right.

I think oftentimes as parents, we want our kids to be the best that they can be and do the best that they can do.

And we want them to attend the best schools and to get the best grades and to do all of these things.

But oftentimes, especially at this age when the brain is still developing, we forget that they still need certain social connections and we forget that they still need to have certain relationships.

And having a child who unfortunately, sophomore and junior year, she was at home.

Right.

Because of the pandemic.

Yeah.

So she didn't get an opportunity to go to, you know, certain field trips with her classmates.

She didn't have an opportunity to go to junior prom.

Or, you know, things like that.

And I was solely.

As I was, you know, she was coming out of middle school, I was only thinking about academics and only thinking about pushing her academically and not necessarily thinking about her, how she would develop as a person.

Yeah.

Like, I would tell her, you know, as a.

As a young African American girl, like, she would have to work three times as harder than everybody else just to get half the results as everybody else, and, you know, pull yourself up by the bootstraps and all of these things that we were t. Things that we were fed growing up, because that was going to be the way that you're going to succeed.

And we have now seen that.

That.

That may not be the truth.

Yeah.

Yeah, absolutely.

And it's interesting because you talk about.

When you talk about that, focus on what's the next thing, what's the college, what's the career, what's the, you know, quote, unquote, like, path to success or whatever it is.

And I. I feel that way, too.

It's like, I.

So we're so forward thinking that we don't think about the now.

We don't think about the emotional intelligence of the now.

And the way that those.

Those seeds, those are gonna flourish later.

You know, like, if you plant that now, it's regardless of what college you go to, what job you have, you know, whatever those.

Those connections and being able to have empathy or just simply connect with someone and the way that that is just such a necessity for everyone.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And, you know, I'm fortunate.

I can say that the seeds that I did plant, I have started to see those things grow.

And she's, you know, 21 and thriving and flourishing and is just a great person, a great human being.

And it's someone who I admire when I look at her, I just admire all of the things that she does and the person she is now at 21 years old, much better and more accomplished and much more traveled than I was at 21.

Right.

But that also doesn't mean that I don't look back on some things that I could have done better.

Yeah.

Do you beat yourself up or are you like, okay, I just didn't have the information.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Not anymore.

Again.

You know, once you turn 18.

My therapist and I had a conversation, and it was at that moment that I really understood.

I Think, you know, getting her to that finish line of graduation.

I think that was a time when I was kind of beating myself up because, you know, there were some custody issues and some things with her mother that, you know, that we went through that weren't always the best.

But, you know, once I discovered that as a parent, I was doing the best I could in the moments that I was in with the resources that I had, I stopped beating myself up because I knew that in every moment, regardless of the circumstances, I was doing my best to raise her.

Even when I was a single father, I moved from Virginia to North Carolina just to be closer to her, just so I could be sure we had that relationship, you know, three hour driving distance just to make sure that I was able to, you know, be a part of her education, just to make sure that I was able to see her at the time, every other weekend.

Um, and, and, and to walk her into school or to have conversations with her teachers and things.

Like all of those things were important to me.

Yeah.

So I knew that I did what I could with what I had in those particular moments.

When you said earlier that you made a point to apologize to her, how did you apologize and how did you approach that with her?

Yeah.

Yeah.

And you know, for me, apologizing isn't like a one and done thing.

Like, there are times when some things will pop into my mind, right.

And I'll just be like, man, I could have handled that better.

And I will either, you know, call her or when I see her the next time she's away at college.

So when I see her the next time I will, if, if I feel that it's important enough, I will broach a conversation and be like, hey, do you remember when.

No.

A lot of stuff she doesn't even remember, Right?

Yeah.

So it's stuff that sits in my mind that she is just oblivious about.

She doesn't even.

I'm like, you, you know, you remember the time we were at Target and you know, I told you you couldn't get the toy.

And then I started yelling and I started fussing because I was stressed.

She'd be like, dad, what are you talking about?

And I'll be like, oh, you know what?

Just forget it.

Just nevermind.

Just never mind.

So, you know, but I had to.

Get it off my chest.

I got it off my conscience.

You may not remember, but I got to get it off my conscience.

Okay.

So but for larger issues, and there's, you know, there's been, you know, honestly, just like one or two That I think have kind of followed me into this throughout this journey.

And one of them was pushing her to go to a certain high school.

And we had this conversation a couple of years ago when I had to apologize because I wanted, coming out of middle school she had the opportunity to go to here in North Carolina we have what they call early colleges.

So I kind of pushed for her to not go to the high school with her friends that she grew up with for, you know, the last six, seven years or whatever.

I pushed for her to go into this early college and you know, she had to write the application and I helped her with the application and she had to write an essay and all of these things.

And I had conversations with the principal and all of these things that as a parent we do, like we want our kids to get the best education.

But just like I told you, I didn't take into consideration the social aspect of pulling her away from those friends that she had grown up with that lived in her neighborhood for the last six or seven years.

I didn't think about that.

And to me that might have caused some of the struggles that she faced in again, that 15, 16, 17 year old phase because she didn't have connections with any real friends.

Because, you know, I pushed her in this direction to go towards her education and to go towards this early college.

So that was something that I had to apologize for.

But again, I didn't know.

Right.

I didn't know.

If you, if you ask me now.

Right.

And I've had conversations with friends who have been in similar situations and I tell them, you know, education is very important.

Like we want our kids to go to the best schools.

We want our kids to do the best that they can do.

But don't forget about the social piece, like don't forget about those connections that they, that they going to need because it's going to get, this will get tough.

Yeah, it's going to get tough.

When you talk about educating yourself into what ADHD looks like and then with your son and what autism looks like and how the best ways to parent are and, and you said that your daughter was, you know, that how important it was to have those connections and everything.

And I'm curious, in your educating yourself, what was the link that you learned as far as the, the connection between her connecting with other kids and her adhd.

It made me think about how she has, how she has always been growing up.

Right.

And you know, as I researched and kind of studied and thought about my childhood and the ways that the ADHD had affected me throughout my childhood.

And then throughout my adulthood it caused me to look at the way that she built relationships.

And it's so funny because it then turns into a conversation of as she gets older, as, you know, as we fast forward a little bit in college now, we have to have conversations about how you go about managing your relationships, your friendships.

Do you walk away easily from these friendships?

When something happens, which is something that I started to kind of notice with her, is that, you know, if something didn't go the way that it was supposed to in a relationship or friendship, I should say she wouldn't hesitate to leave.

Right.

She's not hanging around if it doesn't feel like it's supposed to feel.

And, you know, we just had to have conversations about, well, sometimes the relationships could be worth salvaging.

Right.

Right.

And of course, every relationship isn't.

But I had to make sure that she knew that it's okay to sometimes salvage a relationship.

It's okay to sometimes fight for a relationship if it's something that you really believe in.

Right.

And again, this is all.

I think this is more.

I think it's more to do with raising any child, whether they be neurodivergent or not raising them to understand the value of connection.

And I think with her, that was.

Connection's not always easy.

It's not always easy.

It's not always easy.

And when it gets hard, are you willing to put in the work to keep that connection there if it's a connection that you value?

But again, with being disconnected from her classmate due to the pandemic, she didn't have the opportunities to learn those things.

So you're learning on the fly.

So you take that and you compound it with the adhd, with the, you know, her struggles that she was having during that particular period.

And it just becomes a lot.

And as a parent, you have to figure out how to help them navigate that, but also how to navigate it yourself because, you know, you know, you got a 15 year old, they don't always want to hear what you got to say.

Right.

They don't always.

Right.

You know, at that age it is, you know, why are you breathing so hard, dad?

Like, why are you closing the refrigerator so many times?

It's all of these things you feel like you could do nothing.

Right.

And for me, it was like I had lost my best friend and, you know, trying to help her navigate her stuff, but also me navigating the grief that comes along with losing the child that you have built this connection with for the last 15 years, because it's like they start to shed their skin and they become a totally different person and you don't always recognize them.

So that, for me was a struggle.

So, yeah, I think that putting all of those things into a pot and the ADHD and the mental health struggles and the school and the pandemic, all of those things, you mix them up together and you just have a recipe for tough times.

I want to jump in here to say that since Dion and I spoke, I've been thinking about what he said about his daughter during her teenage years.

If things didn't go her way in a friendship, she wouldn't hesitate to cut things off.

This story made me think of something called rejection Sensitive dysphoria, or rsd.

This isn't a medical condition or a diagnosis, but it's a term to describe when someone experiences rejection more intensely and takes longer to recover.

And while I didn't ask Dionne about it while we were talking, I wanted to say here that RSD is really common among people with adhd, especially women.

As you might imagine, this can really affect friendships, self esteem, focus, a whole bunch of different things.

I'll put some more info in the show notes, but for now, back to our conversation.

I always struggle, I have to say, as a parent with.

There are times where you're like, okay, is this my child's neurodivergence that is leading them to act this way?

Is this the pan.

The impact of the pandemic that is leading them to act this way?

Is this adolescence or teenage just years?

That is.

Yes, that is leading them to act this way.

Or is it just all part of this murky, you know, soup and.

And you gotta kind of.

I'm always like, I just want to know which one it is.

So I know as a parent how to approach it.

Yeah.

Do you feel that way?

Yeah, for sure.

And, you know, I kind of.

My thing, my go to is always going to be that their brain is not going to be fully developed until they're 23 years old.

Right.

And even at that age, I think back to when I was 21, 22 years old.

Again, I don't think the way that I think now.

My brain hadn't developed.

And I think more than anything, giving them grace in all of those spaces, whether it be because of the pandemic, whether it be because of adolescent angst, whether it be because of a neurodivergence, whatever it is, we still have to give them grace.

And that is one of the things that I have learned parenting a child on this spectrum who, again, he hasn't been diagnosed with adhd, but he has traits of adhd, Right?

He has the traits giving him grace to just be who he is and just giving him the spaces and the opportunities to live life and to learn and to make mistakes and to fall and to fall again and to fall 10 more times.

Right?

Because that is what.

That's what this life is about.

It's about learning and growing as we go.

And oftentimes I think we, as parents, we say things like, well, you should know better, or, okay, maybe, but that doesn't mean that I stop extending you grace.

That doesn't mean I stop extending you the opportunities to make mistakes, because I've been extended more grace than I could even imagine, more grace than I could even fathom.

And.

And I'm still here, still making mistakes, still learning.

So I can't expect you to have it all figured out if at 45, I'm still trying to figure it out myself.

Do you have moments with your son where something will happen and you'll think, oh, I'm going to parent differently in this moment because I have learned from how I parented my daughter, and I am making a conscious decision now to do the other end of the spectrum of what I would have done, you know, 10 years ago or 13 years ago.

Every day.

Every day.

Every day.

I think that, you know, with my daughter, I was, again, there was no blueprint.

There was no.

I didn't have a father growing up.

My father was shot and killed when I was 11 years old.

So I didn't grow up with a father.

I didn't have a lot of male role models to.

You know, I just knew with her that I wanted to be there, and I knew what I didn't want to be and what I didn't want to do.

I didn't know how to do it because no one ever showed me.

Right.

But I knew what I didn't want to do.

And in that, you make a lot of mistakes.

With my son, I have grown and I have matured, and I am, you know, a totally different.

Not totally different, but I'm a different person than I was that, you know, in my 20s and in my 30s.

Right.

So with him, I kind of sit back and parent him based on what his needs are.

And I think that as I was parenting my daughter, it was more so parenting out of what my needs were.

Right.

I need you to go to an early college because I need you to get this education, because I Want to be.

You know, it was more so about me.

I parented from a position of selfishness when she would make mistakes and I would get angry.

Looking back now, that anger oftentimes was.

Was rooted in me feeling inept as a parent.

Right?

You, you, you did this because I didn't do enough to teach you not to do it.

Right?

You did this thing because I did something wrong.

I didn't.

I failed.

I. Blah, blah, blah, blah, Right?

But with my son, I'm.

I'm parenting from a space of selflessness.

Right?

It's not about me, not about me.

It's about getting him everything that he needs.

It's about getting him the services, giving him the love, giving him the strategies that is going to help him grow up in this world and succeed and thrive.

So from a parenting perspective, it's two totally different spaces.

I'm parenting from two totally different.

And then also I've got a wife who has been here with me to kind of be on this journey, and we're learning and growing and raising these kids together.

So it becomes, again, more of a team effort.

Whereas with my daughter, for the majority of those years, it was kind of just me because her mom and I didn't have the best relationship.

So when she was with me, it was just me being her parent.

And again, parenting from a place of the things that I thought that I needed to raise her.

Do you talk to your kids about.

And your son is young, so I don't know if you do, but about your own diagnosis and how that.

And you talk to them about theirs and yours.

And what do you.

What is, what are those conversations?

I mean, I imagine they're different with each kid, but.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Well, when I, When I, When I was initially diagnosed with the adhd, I kind of pulled my entire family, my immediate family, to the dinner table.

My wife, my son, my daughter.

My mom is here with us also and had a conversation with them like, hey, this is what is happening with me.

You know, this is what the, the, the assessment says.

And they have, you know, told me some medicines that I could take to, to, to help with this process and because I want to normalize these types of conversations.

Right.

I don't want to, I don't want these types of conversations to be taboo.

I don't want them to be conversations that we have that we can't have.

Right.

And it makes it easier for me to discuss things with my daughter.

Of course, she's the oldest, but we can have conversations about therapy, we can have conversations about Medicine.

And, you know, I can openly discuss my journey with her.

So as my son gets older, I'll have more conversations with him about these things.

Yeah.

You are also a family engagement educator, first of all, Tell me what that is.

So I am a certified positive parenting coach, but also the work that I do with schools and with organizations is to help them understand the importance oftentimes of connecting with families, specifically with fathers, and the roles that fathers play in the education of their children, how to get dad more engaged.

Because we see that a lot of times spaces are very inclusive of moms, but they forget about dad, and they.

They don't have language that is inviting to dad or that makes dad know that he is welcome.

Do you find that you.

You hear from.

From dads, either neurodivergent dads or with neurodivergent kids, and you're able to.

I mean, is there.

Is there a specific.

You know, I hear.

I hear that big picture.

And is there something specifically that you feel like neurodivergent kids get from their dads being involved in school?

Yeah, Well, I mean, you know, of course, the data shows that if a child is.

Has their father engaged and the child is more likely to graduate, less likely to drop out, less likely to engage in drugs and alcohol or alcohol, all those things.

But I think that, you know, one of the things that I've discovered, Jessica, is that when we have these conversations, oftentimes as dads, we don't know that there are other dads who are in a similar position as we.

That we are.

Right?

Yeah.

So when I have these group conversations and I talk about my son being on the spectrum, you'll get a dad who said, well, my daughter's on the spectrum, or my son is on the spectrum, too.

And then we can kind of come together and build a bigger community.

Because now I'm not struggling alone, right.

I have somebody else who I can connect with.

If we live in the same neighborhood now, I have somebody else who maybe my child can play with.

Because if we have a neurodivergent child, they may not have the social skills that other kids have.

Right.

So maybe our kids can come together.

Maybe we can build a playgroup.

Right.

For our kids, for neurodivergent kids.

So it's really, for me about building those connections and taking away the stigmas that come with oftentimes having a child who is neurodivergent.

We oftentimes think, well, we.

You know, I don't want to.

I don't want to label the child.

I don't want my child to have a label.

I don't want my child to be named this or called this or I don't want my child to have an IEP or 504 and all of these things.

But when you.

When you find that there are people who are in similar situations that you're in and are struggling and, you know, because this is a struggle, right, it's not easy.

It can feel lonely because you don't get the same.

And I don't want to say benefits, right.

That other parents do, but you can't always go out and have, let's say, a date night with your spouse if you have a child that's neurodivergent sometimes, right?

You can't always go out to the store without the worry of a meltdown, right.

At one point, my therapist and I were talking some years ago, and this is when my son was in heavy meltdown mode and I was working from home, and, you know, I would be working and I would have to have, you know, one eye and ear on what I'm working on and the other eye and ear on what's going on downstairs or in another room in case he has a meltdown.

So it's like you're always on edge.

There's.

It's almost like ptsd, right, because you're just waiting for the next thing to happen, the next shoe to drop, the next landmine to get stepped on.

And, you know, those things make it again, much more difficult to.

To.

To.

To parent and to go through life.

And that can feel lonely, right?

It could feel like nobody else gets it, nobody else understands it.

And when you don't have anyone to journey with, you don't have anyone to.

To talk to about what you're going through, but then it makes it harder.

You know, parenting itself is hard, but parenting a neurodivergent child is a hundred times harder sometimes, right?

But if there is someone that I can lean on, someone that I can connect with, that makes the journey a little bit easier.

Thank you to Dion and what he said times a billion.

If there is someone I can lean on, that makes the journey a little bit easier because, yeah, he has regrets.

Guess what?

I do, too.

And I have yet to meet the parent who doesn't.

Frankly, I'm not even sure I want to.

But I do love talking to someone who can say, hey, I see what I did for the good and the could be better.

And I'm going to tinker with things, because how to parent isn't etched into a stone tablet.

Different kid, different needs, different parenting.

Thanks for joining and see you for the next episode.

Thanks for listening to Everyone Gets a Juice Box.

Our show is hosted by me, Jessica Shaw.

It's produced by Cody Nelson and video is produced by Calvin Knee and edited by Jesse DiMartino.

Brianna Berry is our Production director and Neal Drumming is our Editorial Director.

If you have any questions for us or ideas for future episodes, write me an email or send a voice memo to podcastnderstood.org this show is brought to you by understood.org our executive directors are Laura Key, Scott Koshir and Jordan Davidson.

Understood as a nonprofit organization dedicated to empowering people with learning and thinking differences like ADHD and dyslexia.

If you want to help us continue this work, donate@understood.org give.

That was an episode of Understood.org's Everyone Gets a Juice Box for Parents of Neurodivergent Kids.

And honestly, what stayed with me in that conversation was the reminder that parenting is not about getting everything right.

We are literally learning on the job.

It is about reflecting, repairing, growing and having lots of patience, love and self compassion.

And for those of us raising neurodivergent children, especially while also navigating our own neurodivergence, overwhelm, guilt or later understanding of ourselves and maybe those past generations, that grace matters so much.

And this is one of the reasons why I've chosen to partner with understood.org that work feels deeply aligned with what I care about here at ADHD Women's Wellbeing.

And that is helping people feel more informed, more supported, and less alone in the realities they're facing.

And it's about validation as well.

And I know many of you are carrying not only your own story, but your child's story too.

And perhaps you know, a whole family history, generations of being able to see all of this through a brand new lens.

So if this episode did resonate with you and you'd like to listen to more, just search for Everyone Gets a Juice Box in your podcast app.

That's Everyone in Gets a Juice Box.

It's a really, really valuable listen for parents of neurodivergent kids and I think it offers so much reassurance, perspective and support.

So take care.

I'll see you all very.