There are moments throughout my day while I’m watching my son do whatever it is he might be doing in that moment and I think to myself, “Oh wow, I used to do the same thing when I was a kid. I wish I would have known what that was his age.” Or, “How did they not see my neurodivergence back then?”
Over the weekend my son went to an indoor swap meet/flea market (whatever you want to call it) with his grandma. I guess it was so busy and noisy in there that he looked at Grandma and told her, “I’m getting really overwhelmed. Can we leave now?” She ended up taking him outside where he could decompress for a bit and after that he was fine. This hit me in the face like a ton of bricks. I look back on my life and think, “Wow. I wish I had that kind of language when I was a kid. I would have had so fewer meltdowns and shutdowns.” If only I had known that getting overwhelmed from being around too much stimulation was a thing. My childhood would have been so much better.
And here’s the thing: that moment at the flea market wasn’t just a proud parent moment, though it absolutely was that. It cracked something open in me. Because watching my son do something so naturally that I spent decades not knowing how to do, I didn’t just feel proud. I felt the weight of everything I didn’t have. The words I didn’t know. The adults who didn’t understand. The younger version of me who just kept trying to hold it together and couldn’t figure out why that was so hard.
If you’re a neurodivergent parent raising a neurodivergent kid, I have a feeling you know exactly what I mean.
The Language We Didn’t Have
One of the most quietly painful parts of getting a late ADHD or autism diagnosis as an adult is looking back at your childhood and suddenly seeing it with new eyes. You start connecting dots you didn’t even know existed. The meltdowns that got you labeled as “dramatic” or “too sensitive.” The way certain places or situations felt unbearable for reasons you could never explain. The shutdowns that people around you interpreted as attitude, defiance, or just being difficult.
We weren’t dramatic. We weren’t difficult. We were overwhelmed, understimulated, dysregulated, or all three at once, and we had zero language for any of it.
Language matters more than we give it credit for. When a child can say, “I’m getting overwhelmed,” something really powerful is happening underneath that sentence. They’re noticing what’s happening in their body. They’re connecting that sensation to a word. They’re communicating a need instead of letting the pressure build until it bursts. That’s not just good vocabulary. That’s emotional regulation in action. That’s interoception at work. That’s self-advocacy before they even know what self-advocacy is.
My son did all of that in one sentence, and he’s still in elementary school.
I didn’t figure out how to do that until my late thirties. And sitting with that reality for a minute is worth it, even when it stings.
The Grief Nobody Warns You About
I want to stay here for a second before we move on, because I think this part gets skipped over too often.
When your child does something emotionally healthy and self-aware that you never learned to do until adulthood, there are two feelings that show up at the same time. Pride is one of them. The other one is grief, and it’s real, and it deserves space.
Grief for the version of you that didn’t have those words. Grief for the meltdowns and shutdowns that could have gone differently. Grief for the adults who should have understood and didn’t. Grief for the years you spent wondering what was wrong with you, when the real answer was that nobody around you had the framework to see what was actually going on.
That grief doesn’t mean you’re dwelling or being negative. It means you’re a person who finally has enough understanding to look back clearly. And looking back clearly at a childhood spent undiagnosed and unsupported is going to bring up some things.
Let it. You’re allowed to feel that.
What I’ve found is that the grief and the pride aren’t competing feelings. They exist together because you care. The pride you feel watching your kid advocate for himself is real. And so is the ache for the kid you were, who had to figure all of this out the hard way, mostly alone.
Why Neurodivergent Kids Often Struggle With This (And Why It’s Not Their Fault)
Here’s a little context for why this kind of self-awareness doesn’t come easily for a lot of neurodivergent kids, and honestly, a lot of neurodivergent adults too.
Interoception is your brain’s ability to sense what’s happening inside your body. Things like hunger, fatigue, pain, emotional sensations, and yes, sensory overwhelm all depend on it. Research has found that many autistic and ADHD individuals have differences in interoceptive awareness, meaning the signals from our bodies don’t always come through clearly or in a timely way.
So when your nervous system is being pushed toward overload by a loud, crowded, visually chaotic space like a flea market, a neurotypical kid might notice early warning signs and naturally pull back. For a lot of neurodivergent kids, those early signals are muffled or delayed. By the time they register that something is wrong, they’re already past the point of no return. The meltdown or shutdown isn’t a choice. It’s the nervous system doing the only thing it can do at that point.
When I was a kid, nobody talked to me about any of this. There was no conversation about sensory overload or emotional regulation or what it feels like when your nervous system is running hot. The expectation was that you just handled it, and if you couldn’t, that was a character flaw, not a neurodevelopmental reality.
Knowing that now doesn’t undo the past. But it does change the story I tell about it.
Raising Your Child as the Parent You Needed
I’ve heard other neurodivergent parents describe this as “raising the child they needed to be,” and I get what they mean. But honestly, the way it lands for me is a little different. It’s less about what my son needs to become and more about who I get to be for him. The parent I wish I’d had.
When you understand your own neurodivergence, even if that understanding came late, you bring something powerful into your parenting. You’re not guessing what your kid is going through. You’ve lived a version of it. You know what it feels like to be too loud inside your own head while the outside world is also too loud. You know the exhaustion of trying to hold it together in environments that weren’t designed for your nervous system.
That lived experience is a gift, even if it came wrapped in a lot of hard years.
It also gives you a clear picture of what was missing. The emotional vocabulary nobody taught you. The permission to name what was happening in your body. The safe exits that didn’t exist. The adult who might have responded with curiosity instead of frustration. You know exactly what you needed, because you felt the absence of it for a long time.
And now you get to be that for your kid.
You don’t have to be a perfect parent to do this. You just have to be willing to learn alongside them, and to give them something you had to find much later on your own.
What We’re Learning Together
I want to be careful not to make this sound like I have it all figured out and I’m simply passing wisdom down. That’s not what this looks like in real life. A lot of what’s happening in our house is that my son and I are learning together, and honestly, he’s teaching me as much as I’m teaching him.
When he names his overwhelm out loud, it reminds me to check in with mine. When we talk about what kinds of places feel good versus draining for him, it opens up the same conversation about me. When I watch him take a beat, step outside, and come back regulated, I get a real-time reminder that that’s actually allowed. That you don’t have to white-knuckle your way through every hard environment. That asking for what you need isn’t weakness.
Here are a few things we’ve been building together that might be worth trying in your own home:
Naming emotions out loud in everyday moments, not just the big ones. “I’m feeling a little overwhelmed by the noise right now” models the language without making it a lesson.
Low-pressure check-ins before potentially overwhelming situations. A simple “how’s your body feeling?” can help tune in before the red zone hits.
Making it safe to ask for what you need. Every time a request to leave or take a break gets met with flexibility instead of frustration, it reinforces that needs are worth communicating.
Talking about your own sensory and emotional experiences. When you normalize yours, you give your kid permission to have theirs.
If you’re navigating this and feeling like you’re figuring it out from scratch without a roadmap, ADHD coaching can be a useful space to sort through both your own experiences and how they show up in your parenting.
Your Kid Is Showing You the Way Back
My son walked up to his grandma in a crowded, noisy building and said he was overwhelmed. She took him outside. He came back fine.
That’s the whole story. And it’s also not a small thing at all.
Because what I saw in that moment wasn’t just my kid handling a hard situation well. I saw what it looks like when a neurodivergent person actually has what they need. The words. The safety. The adult who listens. And I realized that watching him isn’t just parenting. It’s also a kind of healing. Every time he does something I didn’t know how to do at his age, I’m not just proud of him. I’m also, slowly, making a little more peace with the kid I was.
That’s what I mean when I say our kids lead us back to ourselves. Not because they’re our therapists, they’re not, and that’s not their job. But because loving them, really seeing them, and showing up as the parent they need has a way of quietly teaching us to extend some of that same grace to ourselves.
It’s a journey. For both of us. And I think that’s exactly how it’s supposed to be.
Until next time. Stay mindful and stay healthy!
If any of this landed for you, I’d love to hear what resonated. Drop it in the comments, come discuss it in our Discord community, or send me an email at braden@empoweradhdsolutions.com . And if you know someone navigating this, sharing goes a long way.
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