Parenting a child with additional needs can involve a lot more than people around you may realise.
Your child may be neurodivergent, have an intellectual disability or developmental delay, or have other needs that require additional support. Alongside everyday family life, you might be managing appointments, therapies and meetings, advocating for your child, responding to difficult behaviours or meltdowns and trying to make sure your other children get what they need too.
You love your child and want the best for them. But you can also feel exhausted, frustrated or overwhelmed by how much there is to manage.
And sometimes it can feel as though other families simply have it easier.
Carrying the worry as well as the practical load
It's not only what needs to be done today that can feel difficult. You may also spend a lot of time thinking about the future.
Will my child be able to live independently? Where will they live? What support will they need? What happens when I'm no longer here?
There can be grief too. The experience of parenting may look different from what you imagined, and the future you pictured for your child and your family may have changed.
At the same time, you may feel guilty for even admitting how difficult it can be. You might wonder whether you're doing enough or getting things right. Your own plans and needs may continually be pushed aside because your child's needs feel more important.
You can be surrounded by people and still feel incredibly lonely, particularly when it seems that friends or other parents don't really understand the reality of your family life.
Sometimes you don't need more advice
Parents of children with additional needs can become very used to receiving information and advice about what they should be doing for their child.
Counselling can be somewhere that's also about you.
You don't have to justify why you're finding things difficult or feel guilty for talking honestly about how parenting feels. Sometimes you simply need someone to listen without immediately telling you what you should do.
I can help you make sense of what you're feeling, work through some of the worry and uncertainty you're carrying and think about what you need as well as what your child and family need.
That might mean finding ways to feel less overwhelmed, trusting yourself more as a parent, making room for your own wellbeing or reconnecting with parts of yourself that have become lost amongst caring and responsibility.
Supporting yourself doesn't mean your child's needs matter any less. You matter within your family too.
