{"id":7006,"date":"2023-08-17T05:59:54","date_gmt":"2023-08-17T09:59:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.mlparentcoach.com\/?p=7006"},"modified":"2023-08-17T06:03:16","modified_gmt":"2023-08-17T10:03:16","slug":"7006","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mlparentcoach.com\/new\/washington-post\/7006\/","title":{"rendered":"Where are the resources for parents of special needs teens?"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"row\">\n<div class=\"large-12 columns entry-content__output non-vc-entry\">&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><i><b>Q:&nbsp;<\/b><\/i><i>Where are the resources for parenting special needs teens? Especially those who were diagnosed late? It seems like all the information I can find relates to diagnoses at 3 or 5 or 6 years old, and there\u2019s nothing for those of us who have struggled for years with our kids because of \u201cbad parenting\u201d (providers\u2019 words) and then found out later that there\u2019s an actual reason. Strategies for parenting neurotypical kids don\u2019t always work for neurodivergent kids, but all we were given were neurotypical parenting strategies and then blamed when they didn\u2019t work. We\u2019re putting a team together, but it\u2019s so hard, tiring and frustrating, and we missed out on years of intervention. Where are the support groups, the articles, the books on where to go from here?<\/i><\/p>\n<p><b>A:&nbsp;<\/b>Sigh. I\u2019m so sorry you\u2019ve been through this ordeal. Your primary question is, \u201cWhere are the resources for parenting special needs teens?\u201d but I\u2019m going to address what I think is a larger need here: your mental health.<\/p>\n<p>The word \u201ctrauma\u201d has been so bandied about in our culture that the meaning can become a bit amorphous, but trauma can both be an acute experience (a physical attack or an environmental disaster, for example), and it can be a long series of less acute but long-standing issues that threaten a person\u2019s well-being, safety or sense of reality. (An example of this kind of trauma can be found in people who experience systemic racism. Their daily lives have inherent dangers, threats and insults that are often invisible to everyone else, leading to more trauma and upset.) From your letter, I believe you have experienced this kind of trauma.<\/p>\n<p>Watching your child struggle and the heartache associated with that, trying to get support and help, and being told that not only is your child \u201ctypical,\u201d but it\u2019s your fault they are struggling? Well that is pretty awful as just one incident, but repeat that over years and you are going to have some serious emotional repercussions. You have the right to be angry, sad and frustrated at the time you\u2019ve lost, the unnecessary guilt and shame you incurred, and the failures of \u201cexperts\u201d who were meant to help you, but only added more pain. You can define this as trauma, deep wounds or just pain; no matter the language, it deserves its own time to heal.<\/p>\n<p>Yes, you can find some amazing groups of parents (Facebook and Instagram are great resources, just use the right search words and hashtags), but be aware that your pain may need something more specific (therapy or therapeutic movement, for example). When you find these parent groups of neurodivergent children, you will see swirls of anger, rage, pain and grief, and all those feelings are appropriate. But what you also may see is that some parents are stuck in their emotional loops, and these are not the parents that you want to turn to for support, [&#8230;]<\/p>\n<p><a class=\"fasc-button fasc-size-medium fasc-type-glossy fasc-rounded-medium\" style=\"background-color: #688889; color: #ffffff;\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/parenting\/2023\/08\/16\/special-needs-teens-neurodivergent-advice\/\">View this full article on The Washington Post<\/a><\/p>\n<p data-qa=\"drop-cap-letter\" data-el=\"text\">Looking for more parenting support? Click&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/meghanleahyparentcoach.vipmembervault.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Here<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p data-qa=\"drop-cap-letter\" data-el=\"text\">Sign up for my<a href=\"https:\/\/mlparentcoach.com\/new\/new\/new\/newsletter-signup\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">&nbsp;Newsletter here<\/a>&nbsp;to get this in your inbox every week!<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp; Q:&nbsp;Where are the resources for parenting special needs teens? Especially those who were diagnosed late? It seems like all the information I can find relates to diagnoses at 3 or 5 or 6 years old, and there\u2019s nothing for those of us who have struggled for years with our kids because of \u201cbad parenting\u201d (providers\u2019 words) and then found [&#8230;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":5761,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[125,27,301],"tags":[322,270,584,762,585,13,8,592,591,236,742,10,593],"class_list":["post-7006","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-childhood-behavior","category-parenting","category-washington-post","tag-behavior","tag-children","tag-meghan-leahy","tag-meghan-leahy-advice","tag-on-parenting","tag-parent-coach","tag-parenting","tag-parenting-advice","tag-parenting-tips","tag-special-needs","tag-special-needs-teen","tag-washington-post","tag-washington-post-parenting"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v21.7 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Where are the resources for parents of special needs teens?<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Where are the resources for parenting special needs teens? 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