Guiding Parents of Neurodivergent Teens

Drowning in Guilt and Burnout 

Marianne confides, eyes welling up, in her best friend, “I feel like I’m failing as a mom. Every day is an emotional rollercoaster. Yesterday it was a call from school—again—because my son had another outburst. I could hear the judgment in the principal’s voice. It’s like they all think I’m just a bad parent who can’t control her kid.” Voice trembling, she says, “We’ve tried everything, but nothing sticks. I worry constantly.  I continually wonder what will happen if he never learns to take care of himself or hurts himself.  He’s threatened self-harm before so I’m terrified that if we push him too hard, that he’ll break. But we also worry that if we don’t push at all, he’ll continue to just shut down and disengage from life.  

Ken and I often think that other parents don’t really get it. We are continually flooded with unhelpful advice or blame. We’ve gotten comments like, ‘Have you tried being stricter? Maybe you’re coddling him.’ They have no idea how much we already do. I’m drowning in guilt and burnout. If I take even a second for myself, I feel guilty because something might go wrong if I’m not on high alert.” Marianne lowers her voice, “Ken and I are not in a good place either. We argue over every little thing—how to handle our son’s refusal to do anything around the house, how to discipline him. Sometimes I catch myself thinking, ‘If only we could just get one normal day, maybe we’d remember what happiness felt like.’” 

Radically Open Dialectical Behavioral Therapy  

Since this conversation, I have worked with Marianne and Ken using some of the core elements of Radically Open Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (RO-DBT). This model was designed for clients like their son whose needs for control and predictability are counterproductive, and instead promotes flexibility, openness to new experiences, and social connection. They are learning the vital skills to help motivate their neurodivergent son to change and function independently. After six months of training, he has been actively engaged in therapy, and while it may seem like a small accomplishment, has been brushing his teeth and attending to other basic daily living skills with minimal reminders. He is choosing to study more often on his own and is on track to graduate. He is observably better able to take a step back to calm down before responding to his parents’ requests, which in turn has made the home more peaceful. He is also making an effort to socialize more by practicing saying yes to plans made by friends or parents. His parents are feeling better about him going off to college and are happy with the progress that he has made. This is just one example of many parents I’ve worked with who are experiencing success, creating peaceful homes, and lasting change as a result of training using approaches that actually help neurodivergent brains.  

In my work with neurodivergent individuals and parents of neurodivergent young adults, I have noticed that stressed, anxious, and overwhelmed parents fall back on familiar, albeit ineffectual methods. Most one-on-one therapy or treatment programs for neurodivergent teens I’ve explored don’t address the key components of long-term change. They don’t seem to appreciate that neurodivergent brains are different when it comes to concentration, encoding, and memory retention; all of which are important for independent day-to-day functioning.  

These vital components include: 

1. Using a new parenting approach with specific techniques to work with a neurodivergence-based challenges. 

2. Investment of time in receiving the necessary training to help their neurodivergent teen succeed. 

3. Understanding core emotion regulation skills, which include being able to take a step back to evaluate one’s emotional state and do what is needed to calm down before acting. engaging in a conversation to elicit change.  

4. Creating a home environment that invites steps toward autonomy that are reinforced by all members in the family.  

5. Developing and maintaining relationships outside of the home through healthy social and communication skills.  

Conclusion 

In my experience working at all levels of care with neurodivergent individuals and families, I have found Radically Open Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (RO-DBT) to be more effective than Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT), alone. DBT provides only one aspect of the needed skills to create a more effective parenting approach, distress tolerance. However, RO-DBT adds the other three vital components of creating an open, less rigid mindset for feedback and new learning, the mental flexibility necessary for the day-to-day realities of adulthood, and the essential skills for engaging in meaningful, lasting relationships with others.  

I have seen parents gain back time for themselves after their teen started taking more initiative on chores, studying and developing friendships on their own. I have observed newly diagnosed AuADHD individuals become less overwhelmed by daily tasks, feel more motivated to act on needed changes, and become more socially involved isolated. I continue to encourage parents to consider the importance and benefit of stepping back from doing everything for their child, creating calmer and more motivating interactions, and helping their child (or themselves) build the skills for a successful, connected, and independent life. 

About the Author

Sarah Mireles, LPCC, has worked for over 10 years with neurodivergent young adults and their parents, serving over 500 parents creating peaceful homes and successfully launching their teens into adulthood. Concerned that many one-on-one therapies and treatment programs do not address the key components needed by these families, she has dedicated herself to helping them to structure an environment that can lead to and sustain change for neurodivergent children.  She can be found at https://www.parentsofneurodiverseteens.com/