Combating Parent Burnout in Special Education Advocacy
Navigating Change: Special Needs Children and the School Year Transition
We are now a couple of months into the school year. For many children and families, this means that they have moved past the transition to the new school year and are settling into their routines. They may be figuring out how to juggle the demands of the school day along with after-school activities, sports, homework, and time with friends.
For children who struggle with aspects of their learning or participation at school, this time of year can mark an increase in problems at school, which can spill over to affect relationships and life outside of school. Challenges can snowball if a child’s learning, social, sensory, physical, or safety needs are not adequately supported throughout their school day, or if demands for work outside of school exceed a child’s capacities or abilities.
Invisible Disabilities Exposed: What to Do When Masking Fails at School
Sometimes children may experience a “honeymoon” period at the start of the school year while they try to muscle through challenges or hide struggles with new classes, teachers, or peers. These efforts can mask the magnitude of a child’s challenges and delay access to needed services. Adults at school may see only a small sliver of how a child is responding to the additional demands of school, especially if a child is trying to hide, mask, or minimize the extent of their difficulties to better fit in. Children may be able to dig deep to put their best foot forward during the school day, only to fall apart or melt down at home.
By the time the leaves change colors and drop from the trees, many kids’ attempts to hold things together or get by at school may start to show signs of falling apart. This scenario often has parents scrambling to try to figure out what is impacting their children’s struggles at school; how to get their kids the help that they need to be successful at school; and how to prevent their children from suffering in the process of trying to access their education.
School Problems and Parent Advocacy
Once parents identify concerns about their children’s challenges with school, they often turn to teachers or administrators at school to share what they are seeing at home. These concerns may include school avoidance, difficulty completing homework, reports of bullying or other peer challenges, difficulties with specific teachers or subject areas, or deterioration of functioning or mood. Teachers and administrators can be powerful partners and advocates in supporting children with special needs to find success at school and engage with learning.
Sometimes however, when parents turn to their school for support, they may be met with questioning, gatekeeping, or pushback as they attempt to navigate the school system to advocate for their child’s needs to be understood and effectively supported at school. This can cause confusion and frustration for parents, and can lead to significant delays in kids receiving the accommodations and help that they need to engage successfully with their learning.
Gaslighting and Gatekeeping in Education: The Impact on Special Needs Parents and Kids
As was recently highlighted by Chicago Parent Magazine, in more extreme cases, parents may come up against gaslighting from schools related to their own experiences and observations involving their child. Parents themselves may feel doubted, blamed, or invalidated as they strive to advocate for their child’s struggles and needs to be recognized, understood, and supported. This process can contribute to conflict with schools; limit children’s access to a free and appropriate public education (FAPE) in alignment with the law; and can lead to traumatic experiences and burnout for struggling children and struggling parents.
The Burden of Disbelief: Special Needs Families in Educational Gaslighting
Parents of children with “invisible disabilities” such as learning disabilities, autism, ADHD, or other neurodivergence, may find it especially difficult to advocate effectively for their child’s needs to be understood and supported because the nature and extent of their child’s needs may not be obvious to others. This can result from a limited understanding of neurodiversity or other invisible disabilities and the tendency to misperceive struggles as willfulness or lack of effort.
As a therapist for parents of kids with special needs, I see an increasing number of parents and caregivers who are reaching out for therapy support to help with anxiety, depression, emotional and behavioral dysregulation, or feelings of disconnection that can be indicators of parent burnout. Struggling with effectively advocating for their child’s needs to be recognized and supported at school so that they can engage with learning takes a toll on parents who are fighting for their kids. Many parents report indicators of burnout such as feeling helpless, hopeless, overwhelmed, or like they are just going through the motions of their life. It can be difficult to feel understood or validated in their experiences or supported in their efforts to advocate for their child.
In my experience working with neurodivergent adults, many of whom struggled with feeling misunderstood, unsupported, and like a misfit at school, the legacy of these unmet needs can be trauma that lasts well into adulthood.
School Problems, Special Needs Advocacy, and Parent Burnout
If you are a parent of a child who struggles at school, or who falls apart at home due to being overwhelmed or undersupported at school, you may be having a difficult time too. If you are an adult who experienced trauma throughout your school years, or who felt unseen, misunderstood, or inadequately supported during childhood, you may be especially sensitive to difficulties faced by your child.
It can help to have the support of an understanding and experienced professional as you navigate this challenging path. Healing your own wounds from the past, or gaining skills and knowledge to aid your child with their school-related struggles can lessen the confusion, frustration, and isolation experienced by many parents of children with special needs or higher support needs.
Therapist for Special Needs Parents and Parental Burnout
If you are the parent or caregiver of a child with higher support needs whose needs may be poorly understood or inadequately supported at school or in the community, you may benefit from help with the anxiety, stress, burnout, or trauma that you may be experiencing yourself. It can be overwhelming trying to support your kid in a broader society that has not adequately recognized or addressed their needs. Likewise, I may be able to help heal wounds gained through your personal journey through systems or institutions that did not, or do not, see, honor, or support you and your needs; and may have marginalized, blamed, or shamed you as a result. Affirming therapy can be an important tool to address anxiety, stress, burnout, or trauma connected to your experiences.
At Shore Therapy, there is a commitment to providing a non-judgmental, understanding, and supportive space to explore and process your experiences; as well as high-quality, transformative, therapy aimed at growth and healing. Contact me for a free 15-minute phone consultation to talk about your therapeutic needs. I provide therapy for parents of kids with special needs and high support needs who may be struggling with parent or caregiver burnout; affirmative therapy with marginalized populations including LGBTQ and neurodivergent humans; therapy for trauma and PTSD; EMDR therapy or virtual EMDR therapy online. All therapy can be provided in the Shore Therapy Evanston office located close to Chicago, Wilmette, and the rest of the North Shore, or as online therapy in over 35 states across the United States as a PSYPACT therapist. Read more about me and my training and experience, and reach out today.
Online Learning and Support for Parents
If therapy support is not accessible right now or you might benefit from additional resources, learn more about online classes for parents to address parent burnout and parenting neurodivergent kids or children with higher support needs.
