I remember reading it late at night, peering down at my sleeping baby and toddler. I made a quiet promise to them right then: This will be our family’s story.
But I had no idea what I was really promising.
What I didn’t know at the time was that I, my husband, and our children were all undiagnosed autistic and ADHD. And while neurodivergence itself is not suffering, the world we live in often makes it very hard to move through life without collecting a legacy of trauma, especially when your needs, ways of being, and rhythms don’t match the systems around you.
Now, in my work with neurodivergent families, particularly those navigating burnout, I hear a similar heartfelt hope echoed again and again:
“I just want my child to be happy.”
And while that longing comes from deep, unconditional love… It’s a wish that, when left unexamined, can quietly become a trap for both parent and child.
Because when ‘happiness’ becomes the goal, every other emotion begins to feel like failure.
The Cultural ‘Script’ of “Just Be Happy”
Happiness is not a place, it is not a magical destination to which we can arrive, pitch a tent, unpack our bags and stay.
It’s not a state we can guarantee for our children, no matter how deeply we love them.
And yet, many of us, especially those of us who grew up as Gen Xers or older Millennials, were steeped in a cultural script that told us otherwise.
We were raised in families and societies that quietly, and sometimes explicitly, taught us:
“The goal is to be happy.” “Be grateful, it could be worse.” “Don’t cry, you’re fine.” “Stop crying or I’ll give you something to cry about”
We learned early that certain emotions were acceptable, cheerfulness, politeness, obedience, gratitude, while others were inconvenient, shameful, or dangerous. Sadness was often met with distraction. Anger was punished. Disappointment was bypassed with a quick fix or a forced reframing: “At least you have food on the table, there are children in… who have it way worse than you.”
More times than not, this wasn’t malicious. It was often the opposite.
We were raised by parents and grandparents who had lived through the Great Depression, world wars, economic uncertainty, and social upheaval. These generations were taught stoicism not as a character trait, but as a survival strategy. Feelings weren’t just uncomfortable, they were unsafe.
So, ‘good parenting’ became synonymous with protecting children from discomfort.
And eventually, a new mantra emerged:
“Good parents raise happy children.”
The Cost of Raising ‘Happy Children’ as a Hallmark of ‘Good Parenting’
On the surface, the goal to raise ‘happy children’ sounds beautiful, loving, even noble. But underneath, it carries a quiet pressure.
It carries the beliefs:
That happiness is the measure of our success as parents
If our child is upset, we must be doing something wrong
If they struggle, we must have failed to protect them
These beliefs, shaped by intergenerational trauma and inherited emotional illiteracy, turns very human, very necessary emotions like grief, anger, frustration, and sadness into threats instead of invitations for connection.
As psychologist Susan David says:
“Discomfort is the price of admission to a meaningful life.”
When we aim for constant happiness, we bypass the deeper emotional terrain where resilience, authenticity, and intimacy are built. And worse, we unknowingly pass on the message to our children that hard feelings are problems to be solved, or worse, signs of failure.
The Nervous System Toll of Always Needing to ‘Be Happy’
The other day, a parent shared something so familiar that I felt it in my bones.
She said, “My child started crying over something small—I don’t even remember what it was, and suddenly I could feel myself spiralling. My heart was racing, my chest tightened, and I just… snapped. I told her to calm down, that it wasn’t a big deal. But the truth is, I wasn’t talking to her. I was trying to calm myself.”
This is what no one tells you about parenting:
It’s not about behaviour management, it’s about nervous system management.
A family isn’t just a group of individuals. It’s a living, breathing nervous system ecosystem. Each person’s internal state, anxiety, calm, fear, joy, affects the others, like emotional weather moving through the house.
“In families, regulation (or dysregulation) is viral.” —Psychology Today
Let’s look at how this plays out in real time:
Your child has a big feeling, maybe they’re overwhelmed, angry, or inconsolable with sadness. You want to stay calm, but something in you reacts. Maybe your breath shortens. Your muscles tense. A quiet panic rises: “I don’t know how to fix this.”
Your brain starts searching for safety. Old scripts kick in:
“Just stop crying.”
“You’re fine.”
“Look on the bright side.”
And underneath it all? A deeper belief many of us were raised with: “Good parents raise happy kids.”
When your child isn’t happy, it feels like you’ve failed. That belief doesn’t live in your logic; it lives in your body.
So what happens next?
You try to “make it better,” but really, your nervous system is dysregulated. And now your child, who already feels vulnerable, senses that you are unsafe, unavailable, or overwhelmed.
They escalate.
You shut down.
Or maybe you both do.
The moment ends not with comfort or connection, but with emotional distance. And often, without even realising it, we close the loop with toxic positivity: “Cheer up.” “Be happy.” “Let’s not make this a big deal.”
It’s meant to help. But it sends a quiet message: “These feelings are too much. Even for me.”
We are living in the ashes of the parenting journey we expected. We grieve the ‘easy childhood’ we dreamed of for our kids. We mourn the parent we thought we’d be, the one with endless patience, gentle mornings, and tidy answers, who can make everything ‘better’.
There is deep sorrow in releasing the fantasy that if we just tried hard enough, loved fiercely enough, or got the parenting ‘right’, we could protect our children, and ourselves, from struggle.
And yet, we live in a culture that romanticises the impossible:
The blissful newborn phase
The perfectly curated childhood
The harmonious, smiling nuclear family
The Sweet Valley High version of adolescence—full of light drama, but no real pain
These ideals aren’t just unrealistic, they’re emotionally dangerous. They leave no room for grief. No space for imperfection, complexity, or nuance. And when our real lives don’t match the fantasy, we often turn the pain inward.
We don’t just grieve. We blame ourselves for grieving.
When Grief Turns to Shame
“Grief and love are sisters, woven together from the beginning. Their kinship reminds us that there is no love that does not contain loss and no loss that is not a reminder of the love we carry for what we once held close.” ― Francis Weller, The Wild Edge of Sorrow: Rituals of Renewal and the Sacred Work of Grief
Grief is a natural part of parenting, and it’s everywhere. It lives in every moment we let go of a dream, a phase, or a version of our child or ourselves, we once held tightly.
But we live in a society that makes very little room for grief. Instead of honouring the hard, messy, emotionally complex journey that comes with deep love and inevitable loss, grief is often turned into something shameful.
When no one names it… When we’re given no map, no tools, and no safe place to feel it… Grief becomes something we hide. It becomes our quiet secret, something we carry deeply but never speak aloud.
And in that silence, a dangerous story takes root:
“If I’m grieving, I must not be grateful.” “If I’m not happy, maybe I don’t love my child enough.” “I shouldn’t feel this way.” “I must be a bad parent.”
This is the cost of grief illiteracy.
When we’re not allowed to acknowledge the magnitude of our love and our loss, we can’t process it. And when we can’t process it, we can’t hold it for ourselves or our children.
Their sadness becomes unbearable. Their meltdowns feel like evidence of our failure. Their tears mirror the unspoken ache we’ve never had permission to express.
So we shut down. We bypass. We push toxic positivity. We become fragile in the face of our children’s emotions, avoidant of the very connection we long for.
Not because we don’t love them, But because we were never taught how to hold love and grief in the same being.
The Grief Our Children Carry in Burnout
Parenting through burnout can feel like walking a tightrope while carrying the weight of both your child’s pain and your own.
Every meltdown becomes a moment of panic. Every shutdown stirs helplessness. The harder it gets, the more urgent it feels to fix it.
But underneath that urgency lives unspoken grief:
Grief for the childhood you hoped your child would have.
Grief for the parent you thought you’d be.
Grief for how hard it really is.
Your child is grieving, too. They may not have the words, but their bodies tell the truth.
Through meltdowns. Through withdrawal. Through exhaustion and explosive frustration.
They’re grieving the social connections they can’t sustain. The overwhelm of a dysregulated body. The fear that they’re simply too much.
And when their grief collides with your shame, the cycle begins:
They express. You react. Both of you retreat, misunderstood and disconnected.
The Path Forward: Reclaiming Grief, Rebuilding Trust
But this cycle isn’t the end. It’s the beginning of a different kind of healing.
Burnout recovery is not just about slowing down or doing less. It’s about making space for grief. It’s about staying with what hurts, so our children can learn to do the same.
When we begin to see grief not as a failure, but as a reflection of love, we create space for repair, co-regulation, and connection.
We send a new message:
“You are not too much.” “I’m not afraid of your sadness.” “We can hold this together.”
And in doing so, we begin to rebuild trust, not just in our children, but in ourselves.
When grief is welcomed, witnessed, and held, it becomes a bridge.
But when it is silenced through distraction, punishment, or the quiet fear that “I shouldn’t feel this”, it becomes shame. And shame always disconnects.
Disconnected children withdraw from their bodies, their voices, and the people they need most. Disconnected parents feel reactive, ashamed, and powerless.
This isn’t just a personal pattern. It’s a generational one.
We inherited it. And now, we have the chance to interrupt it.
Burnout Recovery is More Than Rest.
It is the sacred work of relearning how to feel without fear. Of grieving what was lost or never received. Of coming home to ourselves, so we can show up differently for our children.
And when we do, when we allow our own grief to rise without shame, something begins to shift:
Trust
Emotional safety
The felt sense of “We can do hard things together.”
The path back to connection isn’t about removing struggle. It’s about learning how to be with it, side by side.
Grief is not a failure of parenting. It is the evidence of love.
And when we meet it gently, it becomes the doorway to wholeness.
Come Be Held Inside From Burnout to Balance
If this spoke to some gentle inner truth in you. If you’re carrying unspoken grief or shame, parenting through burnout, or feeling disconnected from yourself or your child, you’re not alone. Deep healing is possible when we heal in community, the type of community where we can show up authentically and share our story without fear of rejection.
“Shame derives its power from being unspeakable. That’s why it loves perfectionists—it’s so easy to keep us quiet. If we cultivate enough awareness about shame to name it and speak to it, we’ve basically cut it off at the knees. Shame hates having words wrapped around it. If we speak shame, it begins to wither. Just the way exposure to light was deadly for the gremlins, language and story bring light to shame and destroy it.”
Brene Brown
From Burnout to Balanceis a soft landing place for parents of neurodivergent children and teens in burnout.
It’s not another thing to keep up with. It’s a community built around slowing down, feeling deeply, and reconnecting with what matters most.
Inside, you’ll find:
Nervous system honouring practices
Soulful coaching and gentle guidance
Real conversations about grief, shame, and self-trust
Practical tools for low-demand parenting and emotional repair
A space where you don’t have to mask or pretend
This isn’t about fixing your child. It’s about supporting you, so you can feel less alone, more grounded, and more at home in your own story.
We’re not here to chase perfection. We’re here to practice presence.
Hi, I’m Tanya Valentin, an AuDHD parent, family coach, author, and podcaster. I guide parents of Autistic and ADHD kids through burnout recovery using a neuro-affirming, trauma-informed approach.
As a parent of three autistic teens, I know firsthand how isolating and exhausting this journey can be. That’s why I created From Burnout to Balance, a space where parents can find real, practical answers to help their child recover from burnout and a supportive community, so no parent has to navigate it alone.
