Neurodivergent parenting regrets are something I don’t talk about lightly — because I know every decision I made came from a place of love and the best information I had at the time. But there are two things I would do differently if I could go back, and I share them here because I think they might save another parent some of the time and heartache we lost. The noise of other people’s opinions is loud when you’re raising a neurodivergent child. Learning to hear your own gut over that noise is one of the most important skills you can develop.
I’ve been on both sides of this — as a pediatric ICU nurse who watched families navigate hard decisions, and as a mom who has had to make those decisions herself. Both perspectives have shaped how I think about this, and I’m going to be honest about where I got it wrong.
When Other People’s Opinions Drowned Out My Gut
When you’re parenting a neurodivergent child, everyone has an opinion. Family members who think you’re overreacting. Pediatricians who reassure you it’s just a phase. Well-meaning friends who say every kid develops differently. And they’re not always wrong — there is a range of normal, kids do develop at different paces, and not every concern turns into a diagnosis. The medical world, especially in pediatrics, does lean toward a wait-and-see approach for good reason.
But here’s what I’ve learned: wait-and-see has a cost that nobody talks about. And when you’re dealing with neurodivergent parenting, that cost can be significant.
My two biggest neurodivergent parenting regrets both come back to waiting too long — once to get a diagnosis, and once to start medication. I’m not sharing these to make other parents feel guilty for similar choices. I’m sharing them because I wish someone had said these things to me earlier, and maybe this post can be that for someone else.
Neurodivergent Parenting Regret #1 — Waiting Too Long to Diagnose
I knew from the time my oldest son was around two years old that he likely had ADHD. It runs in our family — both my parents, my sister, my husband. I recognized the signs. But when I mentioned it to my mom, who had worked as a child and adolescent psychotherapist, she said there wasn’t really a need to get tested unless he was struggling in school. So I waited.
He tried preschool for about three months and got asked to leave because of ADHD-related behaviors. We decided to homeschool. And since he wasn’t in a traditional school, the urgency to get a formal diagnosis felt lower. I just kept managing it. We moved to Germany when he was five, which made accessing evaluations even harder. He wasn’t diagnosed with ADHD until he was seven or eight — and he wasn’t diagnosed with ASD until he was ten.
In the years between when I first suspected something and when we finally had answers, we lost something important. We interpreted a lot of his behavior through the wrong lens. We thought he was being defiant when he was actually fixated and unable to shift. We thought he was being destructive when he was actually being curious — taking things apart to understand how they worked. We had negative perceptions of his motivations that weren’t fair to him, and that affected how we responded to him and how he felt about himself.
My son used to ask me — over and over — what’s wrong with my brain? He knew something was different. He just didn’t have a framework for it. And neither did we, yet. That question broke my heart every time, because I didn’t have an answer for him.
What the Late Diagnosis Cost Us
Here’s what I want every parent to understand about the wait-and-see approach when it comes to neurodivergent kids and therapy referrals specifically: getting an evaluation doesn’t commit you to anything. Specialists like occupational therapists, speech therapists, and physical therapists have to use standardized assessments during evaluations — and your child has to meet a certain threshold to qualify for services. If you go through an evaluation and your child doesn’t meet the criteria, you spent an hour of your time and got reassurance. That’s the worst case scenario.
But if you wait — and it turns out your child does need those services — the math gets painful fast. You lose the time you spent waiting. Then you get on a waiting list, because these providers are almost always booked out. Then your child starts therapy and may need to be seen for months or years to close the gap. Meanwhile, the deficit has been quietly growing the whole time.
For kids who already struggle with communication, social skills, or developmental milestones, that widening gap doesn’t just affect those specific skills. It creates frustration. Frustration leads to behavioral problems. Behavioral problems affect relationships, self-esteem, and learning. One delay compounds into many. And the window where early intervention is most effective doesn’t stay open forever.
I say this as someone who was a pediatric nurse before I was a neurodivergent parent: the providers who tell you to wait and see mean well. They genuinely don’t want to alarm you unnecessarily. But they’re also not the ones living with your child every day. And most of them — if it were their own child showing the signs you’re describing — would probably pursue an evaluation sooner rather than later, because they know firsthand what early intervention can do. They know the waiting lists are long. They know the benefits of therapy are real. They’re not the ones responsible for your child. You are.
If the most aggressive outcome of pursuing an evaluation is that your child gets into therapy they enjoy going to — and most kids actually do enjoy OT, PT, and speech when it’s done well — that’s not a downside. That’s a win. As the CDC’s Act Early campaign emphasizes, early intervention for developmental differences produces significantly better long-term outcomes. The research is clear. The waiting lists are long. Don’t wait.
Neurodivergent Parenting Regret #2 — Waiting Too Long to Medicate
My second neurodivergent parenting regret is waiting so long to pursue medication for my oldest son. I’ve shared our full medication journey — including two failed attempts and an ER visit — in my post on when ADHD medication doesn’t work. But separate from the logistics of finding the right medication, there’s the question of when I decided to seriously try in the first place. And I waited longer than I should have.
I tend toward holistic approaches. I was nervous about side effects. I was nervous about reduced weight gain. As a pediatric nurse my expertise was medical, not psychiatric, and psych medications made me uncomfortable in a way other medications didn’t. So I held off. And in the years I held off, my son struggled. He fell behind academically. His self-esteem took hit after hit. He felt different and didn’t understand why, and he didn’t have the tools to manage it.
Now that he is medicated — at the right dose, with the right provider, with supplements and behavioral supports in place alongside the medication — things have improved significantly. His words, not just mine: he says he’s happier. He went up two math grade levels in one year. His language arts improved significantly. Our relationship with him improved because we’re not in a constant cycle of redirection and frustration. He understands himself better. He advocates for himself better. He still has a lot of struggles — we’re still very much in the middle of this journey — but the difference between where he was and where he is now is real and it matters.
How much of that could he have had sooner? That’s the neurodivergent parenting question I sit with. Not with guilt — guilt isn’t useful — but as information I want to pass on to other parents who are in the place I was in.
What Finally Changed — And What I’d Tell Other Parents
What finally changed for us was a combination of things — the right specialist, the right timing, and honestly, just enough time passing that I had seen with my own eyes what waiting had cost us. Neurodivergent parenting regrets have a way of becoming the clearest teachers.
If I could go back, I would have pursued evaluations earlier — not because I would have necessarily done everything differently based on the results, but because having the right information sooner would have changed how we understood our son and how we responded to him. Knowledge doesn’t commit you to a course of action. It just gives you better options.
I would have asked for therapy referrals sooner and pushed back when I was told to wait and see. The waiting lists for OT, PT, and speech are long — sometimes months. Every month you spend waiting to decide is a month added to the front of that wait. And if your child doesn’t qualify after the evaluation, you lost an afternoon. If they do qualify and you waited a year to find out, you lost a year.
And I would have taken the medication question more seriously sooner — not rushed into it, but engaged with it earlier and with more openness. My son’s process did take time for biological reasons that were real and valid. But some of the delay was my fear, and fear isn’t a good enough reason to let a child struggle when there are options worth exploring.
What I’d tell another neurodivergent parent sitting where I was sitting: you are the one responsible for your child. The providers mean well, but they go home at the end of the day. You don’t. Trust what you’re observing. Pursue answers even when you’re told to wait. The aggressive approach — evaluations, therapy, finding the right supports — isn’t something to be afraid of. It’s something to fight for.
Watch: What I Wish I’d Done Sooner
In this video I talk through both of these neurodivergent parenting regrets in more detail — including what finally shifted my thinking and what I’d do differently if I could start over.
Trust Your Gut — You Know Your Child
Neurodivergent parenting regrets don’t have to become your story. The fact that you’re here, reading this, asking these questions — that already puts you ahead of where I was. You’re paying attention. You’re taking it seriously. And if these neurodivergent parenting regrets sound familiar, I hope they help you make a different choice sooner than I did. That matters more than getting every decision right on the first try.
You know your child better than any provider, any family member, any well-meaning friend. When something feels like it needs attention, it usually does. When your gut says it’s time to push for answers, push. The worst that happens is you find out you didn’t need to worry. The best that happens is you get your child the support they needed sooner — and you get more of the good years back.
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