When My Child Is Wired Differently

When your child's neurotype is different from yours — maybe you're autistic and they're not, maybe you're wired in different neurodivergent ways — their inner world can feel genuinely foreign. The 'double empathy' gap runs both directions: it's not that one of you is broken, it's that you each find the other a bit hard to read. That's a translation gap, and translation is learnable.

Where the gap shows up

Things about my child I find genuinely puzzling or foreign (their social needs, energy, spontaneity, what soothes them)

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What their world costs me

No judgment — just naming what's effortful for you.

• [ ] Their noise or energy level
• [ ] Their need for spontaneity / changing plans
• [ ] How much social contact they want
• [ ] The small talk and social choreography of their world
• [ ] Their fast pace

Other things in their world that drain me

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What my world might cost them

Where my needs — quiet, routine, processing time, fewer surprises — might be hard on them

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Bridge it both ways

Curiosity does most of the work. Ask them; explain yourself; stop assuming you'd feel the same.

One thing I want to understand better about how they tick

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One thing about how I tick that I could explain to them

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Example: 'I need quiet to recharge; you recharge by being around people. Neither of us is wrong — let's build a rhythm with room for both.'

You don't have to share a brain to be close: Naming the gap out loud and getting curious about each other bridges most of it. Difference isn't distance unless it goes unspoken.

Go deeper

Ready for more? These lessons pick up where this worksheet leaves off.

• When You're Neurodivergent Too, from Parenting Autism. For the autistic or ADHD parent: same wiring, double load, and turning it into strength.
• Communication Across Neurotypes, from Parenting Autism. Why communication is a two-way translation gap, and how to be your child's interpreter.
• Parenting Without a Map, from Parenting Autism. The parenting advice you were handed was written for a different kid.