The Myth of the Regulated Parent

Across every article, podcast, TED-talk-style clip, and well meaning resource about neurodivergent children, one line appears again and again:

“You have to stay regulated so your child can co-regulate.”

On the surface, it sounds grounding, even wise. But for many parents - especially neurodivergent parents - it lands like a quiet verdict. Be calm, no matter what. Be patient, even when your body is on fire. Be soothing, even as the system around you keeps you in perpetual fight or flight!

Regulation shifts from a nervous-system state into an expectation, a performance, a metric by which parents silently judge themselves.

And whenever regulation becomes something we perform, we move further away from actually experiencing it.

Most parents of demand-avoidant, anxious, or traumatised children already live inside an ecosystem of impossible demands: anticipate every meltdown, avoid every trigger, stay one step ahead of escalation, be endlessly available, endlessly understanding, endlessly composed. Even self-care becomes a task with instructions and outcomes - yet another thing to get right, another thing to fail at.

For neurodivergent parents, the load is doubled. Sensory overwhelm, executive fatigue, emotional intensity, processing delays, rejection sensitivity - these are not minor footnotes - they fundamentally shape how we experience our own bodies. Expecting a neurodivergent parent to remain constantly calm is like expecting someone to sprint without breathing. It pathologises the nervous system instead of understanding it. It replaces compassion with pressure - and pressure is the quickest route out of regulation.

When “stay regulated” becomes a measure of good parenting, dysregulation becomes a moral failure.
Parents internalise the idea: If I can’t stay calm, the problem is me. Not the environment. Not the system. Not the demands placed on us - me.

But sometimes the most regulated thing a parent can do is simply say the truth: “I am overwhelmed right now.”

Nervous systems are not static. They cycle, they surge, they settle. They respond to context, to sensory input, to accumulated stress, to unmet needs. No adult - especially not one caring for a neurodivergent child within a chronically under resourced system - stays serene all day. The idea itself is absurd.

Regulation was never meant to be a constant state. It was meant to be a cycle: activation, awareness, repair, return. Our job is not to avoid dysregulation but to know ourselves well enough to navigate it.

What children need to see is not a parent who never wavers, but a parent who can find their way back.

Neurodivergent children are often extraordinarily perceptive. They notice micro shifts in tone, body language, pacing, breath. They know when we are “off,” even if we deny it. So when we tell them “I’m fine” while visibly vibrating with tension, we introduce dissonance - a mismatch between what their body senses and what our words claim.

That mismatch teaches them to distrust their own interoception. It tells them Your instincts are wrong; override them.

Naming our own state - gently, honestly - is not burdening a child. It is modelling emotional literacy, clarity, and bodily awareness. It is permission-giving and safety-building.

And on the days when regulation shatters too quickly to catch - when we snap, shut down, or storm off - that isn’t failure. That is humanity. Repair is still possible, and often more powerful - “That moment was too big for me. You didn’t cause it. I needed space to calm my body.”

Our children learn, from these moments, that relationships are flexible - that connection isn’t erased by difficulty, that safety isn’t dependent on perfection.

Parents often fall into the shame spiral:
losing patience → guilt → shame → more dysregulation → more guilt.

It mirrors exactly what many neurodivergent children experience when they feel they’ve “got it wrong.” The antidote is the same - compassion, not perfection. Your nervous system deserves the grace you teach your child to give theirs.

What helps is not a rigid performance of calm, but gentle anchors: noticing the early tension, naming overwhelm before it peaks, nourishing the body through withdrawal or sensory reduction, and repairing the moment once the body has settled. These are the real foundations of long-term emotional safety.

And while all of this unfolds inside the home, families are simultaneously navigating systems - educational, medical, social - that are themselves profoundly dysregulated. Systems that operate in constant urgency, defensiveness, gatekeeping, fear. Systems that ignore parent distress while demanding parent composure. Systems that escalate quickly but repair rarely.

Parents are instructed to stay calm while the systems around them yell.

It is unreasonable, it is harmful, and it is not a reflection of parental failure - it is a reflection of political and structural neglect.

Families do not dysregulate in a vacuum - they dysregulate within environments that overwhelm them.

You do not have to be calm to be safe.
You do not have to be perfect to be a secure base.
Co-regulation is not about flawless behaviour.
It is about return, repair, reconnection.

Our children don’t need unbreakable parents.
They need parents who come back.