059 - Is it Guilt or Grief? The adaptation process of parenting kids who are “different”

Welcome to Parenting the Intensity, where we'll talk all about how we can drop the general parenting advice that doesn't work with our emotional identity and dance kids anyway, and let go of the unrealistic expectations society puts on us as parents. Together, we'll find solution and ideas that work for you and your kids. Chances are, deep down, you know what they need. But you might need a little encouragement to keep going on larger days and permission to do things differently and help you fully trust that you already are a wonderful parents to your exceptional, but sometimes challenging kids. I'm Anouk, and I'll be navigating this with you.

I'm recording this podcast on an unseded territory of the Endakina and Wabanaki communities. Today is the start of a new season of the podcast. We will have episode every other week until June, and then we'll take another break for the summer. Today, we will be talking about a topic that is a bit hard, but is very important as it's something that we don't talk a lot about, and it's grief. Because when we have when we are in our life situation that is different than the norm, which is basically our reality, when we have kids who have we're different, in different ways.

And our emotional intelligence kids are different than what we expect and what society expects kids to be. And that can be true for many different situations. And that comes with grief. And it's a grief that is very not recognized as is, as it's something that even exists. So we it's very likely that nobody ever told you about that, and people don't really talk about that.

We think about grief when we lose someone, but we don't necessarily, think about grief in, the fact that we might be craving what we thought we would have. And this is, this is basically, like, we we you might have heard with, like, the child that you imagine is not the child you add, which is kind of a normal grief of new parents. But that's generally done in the first when when it's done, it's still in the first few weeks or months maybe after having a baby and or a child if you're adopting. And, generally, that goes away unless there's very intense depression, but, generally, that goes away. And it's not necessarily something we go back to.

But, in the reality we are in, it's different. And we generally don't realize that we're going through grief, and it can come up in different ways. It's not something that is socially, visible or even recognized. And it comes with judgment and a very big lack of an understanding. And we often feel guilt because of, that feeling of of of grief.

We feel shame because we think and it's often that way. Like, we can often see in, mostly social media, new parents, sort of parents in general saying things are they don't necessarily appreciate about the reality of being a parent. And there is negative comments coming with that as if, that was not okay, as if we loved our kids less because we we didn't love everything, every moment of parenthood. This is getting normalized more, but it's different when you are kind of craving a life you thought you would have, a child you thought you would have, but and the parents you thought we would be too. And this is all not what's happening in your life.

And that comes with a lot of guilt and feeling that you cannot feel that grief because if you do, it means you love your kids less, which is absolutely not the case. And I'm I'm going to come back to that, but it's that's not it at all. It's coming like, it's the opposite. When we are going through the grieving process, if we don't get stuck into it as we go through it, we are moving to the accepting our child as it is instead of getting stuck on who we thought that child would be, who we thought what we thought our reality would be. I will touch on what is grief a little bit.

You might be very familiar with that, but just to make sure that we are all on the same page. So the regular or old way that we thought about, like, thought grief, was in stages, a bit like a staircase. So there's, the denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance, and I add a meaning. And I'll come back to that. But those are kind of stairs.

And when we started talking about the grieving process, that was kind of a really kind of like a staircase, which is not really a reality. Reality. Like, we know now that it's much more messy than that. It's more like a like, an all intertwined. And you can go from depression to anger to denial to bargaining to depression again and acceptance, and then go back to denial.

And I'll go back to anger and go like, it's a back and forth. But regular grief in general as one main event that will, like, create the grief. So, for example, someone is that died, that's the main event. And we will move to all of those stages, of grief until we get to meaning, which I consider being like the step after acceptance. Like, we have accepted.

Yes. But it we are giving meaning to what happened. It makes sense to us. And some grieving process are harder because we cannot find any meaning in them. And for other reason, sometimes we can get stuck in one or one of those stages or stay really longer in some stages.

And this becomes, like, a complicated grieving process that might require some, professional support. But that's kind of the regular way grief works. And of course, life is not simple that way. Sometimes there could be a new event that creates a new grieving process. And like there's lots of things going on, but this is kind of the theory of grief, if you will.

The difference when we have kids that are different than what we expected, different than what society expected expects of them, is that there is not one event. There is many events and many triggers. Because in regular grief, you can have triggers of your grief. You can have triggers that remind you. There can be milestones or anniversaries and things like that that will get you back in your grief.

And even when you got meaning, you will sometimes get get back. So there's triggers. But in the grief that we're living through, it's different in the way that there is not one trigger. There is many triggers. And we don't know how many not triggers, sorry.

There is many events. And we don't know how many events there will be. We might have one, two, three, four. We might have others because there's some sort of unexpected, things we don't know. So, it can be a diagnosis that, you got for your child.

Or there can be the times, like, all the the milestones your child is not going through at the same stage or at the same age of of other kids. There's, you plan something you wanted to do but for some reason you cannot go because your child is overwhelmed, because you're too tired, because, like, there's a reason related to your parenting that makes it so that you cannot go. Each time you you something to happen and you're like, oh, this is not what how I thought that would happen. I thought it would happen differently. And because our kids are different, our life is different, those things happen in a way that are not what we expect personally, but often what we are taught to expect socially.

And all of those can be small events of that create some a new kind of grief a new grieving process. So we are kind of ongoing creating new grieving process. And this makes it difficult because there is no never an endpoint. There is always a new new craving to start. So, yes, we're going through all of those stages of of depression, bargaining, acceptance, denial, anger, but we're going through them for many different events that triggered our grief at the same time, if I I'm clear.

And so it's, like, not one grieving process, but many grieving process that we're going through at the same time, which makes it very complicated. But, yeah, this is, like, the difference I would say with, regular grieving. And I touch on that, but we have no clear path. And we often feel powerless. And often especially that when we don't know where we're going, when when we don't know, for example, the stages our kids are going through is not the same as other kids, like the milestones, we might not know if they will ever have a process that will be they will they catch up?

Will they never catch up? Will they be able to reach the, like, autonomous adulthood that we expect kids to be reaching at some point? Maybe they will never. And we don't know. And that uncertainty makes it very hard because it makes it hard to go through the stages of grief.

When we don't know the endpoint, it's harder to go through, grieving process. And it also decrease our confidence of what we decide to do, of what we wanna move through. So this is something that you can reflect on. Like, how clear is your situation you are in at the moment with your child, with your family? Because having that feeling of uncertainty is really hard.

And sometimes and, I talk about that often, but letting go of the expectation of what should be, not trying to stay attached to the expectation of what we had, what society has as expectation, it really is helpful in going through the grieving process. Otherwise, we never really grieve. And we continually are in the wanting things to be as they, quote, unquote, should be. And we get stuck into that, and we don't grieve. And so we cannot move on to accepting our life as it is.

Because this is this is what will makes it possible to live a normal and, like, a normal the meaning of, like, a life that we can enjoy. That life will be different. We can still enjoy it. And, like, those stages because, like, as I was saying, all of those stages and getting stuck and running around can makes us feel that we don't love our kids as much. But no.

Like, we are really in the process of accepting them as they are. And it is important to recognize that guilt, that and that grief. And give us time to grieve. And again and again, because there's more than one craving. One thing that we're grieving.

So we need to give ourselves the time and the space to do it and find people who do understand that, and don't judge us for doing that. You know? And so at some point, we find a meaning. There is so many parents, that will do things related in some way, to what their kids went through or going through, what they're going through, because it helps to give meaning. So this is something to reflect on if it's not clear for you yet, like, what what this situation might mean to you.

What did it brought to your life that you might not have otherwise? So, yeah, this is what I would suggest to reflect on. And, as for so many other things to outgo through the process. So there's the letting go, honestly, is the main point. Like, it's it's the grieving process.

Letting go of the expectation. And serving your own needs, so to always and I talk about that all the time, but taking care of yourself, regulating yourself, and, really getting to know your kids for who they are. And, this is very helpful, which I really love doing using photography, and I will talk about that, a bit more on a another episode probably. But I also have, products in the shop, and I have some emails coming on that topic. But using photo photos, and really focusing on what our kids are doing, what who they are is very helpful.

It can be done in other way for sure if you are not a photo person, by journaling or even recording stuff. But just the way of, like, trying to really understand your child for who they are instead of getting stuck in who they you thought they should have been or something like that. And that's often, like, not conscious. Let's be honest. So just, like, it's not something we do on purpose, of course.

And focusing on the connection with them. That's it. So I will, suggest to check with yourself. Like, can is there something you can let go? Something that's hard that you feel you're kind of stuck in about the grieving process at the moment.

Is there one of those things that you can let go of? So that you can that can help you move through that grieving process. So, yeah, I would say this is it for for today. Thank you for joining me here today. Thank you for you and for your kids.

If you think this episode could be useful for someone you know, please share with them. You'll help them and you'll tell them I get it. And we love that. We know who gets it. And if you haven't, I have a new, private podcast that's called You're Not Failing.

The guilt is to help you stop feeling like, well, you're failing or doing it wrong, and start to build your parental confidence a bit more. You can find it at familymoments.ca, forward slash not failing in one word. I will put the link in the show notes. And, you can find everything else I offer on my website at familymoments.ca. So you can take action on what's the most important for you right now.

I'm here for you so you can be there for your kids. Hope you have a nice day.