Working with Neurodivergent Families
Parenting a neurodivergent child is utterly exhausting. Depending on your child’s diagnosis, everything you do has to be regulated, extremely fair and calculated or open to whimsy, unending chaos and spontaneity.
Sometimes, your child needs both of those worlds. There are other diagnoses that can add their own flavors to your child’s alphabet soup (this is how I have heard it described and really feel it fits- picture their diagnoses as the letters floating in broth “ADHD, ASD, SPD” etc).
With children that are on the Autistic Spectrum (ASD), they do not transition well from one thing to another. Regular schedules, things you can predict and plans that you can pre-coach them through help them to stay in control of their emotional well-being.
On the other hand, children with Attention Deficit and Hyperactivity Disorder, can be impulsive and want to bounce from one subject to another. For them, they get bored if something is the same for too long. Often, their attention span (if unmedicated) is 10 minutes long. Then they need some sort of refresh in what is going on around them.
I have been blessed with a child that has both diagnoses…. So life is very interesting to say the least.
What am I scared to do? Everything. Don’t get me wrong, I love my daughter. Her writing skills are out of this world. Creativity pours from her and she is so funny!
The challenge is, I don’t want to have to work through her challenges on a clock… you know… like you have when you only have so much time at a grocery store before you really need to get dinner on the table. Or when you are trying to just get that one more thing done but her creativity monster bit her and she HAS to do this certain thing now.
Or when you are getting your photos taken and the photographer only has an hour with you- hard stop. My daughter could talk to that photographer for the whole hour if I let her! There is also the chance that she will have something trigger her 5 minutes before we have to leave the house and we’ll have 20 minutes of our time eaten up working through her emotional struggles, plus show up emotionally haggard. (See my example story below)
These challenges are things every neurodivergent parent navigates. They are the things that prevent us from ever going to that “Contact Me” form on the photographer that we follow’s website. We want photos of our family looking happy like that… but never feel like that is a reality for us.
I want that to change. I want neurodivergent families to feel welcomed and included.
I realized a few years ago how many tips and tools I incorporate already into my family photo sessions. Over the years, I have had so many neurodivergent families find me and have a great time at their family photos. It makes me sooo happy! Neurodivergent kids are amazing and unique- there is not one of them that is alike. I love getting to know them all and playing with them. They deserve to feel seen. Those mamas deserve to feel comfortable about their photographer and know that the photographer will not try to get their kid to act differently but just be who they are.
One thing I do is select the location that will best fit your kiddo. Share with me their strengths and challenges and I will make suggestions for places that will highlight joy, not trigger a tantrum.
Another thing I do is build in extra time. My website may say “up to an hour” but if things go sideways, I will spend time till things are better. A neurotypical brain can process emotional waves in about 90 seconds. That same emotional wave in a neurodivergent child could take an hour to process.
Example: My daughter’s shoe got eaten by our puppy the other day. (Jury is still out on whether it was on the shoe rack or in the middle of the floor.. but I digress.) We were getting our shoes on to leave for a fun family clue-finding mystery game. It was going to be great! This app gives you puzzles, you solve them and walk to the next place and get a new virtual clue. That is the kind of thing my daughter LOVES! She found her shoe eaten… and melted down for 60 minutes. Her emotions are real, her loss is real and there is no use in saying, “Suck it up, we are missing our event!” because that only makes the situation worse by adding shame and guilt to the ordeal. All I could do was hold her and let her cry until her prefrontal cortex was able to engage again. Even though there was something my daughter really, really wanted to do, she was unable to regain control of her emotions. Yup, my husband and youngest went out and started the quest and we caught up an hour later.
I feel like that is a long way of saying, “I get it!” but I do want you to see that I really do!
If we have to reschedule your family session because your ASD child is just not able to function today- that is okay. Are you going to lose your deposit? With me, never. I wouldn’t want that for my family, why would I want that for yours?
The last thing that I will share here that I do to help neurodivergent families feel seen is I talk to the kid. My prompts at sessions are addressed to the child… if they don’t want to do it, then we aren’t going to do it. I am not going to beg them to just do it once because it would look so cute!! Nope, that will backfire every time. Instead I’ll say something like, “Hey Jodie, will you walk down the beach holding Dad’s hand? No? Okay, will you walk next to him and tell him all about your favorite _______ while looking at his windy hair?” (Eye contact can be hard- don’t force it, give a different location to look.)
Are you a neurodivergent family? I would love to be your photographer! I am based in Seattle and serve the surrounding cities like Bothell, Redmond, Everett and Lynnwood. Let’s work together to make some amazing memories that you can hang on your walls and look at during those harder times. Contact me today so we can make this happen!
Are you a photographer looking to improve the photo session experience for your families that may have high-energy, highly sensitive kids? Get my free resource here!