How to Deal with Your Neurodivergent Child Affecting Your Career
What You're Carrying Isn't a Failure, It's an Unequal Load.
Tia opened up about something so many working moms raising neurodivergent kids feel but rarely say out loud: this isn't a time management problem; it's a capacity problem. She shared her own heartbreak, having to turn down a dream speaking opportunity because her daughter needed her more, and how that moment crushed her even while guilt crept in for feeling that way at all. Tia reminded listeners that the exhaustion, resentment, and grief that come with this season are not signs of failure. They're congruent with an incredibly heavy, often invisible load.
She walked through three things that have genuinely helped her: radically accepting the season she's in instead of fighting it, sharing the real ownership of tasks with her partner or support system rather than just getting "help," and carving out small, protected pockets of work time, even if that means a 5 a.m. alarm. None of it is about hustling harder or achieving some perfect balance. It's about giving yourself a little more agency inside a season that asks so much of you.
HERE ARE THE 3 KEY TAKEAWAYS FROM THIS EPISODE:
1️⃣ This season is a capacity problem, not a motivation problem.
2️⃣ Real support means shared ownership, not just occasional help.
3️⃣ Small, protected pockets of time can restore a sense of agency.
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“Your ambition is not the problem. The problem is that you are carrying two huge full-time jobs mostly alone.”
Full Transcript
Tia Graham (00:02.114)
Welcome back to the Feel Good Club show. I am so glad that you're here, and I want you to know that I see you, whether you're in your car, working out, at home, overwhelmed, stressed out, whatever's going on, I see you and I want you to know that you're doing great. This is kind of a heavy topic.
And it's something that is really, really hard, but I want to give you some useful takeaways that I know are going to be valuable because it's what has helped me. So imagine you are on a really important work call. Maybe it's with a team member, maybe it's with a client, and then you hear screaming upstairs, and it is loud.
And you immediately feel so much tension in your mind and in your body. Again, your hard one career and the work that you have worked so hard towards is again slipping today and over and over. And this is not at all from laziness, but it's from a kid that needs so much more than.
Most kids. And I promise that I'm going to talk to you today about what you can actually do about this when your work is being extremely affected by the huge needs of your child. I've been there, I still am there some days, so I know what it's like. The problem is that you and I are raising.
High needs, neurodivergent children. And this is a second full-time job that takes massive emotional, right? It's a huge emotional load, the invisible and mental load, and then the physical load of doing it. And this job does not give you any PTO. And then there's the career fallout, missed meetings.
Tia Graham (02:29.377)
Declined opportunities, which are so hard when you're ambitious and you have big goals and dreams, like I do, and you're also always feeling so distracted at work because there's this full-time, really important second job. It is so hard watching peers advance while you are treading water or maybe even feel like you're going backwards.
This isn't, you know, a short phase. This season can last years and years and years.
So, this is not at all a time management failure. This is an unequal load problem. And this invisible labor of appointments, coordination, meltdown management. This doesn't show up on your calendar. And you may have, like me, other kids as well. And this is not about just getting organized. And this, you know, this this all the organization and
The prioritization and productivity tips, all of them in the world don't fix a 5 a.m. nervous system crisis or constantly being interrupted during the day. And this is also about grief for the career that you thought you were going to be able to have. And capacity problems need structural fixes, not just more willpower on your part.
Tia Graham (04:09.352)
It is a Tuesday morning, and I am working in my home office, and I have been working so hard building my keynote speaking and leadership training business. Also working hard on selling my book, be a happy leader, and for years I have dreamed about being a
Keynote speaker, a motivational speaker. And I am on the phone with a company in San Francisco, and I've been working really hard on getting this new client, and they are asking me to come speak next month in San Francisco. My daughter is not able to go to school. She's having to do homeschool, and I have a teacher, but
In addition to academics, she's struggling with emotional regulation, with panic attacks, with so much dysregulation. This is affecting my husband, my other daughter, and myself. And I have to tell this client that I'm so sorry, I can't come and be your speaker. As I am saying these words, my
Heart is shattering in a million pieces. I have always been ambitious. I have always wanted to work hard, and I've always felt that work brings me so much purpose and meaning. And ambition and title and everything also has been a huge part of my identity. Having to say no to this perfect opportunity.
Literally feels like it's crushing my soul. And then I feel guilty that I feel bad for not wanting to spend more time with my daughter. And this all of this just compounds, and I feel frustrated and resentful and overwhelmed and really angry, to be honest. And it sucked. It really, really sucked.
Tia Graham (06:34.824)
And this was my life for many years. I could say yes to some things, but I had to say no to a lot of things. And it honestly was crushing. So if this is you right now, and your work is being severely affected by the extreme needs, I want to share three things that have really, really helped me over the past six years.
Number one is that you need to accept the season. Radically accept the season you're in, and this season might be a long season. Accept that you are not going to be able to work the way that you thought you could. And accept the emotions that you're feeling.
Right? If you're feeling angry, if you're feeling resentful, if you're feeling discouraged, if you're feeling angry, if you're feeling frustrated, these are all congruent. These emotions make sense. Acceptance is not about giving up, but it's about also not fighting every second the season you're in. And I didn't do this very well for years, so I hope.
that this is helpful for you, right? Name the emotions, talk about the emotions, journal about them. This is gonna help you accept the season.
Tip number two for you is to share the load with your partner and with your nanny if you have help. So this is about a real division of labor, not just helping out with tasks. Bringing to light, and for me, I put it on an Excel spreadsheet, bringing to light the map of all of the labor and
Tia Graham (08:41.922)
Thinking through, and I love Fair Play. If you have not read Flair Play, read that book about like the ideation of everything, the planning of everything. And then there's the execution. And you can have your nanny and your partner truly take some of it. You're still gonna be the CEO of this, probably, but you don't have to do it all. So, you know, figure out.
What you can delegate and delegate. And tip number three, and I didn't do this every day, and I certainly didn't do this every week, but I sometimes would work when my children were sleeping. So this means going to bed when they go to bed at a flippin' boring time like 9 p.m.
And then getting up, setting my alarm for 5 or 5 30, and maybe doing 30 minutes or one hour, if I was lucky, 90 minutes of work before your child or children wake up. Other people can do this after their kids go to bed. I was never able to do that. But because your day is so interrupted and because your day is so limited, just creating 30 minutes or 45 minutes of work time sometimes.
Made me feel like I had a little bit more agency. And this is not about extreme hustle because you're not in the season of extreme hustle. It's about a little bit more uninterrupted time. All right. So I hope one, two, or three of those can help you if you're struggling with this problem right now. And this is not like you can handle both perfectly, right? Like you can have this thriving.
Huge career right now, and you can be this full-time caregiver to everything your child needs. It's about: do you have some support during this season? And are you acknowledging and accepting that this is the season that you're in? And the problem was never about your ambition. Don't ever question your ambition and your dreams and the fact that you are high achieving.
Tia Graham (11:07.072)
Just like me. The problem is that you are carrying two huge full-time jobs mostly alone. And so you're not failing at all. You are not failing. So, what I want you to do is, I want you to just pick one of my tips and take one small action this week. And I invite you to share with me.
What is working? Follow me, connect with me on Instagram at Tia E Graham. You are an incredible working mom with a neurodivergent child. And from Newport Beach in California, I'm sending you a big hug today. See ya next time.