Disenfranchised Grief: The Hidden Loss Parents of Neurodivergent Adults Carry

The parent of an autistic emerging adult asked me one time: 

I wonder if you could speak to navigating the grief and loss around what we thought our relationship would be with our child.  The hard part is how one-sided it is and how much energy/work I put in with minimal to no reciprocity, such as "I appreciate you Mom," etc. I know it is not going to happen, and how do I accept that this is how it is?

This is such a meaningful and tender question and one that I think many parents of neurodivergent offspring carry quietly because it feels almost unspeakable. Let me share some thoughts that I hope are helpful.

Quick Summary

• Grief about the relationship you expected to have with your neurodivergent emerging adult is real, valid, and often goes unacknowledged by the people around you.

• A lack of typical social-emotional reciprocity does not mean a lack of love. Autistic love often looks different, not less.

• This grief isn't something you feel once and move past. It shifts and resurfaces as your child grows.

• Simply naming your grief, without rushing to fix it, is often the first step toward carrying it more gently.

• Relationships can change over time, especially when parents shift their approach in ways that reduce conflict and build trust.

Welcome to Holland

When I was dealing with my own parenting grief, my son was a bit younger, and a very wise friend of mine shared an essay with me called "Welcome to Holland." It was so meaningful to me that when I became a coach, I reached out to the author, and she gave me permission to reprint her essay. You can find it here.

The essay is part of the literature of the disability community in general, and so I also want to speak more specifically about autism and AuDHD.

The Grief Is Real (and Has a Name)

First of all, I want to validate that what you're describing really is grief. Speaking it out loud in front of the wrong people may get you accused of failing to accept your child's differences or being ungrateful for your child. That's not what this is.

There's actually a term for this in the grief literature: disenfranchised grief. It describes grief that isn't openly acknowledged, validated, or understood by the people around you. It's the kind of loss that doesn't come with a funeral, a card, or a casserole on your doorstep — so people don't know to check in, and you don't always feel permission to talk about it. Parents of neurodivergent kids and emerging adults live in this space constantly. Society doesn't hand you a script for grieving a relationship that's still very much alive.

It's grief over the loss of the relationship you imagined: the "I appreciate you, Mom," the spontaneous hug, the sense that love flows back toward you in the ways you learned to expect love would. It's a real loss. You had a vision of what motherhood would feel like, and that vision doesn't match your reality. That gap is something to mourn.

When your child was younger, you could maybe hold onto hope that things would get better. But by the time they reach emerging adulthood, and things aren't better yet, parents often start to lose that hope.

Grief and Acceptance Can Coexist

One of the biggest misconceptions about grief is that it somehow takes away from the love you have for your child. I don't think that's true at all. You can love your child completely, embrace exactly who they are, and still grieve the parenting experience you expected. Grief isn't a rejection of your child. It's an honest acknowledgment that your expectations, your plans, or your sense of certainty have changed.

Naming that grief doesn't make you less grateful, less accepting, or less loving. It just makes you honest with yourself. And when we stop fighting our grief, or feeling ashamed of it, we create space for real healing, both for ourselves and for our families.

Autistic Love Often Looks Different -- Not Less

Differences in social-emotional reciprocity are a core feature of autism's social communication differences. What's so important for parents to understand is that the absence of reciprocity doesn't mean the absence of love.

Your child may resist hugs, not say "I love you," or seem like they don't care about your needs, but unless you are already estranged, they usually do care. Even if they are estranged, they may care more than you think! They may just not be showing it in the ways you recognize as love.

Chronic burnout and mental health challenges definitely require them to be inward-focused at some level to recover, and this can have a huge impact on how you experience their social-emotional reciprocity.

Additionally, some autistic individuals experience something called social anhedonia. This is where the brain's reward system doesn't provide positive feedback when connecting with others. It costs them energy to engage socially, but they don't get the emotional return that more neurotypical people get from social connections.

This means that for some autistic individuals, staying in the relationship at all, showing up at the dinner table, texting back eventually — these can be their version of "I appreciate you, Mom." What you perceive as love may need to be recalibrated, at least temporarily.

Think of it like this: If someone grew up in a country where love is expressed through acts of service but moved to a country where love is expressed through words of affirmation, neither person is unloving — they're just speaking different languages.

The work here isn't to stop wanting that connection with your child. It's to learn to recognize the love that is there, even when it arrives in a form you didn't know to look for.

Your Grief May Require a Witness

As a coach, I often name grief, validate it, and help clients understand the why behind what they're experiencing. Sometimes processing grief requires a "witness" to acknowledge our perspective on what we've experienced.

I've noticed this pattern over and over, both in my private coaching and in the Parenting for Independence community: underneath the fear about the future, the sadness, the anger, the guilt, the exhaustion, and even the loneliness parents describe, there's almost always grief sitting quietly beneath it. Grief for the parenting experience they expected. Grief for the loss of certainty. Grief for relationships that have changed. Grief for the future they imagined for their child.

When we don't recognize that grief for what it is, we tend to stuff it down or try to outrun it. We stay busy. We tell ourselves to be more grateful. We criticize ourselves for not "handling things better." But grief has a way of surfacing whether we make space for it or not. Simply naming it, without trying to immediately fix it or reason your way out of it, is often the first step toward carrying it with a little more gentleness.

When my son was first identified as neurodivergent, I worked with a therapist myself, and I also had the privilege of joining an autism moms support group. This community was priceless to me — it gave my grief somewhere to go.

If your grief is very, very deep, that deeper processing may include sitting with the loss, moving through it, and integrating a new identity as your child's mother. That may require an autism-informed therapist, which was very helpful to me.

Acceptance Is a Practice, and Grief Keeps Evolving

This client asked: "How do I accept that this is how it is?" The honest answer is: slowly, imperfectly, and probably not once but over and over again. This client asked: "How do I accept that this is how it is?" The honest answer is: slowly, imperfectly, and probably not once but over and over again.

Here's the part that catches a lot of parents off guard: grief doesn't move through you once and then leave you alone. Parenting a neurodivergent kid or emerging adult asks you to keep adjusting as they grow and new challenges emerge. Every transition, a diagnosis, a change in college pursuit, a launch attempt that doesn't go as planned, a milestone their peers hit and they don't, can bring another wave of grief, even alongside real moments of joy and progress. This is you continuing to adapt to what life is actually putting in front of you.

What may help:

• Grieving the original vision explicitly rather than pushing it down, perhaps in a journal, with other parents who understand, or with an autism-informed therapist.

• Letting each new wave of grief be information rather than failure. A fresh wave doesn't mean you haven't accepted your child. It usually means something has changed and you're adapting to it in real time.

• Redefining what a "good relationship" with your child looks like, on terms that honor both their neurology and their needs.

• Finding sources of reciprocity and replenishment elsewhere in your life, like friendships, community, your own interests (take a vacation!), so you aren't depending entirely on this relationship to fill your emotional tank.

• Tuning into and appreciating the small things, like the way your child comes out of their room more often or stays near you even when they don't speak. The fact that

Things Can Still Change

I want to leave you with something important: The relationship you have with your emerging adult right now is not necessarily the relationship you will always have.

In my work with parents of autistic emerging adults, I've seen repeatedly that when parents shift their approach, the relationship shifts too, often in amazing ways they didn't expect and couldn't have predicted. That shift is at the heart of the SBN™ parenting framework, the methodology I've developed to help parents move from stuck and depleted to genuinely effective.

SBN™ stands for Support, Boundaries, and Nudges, and it's a practical, research-informed approach to parenting your autistic emerging adult in a way that builds their independence, reduces conflict, and yes, often deepens your connection with them over time.

The grief you're carrying doesn't have to be the whole story. You can plant seeds even today in their emerging adulthood that can bloom later, differently, and in ways neither of you could have predicted.

If you're ready to take the next step, here are three ways to go deeper:

Read my book. Parenting for Independence: Overcoming Failure to Launch in Autistic Emerging Adults walks you through the SBN™ parenting framework in full, with real stories and practical tools you can start using right away.

Book a complimentary consultation to work privately with one of our coaches. If you'd like personalized support, our team at Thrive Autism Coaching offers private coaching for parents of neurodivergent emerging adults.

Join the waitlist for Parenting for Independence. My group coaching program takes you through the framework alongside other parents who get it.

Key Takeaways

• Disenfranchised grief is real even though it rarely gets acknowledged.

• Grief and acceptance can exist side by side. Naming your grief doesn't mean you love or accept your child any less.

• This grief isn't linear. New transitions can bring new waves of it, and that's adaptation, not backsliding.

• Your child may care deeply even if they do not show appreciation, affection, or reciprocity in familiar ways.

• Acceptance does not mean giving up. It means seeing reality more clearly and responding in ways that are more effective and compassionate.

• Parents need emotional support too. Processing grief with safe, informed support and simply naming it out loud can make a major difference.

• With the right approach, it is possible to improve both the relationship and your emerging adult's path toward greater independence.

About the Author

Patty Laushman is the founder and head coach of Thrive Autism Coaching. An expert in the transition to adulthood for autistic emerging adults, she coaches parents in applying her SBN® parenting framework to strengthen relationships and foster self-sufficiency through her Parenting for Independence program. Patty’s work is rooted in a neurodiversity-affirming, strengths-based approach that empowers both parents and autistic adults to thrive. She is also the author of the groundbreaking book, Parenting for Independence: Overcoming Failure to Launch in Autistic Emerging Adults.