Your NeuroMom Superpower?

Tap into this secret skill to help your kids thrive (without cracking open another parenting book!)

How much does it take to impact someone’s life forever? 

I’d say, it doesn’t take much. 

That’s why I’ve always hung onto this gift I got from a family friend. When I was in college. 

My sister was in her pageant era. 

I’d moved on to college, so I must’ve been home on a break. 

I had my own life, friends, and direction-ish, and honestly, I loved traveling to the big events to cheer on my sister. Whatever you think about pageants, competing in Miss America is a BIG deal.

I loved that it felt like it brought us all together, friends and family in the velvety folding seats of the crowd, holding the glittery I-D-A-H-O cutouts someone had made, and giving us all an excuse to hang out. 

Still, this friend must’ve thought I was getting lost amongst all the tulle tutus and sequin gowns. 

So one day she pulled me aside. And as we leaned on the side of the oversized sleigh bed in my room at my parents’ house, she handed me something. Heavy for its size.

A shimmering Shannon Crystal jar with a lid. 

Think Waterford, also of Ireland, but this one was even more special because it shared my name. The intricate pineapple crisscut pattern made the surface sparkle in the dim light. 

She wanted me to know that even though there was a lot of focus on my sis right now, that I was not forgotten. 

If you walked into my house now, it doesn’t exactly scream Pottery Barn. In fact, you may notice there’s a stark absence of home decor thanks to my minimalist aspirations.

But that crystal jar still sits on my bathroom counter almost two decades later. It’s empty. Mostly collects dust and clangs against the pull of the window shade when the wind blows. 

Still, no matter how I happen to be feeling that day, when I’m standing there with my WaterPik in hand or poking my contacts into my eyes, I always remember that there was once someone who saw me, even in my relative obscurity, and cared. 

And that it doesn’t take much. A small gesture, a kind word. To make a difference in someone’s heart that lasts a lifetime.

Being seen is everything. 

And the real magic is in being able to see someone even when (especially when) they don’t stand out in the ways our culture typically celebrates. 

To see the subtle beauty and the silent struggles when no one else notices. 

As moms of neurodivergent kiddos, we are perfectly equipped to see our children’s untapped strengths and unexpressed struggles and make sure they get recognized. 

I mean, nature or nurture. 

Either way, it’s all our “fault,” right?

Maybe. 

But it’s also our superpower. 

When I opened the packet from the psychologist with the report that held my daughter’s diagnosis, I noticed that the doctor had also slipped in a photocopy of an article that mentioned how many parents may also recognize symptoms of autism in themselves. 

After all, in most cases, we contributed a good chunk of our DNA (no matter how mutated and gnarly) to this human science experiment. 

At the time, I felt seen — but not in a good way. 

For a while, I felt myself making jerky glances over each shoulder. 

Does she send this to all the parents? 

Or is it just me?

In truth, it confirmed for me what I already knew.

Along with the chaos of dealing with a new diagnosis, I found myself awash with guilt that I’d somehow caused my kids’ disorders: 

I’ve been a bad sleeper for as long as I can remember.

I can be intense and hyper-focused. 

My mom still talks about how I didn’t even acknowledge my classmate Holly’s greeting at the Ponderosa Elementary School science fair in 1994. 

Growing up, I remember being the recipient of the drawn-out, one-word rebuke in various situations: “Shaaaannnnnnon!” Most often, I didn’t know what I’d said or done wrong. 

I’ve had several (what I considered to be) close friends suddenly get mad and stop talking to me, or just disappear from my life, and I had no idea why.

I was shaken when I met one such ex-friend for lunch so she could return the Bible I’d left behind in my dorm room. (Our other floormates had voted to burn it until she rescued it for me. Ouch!) 

As we discussed the ins and outs of what had gone wrong in our relationship, I defended myself by explaining that I’d never cared what she did or believed. As in, I didn’t have a stake in it. Didn’t judge her for it. 

It was like the bustling coffee shop with its clanking cups full of rich Mexican mochas, plates of crispy paninis, and all the conversations going on around us stopped when she said, “Shannon, maybe what we wanted was for you to care.” 

Until then, such a possibility hadn’t occurred to me.

I’d always considered it a virtue to live and let live. To not get into the drama. But apparently, not? 

But it’s not just the social ineptitudes that clued me in. 

I love rules. 

At least the ones that make sense to me. Especially the ones that I make up. 

My happy place is inside a spreadsheet doing data analysis and strategy building, which is a big part of my work today. 

I often have to Google the meaning of idioms and can rarely use them with any certainty. 

Forcing myself to hold eye contact for an extended time leaves my eyes vibrating, watery, and blurred with the effort, like when you insisted on trying your grandmother’s glasses prescription as a child. 

Depression has been a periodic visitor throughout my life. And anxiety so constant I couldn’t even recognize it was a thing separate from myself until recently.

Differentiating faces can be difficult, which I remember making the movie Pearl Harbor impossible for me to discern. Two dashing leading men in uniform? How did it end again?

I experienced meltdowns into my 30s when all the little gremlins of my emotions and physical cues would creep up my legs, over my back, and onto my shoulders unnoticed, until I was suddenly overwhelmed.

Or completely burned out.

Some people might notice they’re hungry and eat. Tired and rest. But not me — until too late!

I still sometimes have to bolt from the dinner table to escape the sound of my family’s chewing.  

And I learned to mask it all by putting a big smile on my face ‘til my head ached with the tension of it. 

Since the moment I pulled that Xeroxed article from my child’s psychologist out of its mail-battered envelope, I’ve spent an unanswerable amount of time staring into the reflection pond of online quizzes to determine that I don’t think I would’ve gotten an official diagnosis of autism, had such evaluations been readily available when I was a child.

However, sensory processing disorder, misophonia¹, and neurodivergence are certainly mine to claim. 

The autistic apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, so to speak.

Oh, the weight of feeling I’d passed all this onto my children, whether by faulty genetics or by poor parenting!

But now I see it differently. 

And whether you consider yourself to be neurodivergent or not, it’s these types of experiences, along with the deep study of your child that you’ve no doubt made, that give us x-ray vision when it comes to our kids.

The small acts of seeing, knowing, and loving that will make all the difference for them. 

You can empathize and help your kids make space when life is too loud, too hot, too gross, or TOO MUCH, even when the average person wouldn’t even notice. 

And realize that they may be processing a depth of thoughts and emotions that they’ll never have the words to express. 

But it’s about more than using four different pots to cook dinner every night so none of their foods have to touch — EVER. 

Or making sure that “Sharko” the rickety robovac doesn’t run while they’re home. 

It also means you can genuinely delight in their obsession with all things fluffy, counting all the dogs you see along the way to school and therapy.

Their random ideas:

“You know Mom, if you could figure out how to stop time, you could walk on water.”  

The just as random facts:

“Apparently peacocks' feathers are brown on the bottom.” 

The artful way they arrange the eggs every morning.

Marvel at their early love of pattern recognition: 

“The low is 46 today and the high is 64!”

And their made-up word mashups: 

“Omnificcient, something that is infinitely efficient…obviously.” 

So that they can design a life with space for all their challenges and quirks with confidence. And you, Mama, don’t even have to have all their answers. 

::

It’s so easy to feel unequal to the task. 

All their needs. 

All of ours. 

To be sure, it can be a radioactive combination, too. 

Yet it’s knowing and valuing our own eccentricities that can make our NeuroMom superpowers even stronger.

So, if you’ve found yourself sneaking paranoid peeks over your shoulder. Wondering if anyone else has caught on to your dirty little secret.

Own it. 

You are amazing! 

So are your kids. 

And these are the lasting treasures of seeing and loving our children that we place into their hands. 

The ones that will sparkle for a lifetime — even in the darkness.

1. According to this Harvard Health article, “People with misophonia are affected emotionally by common sounds — usually those made by others, and usually ones that other people don't pay attention to. The examples…(breathing, yawning, or chewing) create a fight-or-flight response that triggers anger and a desire to escape.”