Parents of Children with Autism: Stages of Grief

As the parent of a child diagnosed with autism, one of your biggest personal challenges is going to be coping with the grief you feel regarding your child’s diagnosis. Many of the parents I work with feel incredibly guilty and selfish for grieving for their child, but what they don’t realize is that most parents of autistic children have the same response. It’s completely normal to grieve the loss of the child you thought you’d have, and the typical life you thought you’d lead. So first things first, if you want to handle your grief, you need to accept that what you’re going through is 100% normal.

Your next step is to move through the grieving process in a healthy way, and I’ve found it’s easiest to do that when you know what to expect moving forward. That way you can anticipate the emotions that will come up for you along the way, and you can prepare yourself to face them head on, put them to rest, and move on. I’ve outlined the stages of grief below to help you with that.

Seven Stages of Grief Specifically for Parents of Children with Autism:

Stage One: The doctors are mistaken.

In this stage, you’re in denial, searching for clues and proof that the diagnosis isn’t real.

Stage Two: This isn’t really happening.

This is a stage of shock, during which you feel confused, numb, and disoriented. You detach from your life, withdraw from your loved ones, and feel like shutting the world out.

Stage Three: Why is this happening to us?

This stage brings anger for the diagnosis and anger towards others who don’t understand the magnitude of what is happening to your family.

Stage Four: I should have done something differently.

During this stage, you’ll start to beat yourself up, believing you’re to blame for your child’s diagnosis. You think that if you had done something — anything — differently, this wouldn’t be happening right
now.

Stage Five: Bargaining for your child’s health.

In stage five, you begin bargaining with God, enlisting his help to influence your situation. You feel like you’ll do anything if God would just heal your child.

Stage Six: I can’t deal with this.

This is a stage of despair and depression. You realize your life is forever altered, and the weight of that realization can feel like it’s crushing your spirit.

Stage Seven: Life beyond the diagnosis.

This stage is a gradual acceptance and making peace with what your family looks like. This gives you the ability to enjoy parenting your child and looking forward to your future.

For parents of children with autism, moving through the stages of grief is never linear. You may skip over stages and come back to them later, and you may bounce back and forth between a few stages until you resolve them for good. The most important thing is to be patient and kind to yourself as you grieve. And always remember that, although this process is painful, once you reach acceptance of your child’s diagnosis and your family’s reality, that pain disappears. And in it’s place appears a strong, unbreakable bond with the child of your reality, and that’s when you can finally see how beautiful and special your life really is.

p.s. Have you gotten your free video series yet? Click here to get “The 3 Secrets to Keeping Your Cool and Your Sanity so You Can Connect with Your Atypical Child”!