Parenting a Teen Girl with Autism(ASD1): Support for Moms of Neurodivergent Teens in Illinois

Parenting is always full of stressors. As moms, we often draw on our own experiences to help us navigate our children's challenges. We remember what it felt like to be left out, to struggle in school, or to have friendships change. Those experiences can give us a reference point.

But what happens when your daughter's experience is something you don't fully understand?

If you're parenting an autistic teen girl—particularly one who was diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder Level 1 (ASD1) during adolescence—you may find yourself trying desperately to understand challenges that you can't easily connect to your own experience. And that can create a particular kind of ache in your heart, along with anxiety about your daughter's struggles and uncertainty about how to help.

Why Are Some Autistic Girls Diagnosed Later?

Maybe your daughter wasn't diagnosed until adolescence because she masked her challenges well and is highly intelligent. For years, she may have appeared to be doing fine—until adolescence arrived.

Social relationships became more nuanced and complicated, and you may have started noticing rigidity, increasing difficulty maintaining friendships, or a painful pattern of being left out. Perhaps the executive functioning strategies that had worked for her when she was younger suddenly stopped being enough. It may have been incredibly confusing to witness—and maybe it still is.

You knew something was going on, but you couldn't quite capture your daughter's full experience with words. You were watching her struggle and feeling helpless to understand exactly why. You are not alone in this.

For many parents, a diagnosis of autism or another neurodivergence during adolescence comes after years of confusion and unanswered questions. At the same time, your daughter may be starting to feel increasingly different from her peers. She may withdraw, become overwhelmed, or begin to feel more and more out of place.

As her mom, watching this happen can feel like your worst nightmare and can send you into a spiral.

The Emotional Experience of Parenting an Autistic Teen Girl

On top of everything else, you may find yourself trying to advocate for your daughter in a school system that doesn't always recognize how autism can present in girls—particularly girls who are bright, verbal, and skilled at masking. Suddenly, fighting for your daughter's mental health, educational needs, and overall well-being can start to define you. This can easily become all-consuming, leaving you feeling alone, exhausted, and desperate for help.

I see you.

If you're a mom in Chicago or elsewhere in Illinois, you may be carrying this experience while also trying to hold together everything else in your life—your work, relationships, family, and your own mental health.

You deserve support, too.

Four Ways to Navigate Parenting a Neurodivergent Teen

1. Find support for you, too.

Find a therapist who understands the experience of parenting a neurodivergent teenager.

As moms, we often focus so intensely on getting our children the support they need that we forget we are having an experience, too. You need a place to put words to what you're going through.

Therapy can help you better understand your daughter's experience while also helping you cope with your own anxiety, fear, grief, and overwhelm. It can also help you untangle something that is often complicated in parenting: what belongs to your story and what belongs to your child's.

We all bring our own childhood experiences into parenting. The things that trigger us, frighten us, or send us into overdrive often have roots in our own stories. A therapist can help you understand those patterns so that you can separate your experience from your daughter's—and respond to her from a more grounded place.

Looking for a Therapist for Moms of Neurodivergent Teens in Illinois?

If you live in Chicago or elsewhere in Illinois, this is something I specialize in.

As an Illinois therapist, I work with midlife moms who are navigating the often overwhelming experience of parenting neurodivergent teens. Through telehealth therapy, I support moms who are carrying the emotional weight of advocacy, worry, uncertainty, and trying to figure out how best to support their children.

You don't have to wait until you are completely overwhelmed to get support.

2. Connect with other parents of neurodivergent teens.

Isolation can make everything harder. Connecting with other parents of autistic and neurodivergent teens can provide something incredibly powerful: the realization that you're not the only one. Hearing another mom describe the same confusion, advocacy fatigue, loneliness, or worry you've been carrying can be deeply validating.

Connection also helps you build a network of resources and support. You don't have to figure everything out on your own—and honestly, you shouldn't have to.

Maintaining connection and support for yourself is an important part of caring for your own mental health, too.

3. Find supports that understand your daughter's specific needs.

I can't stress this enough: if your daughter is autistic, try to find providers and supports that genuinely understand autism—particularly how autism can present in girls and teenagers. The right support can make an enormous difference.

This gives your daughter a place where she doesn't have to constantly explain or defend her experience. And it can also help you better understand how to show up for her in ways that are actually helpful. Often, that is the hardest part.  You love your child deeply. You want to help, but you may not always know how.

Getting support from people who understand your daughter's neurotype can help both of you. Dont' know where to start? I am happy to help you with this!

4. Allow yourself to grieve.

This one can be particularly difficult for moms.

When our children struggle, we may experience profound grief. Not because we love our children any less or wish they were someone different—but because we may grieve the hope that their experience would be easier.

We may grieve friendships that haven't worked out. Experiences they've missed. The amount of energy it takes them to get through a school day. The fact that things we once assumed would be simple may not be simple at all. At times, we grieve the realization that we can't make everything better for them.

It's okay to have those feelings.You can love and accept your daughter exactly as she is and have complicated feelings about the challenges she faces. Both things can be true.

Grief is a part of parenting, and the more space we give ourselves to acknowledge our authentic feelings, the better able we are to move through difficult experiences without becoming consumed by them.

Therapy for Moms Parenting Neurodivergent Teens in Chicago and Illinois

These are just a starting point for understanding your experience as the mother of a teen girl with autism.

The good news is that we have more information and resources than ever before to support autistic girls and teenagers. You don't have to become an expert overnight. You don't have to figure out every school meeting, friendship struggle, shutdown, or difficult moment by yourself.

And you deserve support, too.

If you're a midlife mom in Chicago or anywhere in Illinois who is parenting a neurodivergent teen and feeling overwhelmed, anxious, or alone in the process, I offer telehealth therapy throughout Illinois.

Therapy can be a place to put down some of what you're carrying. A place to process the fear and grief, untangle what belongs to you and what belongs to your daughter's experience, and find your footing again.

You are not alone in this.

If you're looking for a therapist for moms in Illinois, I'd love to help. Visit jolenealtmanlcsw.com to learn more about working with me.