Parents of children with invisible disabilities share some of their struggles and tell us how we can make the world a safer, less judgmental place

Parenting in public can be challenging even for the most seasoned parent. Parenting prowess notwithstanding, tantrums and meltdowns are inevitable. But parents of children with invisible disabilities are challenged at a whole other level.

When we see someone with a visible disability, we automatically recalibrate our expectations of how we expect that person to behave. Typically, we’re less judgmental and more accepting of both the child and the parent.

But not all disabilities are obvious. About ten percent of people have some sort of invisible or hidden disability. Many of these conditions are familiar to most people, like autism (also known as ASD, or autism spectrum disorder), ADHD, OCD (obsessive-compulsive disorder), dyslexia, anxiety, and depression, while others, like ODD (oppositional defiant disorder) and Tourette’s syndrome are less familiar. And while people may toss these terms around casually, referring to themselves or others as “a little ADHD” or “so OCD,” these disabilities are real, and affect those who struggle with them in a very real way.

Dassi Shtern, director of special education and SEGULA (an inclusion program) at the Jewish Education Center of Cleveland, which services the local day schools, has worked in the field of special education for over 20 years. “In the ‘90s, the concept of inclusion was rare and misunderstood, and the number of kids with invisible diagnoses was fairly low,” she says. “People are saying ‘Why is there so much ADHD going around?’ But I would argue that invisible disabilities were very much around; people just didn’t know about them, and they weren’t being diagnosed properly.”

Raising children with invisible disabilities brings its own unique set of challenges, not least of which is that these children often look “regular.” They can even behave like neurotypical children — except when they can’t. And when they can’t, the parents are often blamed, by themselves and others, as the cause for this bad behavior.

But these behaviors aren’t simply an issue of discipline. They’re neurological realities. These children are more easily prone to tantrums, meltdowns, or high anxiety, and these behaviors may also last longer than in neurotypical children. They often cannot calm down, and parenting tools or discipline methods that work for neurotypical children can have the opposite result on these children.

Dr. Benjamin Miller, a licensed clinical psychologist who has been working in private practice in the Beachwood, Ohio area for approximately seven years, delivers targeted behavioral, cognitive behavioral (CBT), and dialectical behavioral (DBT) therapies to children, adolescents, and adults struggling with a variety of mental health concerns. He reassures us that “even when the parent is doing everything right — distracting the kids, and having a running conversation, and reminding them of all the rewards they’re going to get for being so good in the supermarket, and the parent is keeping calm and not getting into a power struggle — sometimes, especially with non-neurotypical children, it will become a battle. Even if you’ve done your very best to try to avoid that.”