The Balancing Act: Building a Career While Raising Neurodiverse Children

Some mornings can feel like a sprint before the day has even begun.

Lunchboxes. Uniforms. Medical checks. Missing shoes. Last-minute meltdowns. And by 9 a.m., you are expected to be fully present in professional mode, as though none of it happened.

That switch is something only parents of neurodiverse children truly understand.

You move from emotional regulator to professional leader in the space of a car journey. And then you do it all again tomorrow.

People talk about balance as if it is a perfect scale. As if, with enough discipline, everything can be evenly weighted. The reality is very different. It is a constant negotiation between two worlds that both demand your energy, your focus and your emotional capacity.

Home requires patience, advocacy and resilience.
Work demands consistency, clarity and delivery.

And most days, it can feel like whichever space you invest in most is borrowed from the other.

Balance, in reality, is not about equal effort. It is about alignment. It is about knowing what matters most in the moment and having the courage to act on it, without being ruled by guilt on the other side.

There are periods where home needs more emotional bandwidth. There are others where work requires greater focus and intensity.

You can do both.

Just not at the same time.

Guilt often becomes the background noise of this dual role. When you are fully present at home, you feel the pull of work. When you are deeply engaged in work, home still tugs at your attention.

But guilt does not make you a better parent. And it does not make you a better professional either.

Presence does.

Sometimes presence looks like switching off earlier than planned. Other times it looks like staying fully committed to your work and modelling what purpose and engagement look like. Both have value. Neither requires apology.

What many people don’t realise is how profoundly raising neurodiverse children reshapes the way parents lead at work. It builds patience where there once was urgency. It deepens empathy. It sharpens perspective. It teaches you, in very real terms, that people do not all thrive under the same conditions.

For many leaders, those lessons quietly transform how they manage teams, navigate pressure, and respond to difference in the workplace.

If you are walking this path, it is worth naming the reality.

You are carrying two emotionally demanding roles at the same time. Both require presence. Both require resilience. Both require regulation. There will be days where neither feels fully under control. That does not mean you are failing. It means you are living inside complexity that many people never have to navigate.

You may never achieve perfect balance.

But you can build something meaningful.

And if you lead someone who is raising neurodiverse children, this matters too. They are not distracted. They are not disorganised. They are not less committed. They are often operating with a level of adaptability, emotional intelligence and resilience that has been forged through lived experience. Their perspective and capacity for nuance are strategic strengths, not liabilities.

You do not have to choose between career and family.

What you need is an environment that allows both to exist without apology.

This article is adapted from an original LinkedIn article by Ross Chambers.

Photo by Tara Winstead: https://www.pexels.com/photo/an-illustration-of-a-person-s-mind-8378740/