To the Tired Parent Raising a Child with Learning Disabilities
Stacy Bostrom Photography
This entry was first written as a Substack article in December 2025 while I was navigating my dyscalculic daughter’s senior year of high school.
As a parent who is actively supporting a daughter with a learning disability, I rarely acknowledge all I’m doing or how tired I am. I’ve become accustomed to the work required in helping my child navigate school and everyday life with their learning disability.
This week our family reached a noteworthy turn in our path that sparked a moment of pause and reflection.
We’ve been on this uphill hike, climbing and sweating our way along uneven ground. Then we suddenly rounded a corner to reach a significant marker on the trail.
A pause is required, along with a deep intake and exhale of glorious air. Then a buckling of the legs to sit down and rest a moment as I look back down the long slope we have traversed.
This week my high school senior dyscalculic daughter was accepted into her top university choice and awarded an academic achievement scholarship covering over half of her tuition.
Writing that sentence makes me tear up, again. I’m overwhelmed with gratitude, overcome by a feeling of success and possibility, and admiration for her tenacity and grit.
There is also recognition of the exhaustion in my bones and tightness in my shoulders as I breath in and let it untangle a bit. All the hard work was, and will continue to be, worth it.
I think it’s time to sit down a moment, rest a bit, take in this moment of momentous success.
If you are a parent who actively supports a child with learning disabilities, you expend extraordinary amounts of energy devoted to your child’s well-being. Most other parents in the carpool line have no idea of all the extra things you do to support your child’s “invisible” challenges.
The amount of time and effort required to support children with learning disabilities in school and life is a part-to-full-time job. Unfortunately, “Learning Disability Parent Advocate” isn’t a position that receives societal recognition or financial compensation.
Many of you I’ve spoken with have gone to great lengths to support your child in the ways they need. This includes hours of research, attending school meetings, accommodation requests, mountains of paperwork, navigating confusing school systems, becoming your child’s triage team or teacher or therapist. Many of you have put careers on hold to do all of this, and others are juggling this work alongside another full-time job.
When you are working hard to support your child in a school system that doesn’t meet their needs and constantly explaining to people why everyday tasks are a challenge for your child, you don’t even realize how exhausted you are.
For me it’s been nine years of searching for answers, collecting resources, trying new things, and often failing and sometimes succeeding.
I share one of these success moments because I know that when you are in the middle of the journey it’s easy to lose sight of what is possible. It’s easy to keep going along, head down doing the next math problem, the next teacher conversation, the next online search.
When my daughter was in elementary and middle school, we struggled through IEP meetings, unhelpful teachers, and much confusion and overwhelm. I wasn’t sure college would even be an option for her. This is why it was such a moment of possibility and elation to receive the acceptance letter and scholarship offer this week.
This one moment doesn’t mean we have arrived. Attending college is not everyone’s goal, nor should it be. But this particular university experience is something my daughter has desired and has been working towards.
I want to acknowledge this moment of celebration amid challenge and struggle. There are and will always be small and large moments of success that bring moments of gratitude, peace, and rest along the journey.
And as a fellow parent who is equally tired and keenly aware of the immensity of this job, I want to tell you:
You are doing a great job.
It will be worth it.
You can do this.
You are not alone.