How to Cope as a Special Needs Parent

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This blog post is a transcript, with a few minor edits, from the above audio. It was part a of the Work + Play Hub’s Mental Health for Parent’s webinar on the 22nd May 2025, which you can watch in full here (my talk starts at 1:10:49 on the recording).

[Start of transcription]

Hello and welcome to my talk today. My name is Natasha Iregbu and I'll be sharing about a ten minute talk about taking care of your mental health when raising a child with Additional Support Needs (ASN) or Special Educational Needs (SEN).

I hope you're enjoying the webinar so far. I'll tell you a little bit about myself and my work. My name is Natasha, and I'm the founder of Butterfly Minds. This is my business that I created in June 2021 and I primarily work with parents and caregivers, families in general, and neurodiverse familie as well as providing workshops and activities for schools, community groups relating to mindfulness and storytelling sessions.

Which leads me onto the next hat that I wear.

I’m an author of three mindfulness books, two picture books, 'Slow Down Amaya and Slow Down Sammy. My third book Mindful Living: A Guide for You and Your Family, which is a mindfulness based book for parents and caregivers looking to slow down and feel more present with mindfulness through storytelling. I’m a mindfulness coach and children and teenagers Creative Mindfulness teacher. I've got 15, just over 15 years experience within the community education field across youth work, community development and I've also worked with older people in the past. I wear lots of different hats and I've worked with many different people, a lot of kids who have additional support needs as well as kids from various different backgrounds and adults as well.

In this talk, I'll be sharing my tips, tools, and strategies to help you slow down and be kinder to yourself. Which leads me on to my next slide about practical tools, that are mindfulness based, and ways to manage and deal with any stress that's arising for you while looking after your child.

How to Connect Your Breath with Movement

Breathe written on a stop sign with trees and bushes in the background.

The first technique that I'm going to share today is a breathing technique for you using your hand, you can follow along with me, I'll demonstrate and you can you can join me. You can come to a comfortable seated position, you can be seated or standing if that’s better for you and this is hand breathing.

You can start with your hand closed, and when you're ready slowly breathe in as you open your hand and slowly breathe in out as you close your hand.

And again inhaling opening your hand up and exhale closing your hand.

One more time breathing in…and breathing out….

Then you can bring your hand down. Taking a few moments here to notice how you're feeling. Noticing if you're feeling maybe more relaxed or grounded than before. This technique is one that you can use yourself and you can share with your children and your family. You can try it with both hands or just one hand. One hand is quite a good way to do it, but some kids might want to use both hands if they're tactile and using both hands suits them.

That's the first way that I think is a good way to ground yourself, especially if you're feeling stressed and you just need a few few moments to yourself that you can use and access anywhere.

Senses

The second way is tuning into your senses. You can use your senses wherever you are indoor or outdoors and they’re a way to ground from feeling present within your body as well as externally.

Some people don't like or don't feel comfortable tuning more to their internal sensations, but some prefer external sensations. And some people don't mind either way. I thought I would include this as a way to practice with different options. I'll run through the different senses.

Touch

This can be if your hands are touching something or the clothes that you’ve got on, or anything else. Think about what texture the items touching you are. Is it rough, or smooth, or soft? What is the temperature? Is it warm, cold on whatever you are touching.

Feel

Feel is an internal sense. Noticing how you are feeling in your body. Are you feeling relaxed, tense, or anything else. This is one way relating to feelings is being kinder and non-judgmental towards your feelings. If you are feeling that your shoulders are tight or you might have a disability or anything else that you might feel that makes your body feel uncomfortable, seeing if you can sit and allow any feelings that come up when you're paying attention to your senses. Without saying “I wish I felt differently” or “I wish I didn't have this feeling”. Try and notice when the thought does come up and then letting it pass by then bringing your attention back to the focus. This could be your feelings or any other senses. Allowing the thoughts that come up and then let them pass by without judging them.

I did forget to mention at the beginning if there are any senses that you don't have available to you don't worry you can use any senses that are available to you.

See

The next sense is ‘see’ so looking around your space seeing any colors, patterns or anything else noticeable. Focusing your full attention on sight here.

Hear

Listening to any sounds in your space, quiet or loud sounds. Notice the tone if the sounds are coming from far away or close by, or within your room, or from the sounds from within your own body. You can listen to your breathing or if you can feel your heart or hear your heart if it's really quiet then you might feel your heartbeat.

Taste

Then the last two senses are taste. You can practice mindful eating or you can being taste into the general senses when you’re grounding with your senses. You can practice noticing the flavours, if they’re sweet, salty, sour, or any other flavours.

Smell

The final sense I'm going to speak about today is smell. Noticing if it’s food you can notice how it smells. If it's something that you can see, if you can see a flower, or it could be an artificial flower, or you could see a candle and you might think “oh I wonder what that smells like” and thinking about what it could smell like.

Managing stress when SEN parenting

The senses are a really helpful way to help you feel more calm and connected to the present moment. You can pick one sense if you're feeling particularly stressed or overwhelmed in a situation. Maybe if you're at a meeting or anything else where you think “I need a moment to myself” you can use the breathing technique, the hand breathing. You can bring your hand, even if it's under a table, taking one or three deep breaths or however many breaths you would like. Or you can use one of your your senses to help you feel more present and calm.

Self-Kindness as a Parent Carer

The next topic I'll talk about is about developing kindness to yourself. When you're a parent or carer who spends a lot of your time and energy caring for and supporting your child, you might feel a sense of guilt about wanting to have time to look after yourself, or thinking that you don't deserve time to yourself, or that everyone else's needs are before your needs. Which can be a hard thing to change in your mind because a lot of time within society it’s that you should put everyone else’s needs first before yourself.

But I wanted to remind you that you deserve to take care of yourself as well and prioritise your own needs and it doesn't mean that you're not going to be able to look after your child. It means that when you do take time to look after your mental health that it impacts your child and your family.

So, if you are running on low energy often children can pick up on how you're you're feeling, even if they don’t have share any words, they can sense it. If you're feeling tired and exhausted they might be able to feel it, so the more you bring in small tools to look after your own wellbeing it'll impact you and your family aswell.

What is the STOP Technique?

One way that you can do this and develop kindness to yourself and look after your own mental health is through the STOP technique. This technique you can use at any time and in any situation, or if you just need a few minutes to sit and collect your thoughts. It’s a simple technique that can be quite tricky to do sometimes if you're in the heat of the moment or something that is feeling a bit stressful.

STOP stands for:

S for STOP stop or pause. So stop completely what you're doing.

T take a deep breath. You can breathe in through your nose and out through your mouth, or you can take the inhale and exhale through your nose. Whichever feels more comfortable.

O - Observing the thoughts and feelings that are coming up. Taking a few moments to reflect, and see what thoughts are flying about your head or how you're feeling in your mind and your body. And not judging yourself, like what I was saying before. Not judging what those feelings are and any thoughts. You can see if you can be kinder to yourself and allow yourself to feel them without saying, trying to get rid of them or saying “I don't want to have those feelings”.

Then after that and you’ve taken a few moments.

P - for proceed. You can proceed to mindfully take the next steps and action from a kinder place and a calmer space in your own mind.

This is the final technique.

I wanted to end by saying thank you.

If you are looking for more support or guidance about bringing more strategies to help reduce stress while parenting, I particularly work with parents and carers in neurodiverse families, but the tools and techniques can be used by anyone. I've got a blog on my website, a podcast and a free guided meditation when you subscribe to my mailing list, if you want to hear more from me that’s an option.

The last slide is a thank you from me, thank you for listening to me. I hope you found it helpful and if you would like to get in touch with me or ask any questions about anything, these are my contact details, and where you can you can find me (hello@butterfly-minds.co.uk, IG @ butterfly_minds_ and @natasha.iregbu.writes).

I hope you enjoy the rest of the webinar and I'll hopefully connect with you at some point in the future.

[End of transcription]

Next Steps: How to Care for Yourself When You Are Caring for Others

If you are looking for more support how parents can manage stress related to special needs parenting (SEN Parenting), my mini audio course can help you with this.

Discover how slowing down in nature can help you feel more relaxed and present when navigating the challenges of raising a child with special needs/additional support needs. Start today by tapping here.