Stress Management For Parents Raising Children With Special Needs

This 3-session Mindfulness and  Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) based stress management program aims to support parents and caregivers who have children with special needs, such as ADHD, ASD, and/or mental health related disabilities.

Parenting is one of our most important and rewarding roles in life. While parenting children in general can also be trying at times, parenting children with special needs may bring different challenges.

If you are reading this page it means you are probably experiencing stress, discouragement, exhaustion, frustration or even anger in your parenting role and came to the realization that something needs to change.

We find that parents of children with special needs in addition to dealing with the challenges of raising their children, may experience chronic worries, have unrealistic expectations from themselves as parents, are highly critical of themselves, forget to prioritize their couple relationship and sometimes neglect their own mental and physical wellbeing.

As a result they are depleted and exhausted most of the time, which creates a feedback loop between worry, exhaustion, criticism and disappointment leading to less and less life satisfaction over time.

In this program you will learn a very different way to relate to and engage with yourself and with stressful events.

You will gain an understanding of the cognitive and physiological effects of stress on your body, be able to identify the main sources of your parenting stress, take stock of your current coping strategies, and develop a brand new toolkit.

You will walk away with a variety of effective strategies to regulate your emotions, change your self-criticism and self-doubt to self-encouragement, connect to your values, and bring compassion and a non-judgmental attitude into your interactions with your children.

The program includes: psycho education, individual work, group discussions, experiential exercises, homework assignments and humor. This program does not include any parenting advice! For parenting resources please visit the CHEO’s website.

Cost: 

$400 (Including taxes, cost may be covered by Special Services at Home (SSAH) under training for parents. Please check with your insurance plan before registering for the course if you plan to seek reimbursement.

Participants experiences with their insurance plans have varied in the past. Most insurance companies in Canada, have a history of covering this course