Getting Our Needs Met Without Heaping Demands on Our Kids

There’s a quiet panic that sets in when our needs pile up.

I need a break.
I need them to just get dressed.
I need ten minutes to think, to feel, to finish my toast while it’s still warm.

And I look over at my child—sprawled on the couch, lost in their world, unreachable by typical adult logic—and suddenly, I feel trapped. Not by them. But by the gap between what I need and what feels possible.

In those moments, my instinct is to demand. To push, control, or even plead: “Can’t you just…?”

But here’s the thing I’ve learned, again and again, in my years of parenting neurodivergent kids: the more I push, the more I lose. Not just the moment, but the trust. The relationship. The sense that we’re on the same team.

It’s not that I shouldn’t have needs. I absolutely do. I hold my needs with sacred attention. The problem is that when I try to meet my own needs through demands of my kids—especially demands my children cannot meet in that moment—I’m doubling the crisis instead of solving it. I make it 10 times harder for me to get my needs met. And I deepen the feeling of being stuck, powerless, and resentful. Which sucks.

There has to be another way.

Low demand parenting doesn’t mean that your needs don’t matter. It doesn’t mean that your kid gets everything and you get nothing. It doesn’t mean that you don’t have any boundaries you hold or expectations you continue to foster. 

It’s also not about martyring yourself or sacrificing your last thread of energy to keep the peace. 

It’s actually about finding a gentler, truer path—one where your needs matter and your child’s nervous system is safe.

How in the world do we do this?? We start by getting curious.

• What do I actually need right now?
• Is it silence, or a break from decision fatigue?
• Do I need solitude, or connection?
• Do I need to get something done, or do I need to be seen?

Once I name my needs with curiosity and compassion, I can step out of the urgent spiral and into creative possibility. I might decide that cereal works for dinner. I might move the mess into a box to sort later, instead of demanding it be cleaned now. I might put in my earbuds and step outside for 90 seconds of fresh air. I might decide this thing doesn’t have to happen right now after all.

And here’s the truth I return to again and again: My kids are not the ones responsible for regulating me.

They aren’t built to absorb the weight of my needs. That’s not how they learn to empathize or participate in family life. That’s how they learn to fear failure, to hide their distress, to overfunction, to mask. That’s how they learn to fear me.

Questions to ask if you frequently make demands of your children (and you suspect you are really using the demands to meet your needs):

• When is my child's behavior particularly difficult for me to handle in the day?
• What else is happening at that time? What are my expectations for myself?
• What need might be driving those expectations?
• How can I state that need clearly: "I need..."?
• Who can I tell about my need?
• How else could I get this need met?

Questions to ask if you find yourself stuck, not making demands of your kids, but not getting your needs met either:

• What is the deep need that is driving me?
• When does this need show up most powerfully in the course of my day?
• What does the need say? What does it ask for?
• Who can I call on, besides my child, to help meet my need?
• What expectations can I drop for myself to free up my resources to creatively meet my need?

A Few Practical Examples

Example 1: Connection with Friends

I have a deep need for connection with other women, especially those walking similar parenting paths. In the past, I tried to meet that need by arranging playdates with my friends who also have kids. But over and over, my kids showed me that having new people in our space—or even going to someone else’s house—was simply too much. It ended in overwhelm and meltdowns, every time.

So I dropped the demand that our kids have to interact. I stopped trying to fold my friendships into family life. Instead, I honored my need separately. I sent voice messages during the day. I commented on Instagram posts. I asked a friend who has children who go to school if she could swing by for a hug on the way into work.

It’s not perfect. But it meets the heart of my need—companionship, adult conversation, and the feeling of being known—without forcing my kids to tolerate something they’re not ready for.

Example 2: Clean Counters vs. Creative Chaos

I have a real need for visual calm—clean surfaces help me feel regulated, especially in the late afternoon. But my PDAer thrives in chaos. They love to dump out bins, scatter tiny objects across the floor, and rip paper into a thousand fluttering pieces.

Instead of trying to control the mess completely (which always ended in battles), I got curious about what specifically bothered me. 

• I realized: the mixed-up piles (Legos mixed with puzzle pieces mixed with Magnatiles) are harder for me than general clutter–because I can't just put them away. I have to sort them first. 
• I realized that having our main table cleared off matters more than the kitchen counters. 
• And I’m way more sensitive to the mess when I’m already tired or overstimulated.

So I made a few key shifts. I moved the most dump-able items to separate rooms to minimize the mixed-dump piles. I got a circulate Lego mat that folds up to be its own container—so my kid could still dig through their piles of legos, but in a way that felt more contained to my nervous system. 

And in the late afternoon, if I felt the urge to yell about the mess, I stepped outside for one full breath. I told myself: I can clean later, when I have creativity, capacity, and calm.

I stayed focused on meeting my needs. I just stopped putting the responsibility on my disabled child.

We Are Always Learning

When I catch myself trying to get my needs met by controlling my kids, it’s usually because I don’t see another option. So instead of blaming myself, I now treat that impulse toward control as a signal. (Not a failure. Not shame. Just data.) It powerfully declares: I need something.

Sometimes I still choose to ask something of my child—but I ask mindfully, with support. I try to frame it in a way they can access. I’m willing to hear no. And sometimes I shift the ask entirely. Or drop it.

And sometimes? I grieve.

• Because I can’t always get what I need in the moment I need it.
• Because parenting is brutally lonely sometimes.
• Because the fantasy that someone would swoop in and say, “You’ve done enough. Let me care for you now,” hasn’t materialized.

But grieving doesn’t mean giving up. It means releasing the emotionally pressure so I can feel what I feel – and then get creative. It means seeing my need with clarity, and choosing to honor it—without outsourcing it to my kid, who isn’t built to hold it.

This is the deep work of low demand parenting. Not just accommodations for our children, but accommodations for ourselves. Permission to matter. Permission to feel. Permission to drop the performance and pick up something real.

So if today you find yourself snapping, pushing, demanding—and it’s not working—pause. Ask yourself what hurts. What’s missing. What you wish someone else could give you.

And then gently ask: Is there another way? A softer way. A truer way. A way that doesn’t cost my kid so much. That’s where the healing begins. Not in the absence of need, but in the presence of compassion—for you and for them.