Staying Connected When Parenting Feels Like Survival Mode

Melody Aguayo • May 30, 2025

We’re often drawn to our partners because they bring something different to the table. That difference might feel exciting in the beginning—balancing us out or offering a fresh way of seeing the world. But under chronic stress, those same differences can turn into tension. Most couples respond to challenges in opposite ways. What once felt complementary can start to feel conflicting when life gets heavy.


If you're raising children with a history of early adversity or complex needs, you may be living in an extended season of stress. Crisis isn't occasional—it’s the backdrop. Supporting your children and maintaining a strong, connected partnership in the middle of this takes intention. You are each other’s best ally. Don’t let the weight of it all pull you away from the one person who truly understands what it’s like to parent your child.


Notice the Good Stuff

Our personalities don't shift much over time. If you stop to think about it, your partner probably still does many of the things that made you fall in love with them—you're just too overwhelmed to see it clearly. Try this: when your partner is away for a night or two, pay attention to how their absence affects the daily flow. Is bedtime harder without them? Does making breakfast feel lonelier?


Take a few minutes each night to jot down three things your partner did that day that you appreciate—big or small. Did they make the coffee? Sit with your child through a meltdown? Make you laugh? This simple habit can start to rebuild affection and change how you see your partner.

Choose Compassion

In any close relationship, we all crave the same two things: to be fully seen and fully valued. Parenting—especially parenting kids with trauma histories—exposes our rawest selves. It stretches our limits. We yell when we meant to comfort, we withdraw when we meant to connect.


When your partner is at their lowest, offer grace instead of critique. The most meaningful moments in my marriage haven’t been the romantic ones—they’ve been the times my husband saw me unravel and loved me anyway. We are often the only adults who truly understand what this parenting life is like for each other. That solidarity matters more than almost anything else.


Let Go of Blame

Blame is the fastest way to build a wall between you. I still remember being furious at my spouse for microwaving something late at night and triggering our sensory-sensitive daughter. It sparked a meltdown and another hour of trying to calm her. But it wasn’t the microwave's fault—or his. It was our daughter's trauma brain responding to something unpredictable.


In high-stress homes, there will always be triggers. It's not about avoiding them all—it’s about remembering that your partner is not the enemy. Remind each other of this often. Make space to be imperfect without assigning fault.

Make Time for Each Other

There was a long stretch of years when we couldn’t go on dates without being called home within 30 minutes. Eventually, we stopped trying to leave the house and started doing "lock-in dates." We’d order our favorite food, give the kids something fun and screen-based (which was a big treat for them), and escape to the bedroom for a few hours. We expected interruptions, but we protected that time fiercely.


Now, decades later, I believe those nights helped keep our marriage rooted. Connection doesn’t require perfection—just consistency. Don’t wait until life gets easier to invest in your relationship. Distance creeps in quietly, and rebuilding connection later can be so much harder than maintaining it now.


Normalize Support for Yourselves

We’re quick to sign our kids up for therapy or extra support—but when’s the last time you checked in on your own emotional needs? Your well-being matters. You are a vital resource for your child. Seeking support for yourself—whether through therapy, coaching, or a safe friend—is not indulgent. It’s essential.


Think Like a Team

One of the most powerful phrases in a high-stress home is, “We’re on the same team.” When things feel overwhelming, say it out loud. Better yet, sit down and write out your shared goals as parents. You’ll likely find that you both want the same things for your child—you just go about it differently.


Play to your strengths. Maybe your partner is the calm one during midnight wakeups, while you’re the one who can decode your child’s emotional storm from the school day. You’re not doing it wrong—you’re doing it differently. Lean into that. Ask for help in specific ways, like “Can you handle bedtime tonight? I’ve been in meetings all day and I’m fried.” Or “Would you mind prepping dinner while I talk to the OT?”


Feeling supported in your strengths changes everything.


This path may be filled with intensity and exhaustion, but it also offers unexpected gifts—laughter in the chaos, depth in the partnership, a sharpened sense of what really matters. With intention and teamwork, your relationship can survive the hardest seasons—and come out stronger on the other side.

Learning About Children From My Garden

By Melody Aguayo • August 14, 2025
When I decided to plant a garden, I thought, how hard could it be? You dig a hole. You put in a seed. You water it. Boom. Salad. That’s what the package said. That’s what the Instagram moms said. That’s what the lady at the farmer’s market said, wearing her cute linen apron.

He Really Doesn't Smell It: Understanding Teenage Boys, Odor, and the Neuroscience of Parenting

By Melody Aguayo • August 8, 2025
Ever walk into your teenage son's room and feel physically assaulted by the smell—only for him to look genuinely confused and ask, "What smell?" You're standing there gagging, while he lounges on his bed, completely unaffected. No, he’s not gaslighting you. He might honestly not notice it at all.

Healing Through Connection: Supporting Families Navigating Adoption, Trauma, and Special Needs

By Melody Aguayo • July 28, 2025
I often witness firsthand how the parenting journey—especially when parenting children with special needs or histories of trauma—is both profoundly sacred and deeply complex. One of the most overlooked aspects in this work is second-hand trauma, also known as vicarious trauma. This is the emotional residue we absorb as

Making a Splash: Summer Swim Tips for Sensory-Sensitive Kids

By Melody Aguayo • July 11, 2025
For many families, summer means swimsuits, sunscreen, and cannonballs. But for children with sensory sensitivities, water play isn’t always joyful or relaxing. In fact, it can be a deeply uncomfortable or even overwhelming experience.

Why Mindset Work Doesn’t Always Work for Our Kids (Or for Us) And what to do instead

By Melody Aguayo • June 26, 2025
We hear a lot about the power of mindset. From school posters to parenting podcasts, the message is clear: Positive thinking = success. And for the most part, mindset tools like affirmations, growth language, and gratitude journaling can be genuinely helpful.

Grow What’s Good: Why Focusing on Strengths Works Better Than Constant Correction

By Melody Aguayo • June 19, 2025
In parenting, it’s easy to fall into a pattern of constant correction. From the moment a child wakes up to the time they go to bed, there are endless opportunities to redirect, remind, and reprimand. But here’s the truth: constant correction rarely produces the change we hope for. Instead, it builds resistance, shame,

Siblings in the Shadows: Growing Up in the Background of Big Needs

By Melody Aguayo • May 23, 2025
“When will I get a brother who actually plays with me?” my daughter asked one afternoon, her voice casual but her meaning anything but. “What do you mean?” I asked gently. She replied, “You know, one who doesn’t get so crazy and can help me with stuff.”

Setting Boundaries with Hope: When Your Adult Child Causes Harm

By Melody Aguayo • May 16, 2025
Navigating abusive behavior from an adult child can feel like one of the most emotionally devastating and confusing experiences a parent can endure. Consider this: a 22 year old son is still living at home. He doesn’t allow his parents to require anything of him. If they do, he curses at them or breaks something. He is only pleasant when the food he wants is in the fridge and nothing is asked of him. He takes what he wants without permission and at times even pawns his parents things for cash. No one in the family feels emotionally or physically safe anymore.

Letting Go Without Giving Up: Finding Strength In Surrendering Control

By Melody Aguayo • May 9, 2025
The Toll of Control The constant striving to manage what’s outside of us leaves us emotionally drained. It creates a persistent hum of anxiety that dulls our joy and hijacks the present moment. We begin to measure our success by our child’s behavior or the approval of others. We get stuck in cycles of blame—blaming ourselves, our child, the school, the system, our family. We lose our ability to be curious and responsive because we’re too busy being vigilant and defensive. Over time, this wears down our confidence. We stop growing. We stop enjoying our children. We stop enjoying ourselves. What You Can’t Control It helps to name what’s out of our control. Here are some things you simply can’t manage—no matter how much effort you put in: Other people’s opinions and judgments.
Some will misunderstand your parenting or your child. Let them. You don’t owe them an explanation. Their willingness to understand.
You can educate and explain, but you can’t make someone unlearn their biases or do the work to understand neurodiversity. Who shows up.
People you expected to lean on may pull away. Some will show up in imperfect ways. Accept the help that’s offered and let go of what others can’t give. How others react to your child.
There will be awkward stares, insensitive comments, and even exclusion. You can’t control how people respond to what they don’t understand. The stories people tell about you.
Everyone has an opinion. But unless someone is in the trenches with you, their advice doesn’t carry weight. What You Can Control While we don’t get to control everything, we’re far from powerless. There are meaningful, impactful ways we can lead: How we advocate for our child. The boundaries we set and maintain. The tone and energy we bring into our homes. How we respond to ignorance and insensitivity. Who we allow into our inner circle—and who we keep at a distance. This shift—from trying to control outcomes to focusing on what we can influence—is liberating. But it doesn’t happen overnight. It’s a process of unlearning, grieving, and slowly rebuilding.

Parenting; Focus on the Process, Not the Outcome

By Melody Aguayo • May 2, 2025
“Sometimes I think about writing a book about our own healing journey,” I told a friend of mine. She responded, “I think you should wait a while, and then you can write about how your kids turn out.” I didn’t have to think long before responding because it is something I had already considered. I said, “That sort of thinking implies that the process was worthless if the outcome isn’t perfect.” The process is what matters. Did you love your child well today? Did you encourage and connect with your child? Outcome parenting is parenting with certain goals in mind. Outcome parenting creates an environment where children feel as though they have to earn their worth, an environment where opportunities for joy are missed because the outcome the parent has in mind remains unachieved. Outcome parenting has few pivotal moments that determine whether or not the child/ parent has been successful. Examples of these pivotal moments would be making the travel soccer team, graduating from college, making the varsity cheerleader squad, staying in honors classes, marrying well, looking a certain way, having the right friends, etc.