Why You Feel Stuck and See No Progress with Your High-Needs Child

**You can also listen to this in audio format only on The Regulated Mother Podcast on Apple or Spotify.

**Below is the blog article for easy reading.

Stuck Again: Why Parenting a High-Needs Child Feels Like a Loop

Have you ever felt like no matter what you do with your child… you’re stuck?
Maybe you finally see progress — a new skill, a calmer week, a breakthrough moment — and then, just like that, it slips away. You’re right back where you started. And the disappointment cuts so deep, it feels like you’ll never get ahead.

I know that feeling intimately. As a mom of a hypersensitive, high-needs, PDA Autistic child, I’ve lived through these cycles of progress and regression. They can leave you questioning yourself, your child, and even your worth as a parent.

But here’s the question I want us to explore together today:
What if stuckness isn’t the enemy?

What if stuckness is part of the journey?
What if it’s teaching us something we can’t see yet?
And what if, when we begin to see stuckness from a different perspective, we paradoxically become unstuck?

So if you’ve ever felt like you’re failing, or that you and your child are endlessly stuck, this episode is for you.

Let’s begin. 

The Rollercoaster of Progress and Regression

It had been five months since my son had taken a bath or shower.

We were surviving with scalp sprays of water and vinegar, wet soapy towel wipe-downs—strategies my survival system was scouring from the internet to keep him clean enough. My fear was mounting, and I worked hard on regulating myself so I wouldn’t put pressure on him.

I dropped hints gently—reminding him how much he loved water, planting seeds of memory about the fun we’d had in the past. And then I’d let it go, allowing those seeds to germinate.  To keep my fear in check, I found myself thinking of the interview I had seen of a former homeless woman who hadn’t showered for a year but was now thriving.  It helped me to let go of the fear and know deeply that my son would be ok too. 

And then one day, everything shifted.

We were having fun in the bathroom, and I casually turned on the shower. I walked out to grab extra towels, and when I came back—there he was. Undressed. Stepping in. Willingly.

I could hardly believe it. For two whole weeks he wanted to shower almost every day. It felt like bliss. Relief flooded my system. We’re moving forward. We’re finally making progress.

But then, just as suddenly, it stopped.

He refused again. No coaxing worked. And we were right back where we started. Stuck.

The Impact of Stuckness on the Nervous System

If you’ve lived this cycle, you know the drop. One moment, you’re celebrating progress; the next, you’re back in regression, and it feels like everything is unraveling.

And it’s not just our kids. We feel it in ourselves too. We start doing the nervous system work—we’re calmer, more present—and then a big trigger hits. We snap. We spiral. And it feels like nothing is changing.

When we feel stuck like this, our nervous system often slips into dorsal vagal shutdown. It feels hopeless. We lose perspective. The sense of choice disappears. The body registers inescapable danger and defaults to collapse. It’s not weakness—it’s biology.

This can then turn into what psychologist Martin Seligman calls learned helplessness.  When repeated efforts don’t bring change, the brain begins to believe, Nothing I do matters. We shut down—not because we’ve failed, but because our system is protecting us from the pain we can feel when all of our efforts do not result in the change we want to see. 

As Peter Levine teaches in Somatic Experiencing, trauma traps the nervous system in loops—fight, flight, or freeze—long after the original threat is gone. That’s why stuckness doesn’t just feel like a passing mood. It’s the body literally replaying an unfinished survival response - which comes in the form of “I’m trying to affect change, I’m doing everything possible, but I’m stuck and I cannot change things.”  This survival response playing out today can actually be one that was created many years ago in our childhood. 

And Stephen Porges’ Polyvagal Theory helps us see why: when there’s no way out, the system drops into dorsal vagal shutdown as the last line of protection. Stuckness is the body saying, This is too much; the only way to survive is to collapse.

A Quiet Feeling in the Background

After my son stopped showering again, I had to move on and be ok for him.   I couldn’t show him my deep disappointment and despair, so I bottled it up and kept going, showing him that I loved and accepted him no matter what. 

Then a few days later, I felt this heaviness start to creep up in my body. 

This particular day had actually been going well. I was baking in the kitchen. I felt deeply present, my feet steady on the floor, my hands moving slowly and intentionally. I was connected with my son, attuned to his bids for attention.

And because I was grounded, I noticed it: a quiet heaviness in my chest. A sadness. A grief. I didn’t push it away. I held it lightly, promising myself I’d come back to it.

Later, in the backyard when I had a few moments to myself, I finally turned inward. As someone trained in Internal Family Systems Therapy (IFS), I know how to be with emotions as a part of me, instead of blending with that part and the emotion. So I asked the heaviness: What do you want me to know?

The response came quickly:
“I just want to make progress. And I feel like we’re not making progress.”

The Belief Behind the Grief

That landed.

Because the truth was—we had experienced so many ups and downs. Progress followed by regression. Tiny wins followed by the same old struggles: school refusals, hygiene battles, even just leaving the house was so hard for my son. It often felt like we were trapped in a never ending loop.

And as parents, especially of hypersensitive,autistic, ADHD or PDA children, we tend to equate their progress with our worth. If they’re stuck, we feel stuck. If they’re not thriving, we feel like failures.

So I stayed with this part of me and gently asked:

• What are you believing about yourself if we’re not making progress?
  → “I feel like we’re failing.”
  
  
• And what are you afraid will happen if we’re failing?
  → “We’ll never get ahead. We’ll always be stuck.”
  
  
• And what are you afraid that means about you?
  → “That I’m not good enough. I just want to feel good enough.”
  
  

There it was. The deeper wound: the belief that progress equals worth.

Where Did This Definition of Success Come From?

I asked inside, Where did you learn that being good enough depends on forward movement?

The answer: Just look around. It’s everywhere—in education, spirituality, coaching. Everyone’s telling us to grow, improve, not stay stuck.

And it’s true. Our society’s model of success is deeply conditioned:

• Independence.
• Self-control.
• Respectfulness and responsibility.
• Taking care of oneself.
• Building relationships.
• Learning and doing well in school.
  
  

These are beautiful qualities—but they’re not the only measures of a good life. And yet they’re the lens we inherited, the lens we can’t help but hold our children up against.

But what if our children weren’t meant to follow the same script? What if success for them looks completely different?

Challenging the Survival System’s Belief

The survival system craves visible change. It equates progress with safety. It wants life to move in a straight line: improvement → more improvement → success.

But that’s not how growth works. In fact, growth mindset research (Carol Dweck) shows that real learning and development are messy, nonlinear, full of setbacks that are actually part of deep integration. Believing that growth is linear actually creates more stress, anxiety, and shame. It sets us up for disappointment, and wreaks havoc on our nervous system when things inevitably regress.

The nervous system, too, doesn’t grow in straight lines—it expands and contracts, like waves. You make progress and a new layer gets triggered and you feel like you’re back to square one, but it’s the next layer of the onion to be peeled back and healed.  But we don’t see it that way.  When we cling to the idea of linear progress, we ride a rollercoaster of soaring during gains and crashing during regressions.

So I asked my part:
“What if forward movement isn’t always something you can see on the outside? What if it’s about how you relate to the moment—even the stuckness?”
“What if simply being with what is, with awareness and presence, is progress too?”

That idea lit something up in her. A sense of hope started to pierce through the grief.

Embracing the Nonlinear Nature of Growth

But then the part asked:
“What about when the old patterns come back? When he regresses again, and it feels like we’re back at square one?”

And I got it. We had just experienced that: My son had finally been able to take regular baths for a couple of weeks, only to suddenly stop again.

So I offered another reframe:
“Yes, the same patterns might return. But what if the intensity is less now? What if the time between regressions is longer? What if growth looks like spiraling upwards, not climbing?”

I reminded her of progress in other areas she hadn’t noticed because the hygiene regression felt so big.

And something shifted. The grief began to lift. The nervous system softened. I felt hope—and even joy—rising.

The Paradox of Stuckness

You see, the nervous system feels safest when it has choice. And choice begins with perspective.

If we can see things differently, we open space for our system to shift. When we view stuckness not as failure but as sacred pause—necessary integration—part of the learning journey– then we’re no longer trapped. We’re moving.

That’s the paradox:
You feel stuck… but the moment you realize that being with the stuckness is part of the journey—you’re no longer stuck.

What Can We Learn from the Stuckness?

Stuckness isn’t just something to endure. It’s a teacher.

When we feel like nothing is moving forward, we’re invited into the very life skills we need most as parents of high-needs children:

• The skill of allowing what is. Letting go of the constant fight against reality, and instead softening into the moment as it is.
  
  
• The skill of presence. Staying here, in this moment, rather than spiraling into fears about the future or judgments from the past.
  
  
• The skill of self-compassion. Holding ourselves gently when grief, frustration, or despair rise up, instead of criticizing ourselves for not doing better.
  
  
• The skill of regulating ourselves. Calming and anchoring our nervous system even when progress is absent, when things feel overwhelming, or when hope is hard to find.
  
  
• The skill of reframing. Seeing stuckness not as failure but as sacred pause, integration, a change to learn, or simply the next step of the journey.
  
  
• The skill of letting go of attachment to expectations. Allowing progress and change to nourish us without demanding they remain forever in order for life to feel okay.
  
  
• The skill of holding onto hope and new possibilities. Trusting that change is always possible, even when it’s not visible at the moment.
  
  

And here’s something powerful: when we can change how we see stuckness, we stop seeing our child as a threat to our (or their) survival and success. Our nervous system feels safer. And our children feel that, too. They experience us as more grounded, less fearful, more open. This creates a ripple of safety for them.

Stuckness, then, isn’t just a block on the path — it is the path. It teaches us presence, acceptance, compassion, resilience, perspective, and trust. These are the qualities that help us thrive, even in the hardest seasons.

Spotting Tiny Changes as Glimmers

Part of the work of parenting high-needs kids is learning to notice progress — but without clinging to it.

When our child finally does something new, our nervous system lights up with relief. We’ve made it. Things are getting better. And then we attach. We expect it to stay. We feel like we need it to keep happening in order to be okay.

But attachment to progress sets us up for more pain when regression comes. Instead of being nourished by the glimmer, we crash when it disappears.

The practice here is to let progress be what it is: a moment to appreciate, to take in, to allow our system to soften. Let it nourish us. Let it remind us that change is possible. But don’t demand that it has to be this way all the time for life to feel good.  Don’t get attached to it as the only way you can feel ok or happy. 

And here’s something else: we can also widen our lens of what counts as progress. Our conditioned brains want to measure success by independence, responsibility, self-control — the markers we were taught define a “good life.” But what if we could see success in smaller, quieter ways?

Maybe progress is a single moment of eye contact. A giggle after weeks of tension. A child asking for help when they usually shut down or activate. Even if it doesn’t match the old script of what our child “should” be able to do — these are signs of their nervous system finding capacity.

When we can notice these tiny glimmers without attaching to permanence, we become more regulated ourselves. And from regulation, hope and creativity naturally arise.

A New Way to Define Success

So I invite you to ask yourself:

• What definitions of success are you still carrying?
  
  
• What stories are you holding about progress and worth?
  
  
• Who told you that you had to always be moving forward to be good enough?
  
  

Because those definitions can be rewritten.

Maybe—just maybe—this life with your hypersensitive, high-needs child isn’t about arriving anywhere. Maybe it’s about shedding old stories and finding wholeness in the journey itself.  Maybe it’s about finding unconditional love and acceptance for you and your child - as you are - even in the “seeming stuckness”.

When we redefine success, we heal.
And when we see stuckness differently and learn from it, it all becomes a purposeful part of the path.
And when we let go of the pressure to always do, fix, or move—we create space for our nervous system to rest.
We create space for a new world.
One that’s safe for us.
And for our children too.