We tend to have a very clear idea of what success looks like in childhood. A child who goes into school without difficulty, follows instructions, completes their work and achieves academically is generally considered to be doing well.
For many neurodivergent children, however, what we see on the outside tells us very little about what it has taken to get there.
We know that neurodivergence in itself has nothing to do with intelligence, so a child may be achieving highly while working significantly harder than their peers to manage executive function demands. They may be participating fully in lessons while masking sensory discomfort or emotional overwhelm. They may hold everything together throughout the school day, only to fall apart once they reach the safety of home.
None of this means that achievement, high standards or excellence are a problem. Quite the opposite. I want neurodivergent children to be ambitious, to experience excellence and to recognise what they are capable of. But I think we need to question an understanding of success that measures primarily whether a child can meet a predetermined set of expectations, without considering how they are having to meet them.
There is a difference between learning how to succeed and learning how to endure.
And when we celebrate a child’s ability to continually push through as evidence that they are “doing well” or coping, it can become increasingly difficult to tell the difference.
The problem with how we measure success
So much of what we traditionally measure in childhood is based on what we can see.
Did they get into school? Did they complete the task? Did they sit through the lesson? Did they manage the transition? Did they cope with the school trip? Did they get the grades?
These things matter, but they do not give us the whole picture.
A neurodivergent child can become incredibly good at coping with environments, expectations and ways of working that do not necessarily suit their brain. An autistic child may learn to mask their discomfort in a busy classroom. A child with ADHD may compensate for difficulties with working memory, attention or organisation by putting in considerably more effort. A child experiencing sensory overload may learn to suppress their response until they reach somewhere they feel safe enough to release it.
The outcome can look exactly like the version of success we have been taught to celebrate.
They did it.
The question we ask far less often is: what did doing it require of them?
Research from King’s College London found that autistic and ADHD adolescents experienced around twice the school-related emotional burden of their neurotypical peers. Research into autistic camouflaging has also found associations between higher levels of masking and poorer mental health in children and adolescents.
This does not mean that every child who masks will experience mental health difficulties, or that coping strategies are inherently harmful. Coping is sometimes necessary and many coping strategies are extremely useful.
But we cannot ask children to live their lives continually pushing through and call that success.
When coping becomes our definition of achievement
The distinction matters because children are not only learning maths, English and science at school. They are also learning about themselves.
They are noticing which parts of themselves are praised, which behaviours attract approval and what adults appear to value.
If a child repeatedly receives the message that doing well means sitting still despite needing to move, tolerating an overwhelming environment without showing distress, keeping up without asking for help, or completing work in a particular way regardless of the additional effort involved, they can become very good at meeting those expectations.
The danger here is teaching a child that this is what success should look like.
Those lessons can follow us into adulthood.
We can become very accomplished at meeting external measures of success while being much less skilled at recognising our own needs. We can learn to push through, compensate, mask and perform without necessarily noticing when the way we are working has become unsustainable.
High performance can hide neurodivergent burnout.
Doing “well” does not always mean being well if the style and delivery of our performance requires us to continually work against ourselves.
That does not mean neurodivergent people should step away from ambition, excellence or high performance. It means we need to find ways of achieving them that work with our brains rather than continually asking our brains to work like everybody else’s.
And that is something I believe we need to start teaching neurodivergent children much earlier.
Success doesn’t need to be achieved in the same way for everyone
Sometimes the things that help a neurodivergent child thrive can look very different from the things we traditionally associate with successful learning.
One child might need to move while they are listening. Another might produce far better work using technology than handwriting. A child might need support to begin a task they fully understand, or need downtime after school before they have the capacity for homework. They might need to leave a busy environment before they become overwhelmed rather than being praised for staying and enduring it.
These are not examples of lowering expectations.
They are examples of helping children discover how they work best and finding their optimal conditions for learning and living.
I think that distinction is important because conversations about neurodivergent wellbeing can sometimes be interpreted as an argument for expecting less.
I want the opposite.
I want neurodivergent children to know what they are capable of and have the opportunity to fulfil that potential. But I want us to widen the routes and approaches by which they can get there.
Success should not require a neurodivergent child to become better at performing neurotypicality.
From coping to thriving
Imagine instead that a neurodivergent child grows up understanding how their brain works.
They know what helps them concentrate and what makes concentration harder. They recognise what sensory overwhelm feels like before they reach breaking point. They understand that knowing how to do something and being able to initiate it are not always the same thing. They recognise when their capacity is running low. They know what helps them regulate, when they need support and how to ask for it.
They also understand their strengths.
Rather than growing up believing that success means learning to operate more like everybody else, they begin to discover how they think, learn, work and perform at their best.
That self-understanding does not limit ambition. It can enable it.
We need neurodivergent children who are not scared to think differently. Who are not scared to embrace divergent thinking. Children who know that excellence does not require them to achieve in exactly the same way as everyone around them.
I want more than coping for our neurodivergent children.
I want them to understand that their worth is not measured by how much they can perform, tolerate or push through simply to jump through a set of pretty narrow hoops. And I want them to know that they do not need to step away from ambition, excellence or achievement.
If we help them understand themselves now, we can help them grow into adults who know how to get the results, embrace excellence and pursue success in ways that work for them.
We can help them lean into success on their own terms.
About the Author
Charlotte MacDougall is the founder of Nurture & Thrive, a neurodivergence specialist teacher, dyslexia specialist and assessor, and ADHD coach. She spent more than 15 years in education, including school leadership, and is also an AuDHD adult and mum to neurodivergent children. Charlotte is the author of Reclaiming the Narrative and Thriving with SEND: Rethinking Success for Young Neurodivergent Minds.
Charlotte is running a free three-day parent challenge, Navigating Neurodivergence: Lost → Liberated, from 21–23 October 2026, followed by the free Join the Dots masterclass on 26 October. It is designed to help parents understand their neurodivergent child differently, support them more effectively and rethink what thriving can look like.
Find Charlotte and register for the free challenge through www.nurtureandthrive.co.uk