Grace & Growth: Parenting Special Needs Children

Grace & Growth: Parenting Special Needs Children

From Conversations with Dr. Jennifer by Dr. Jennifer Finlayson-Fife

May 12, 2026 · 55 min

About this episode

Dr. Jennifer Finlayson-Fife discusses her experience as a mother of a son with autism and the challenges of accepting children as they are.

Most of us enter parenthood knowing it will be both challenging and rewarding. We expect difficulty. We expect exhaustion. But what we don't expect — and what we can never be fully prepared for — is a life-altering diagnosis and the grief that follows when reality doesn't match what we had envisioned for our child and our family. In this episode, Dr. Jennifer Finlayson-Fife joins Brad Broyles and Nathan Palmer of The Polaris Connection Podcast to share more about her own experience as the mother of a son with autism. She discusses the difficulty and overwhelm she faced early on and the unglamorous process of learning to stop trying to solve her son and start truly choosing him. While this conversation centers on parenting a child with autism, it speaks to the universal challenge of loving our children as they are rather than as we imagined them to be. _________ Join us for a one-day couples workshop in Alpine! Tickets HERE

People in this episode

Host: Dr. Jennifer Finlayson-Fife

Guests: Brad Broyles, Nathan Palmer

Topics covered

  • parenting
  • special needs
  • autism
  • grief
  • self-acceptance

Keywords

  • parenthood
  • special needs children
  • autism
  • parenting challenges
  • self-acceptance

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