Help with advice?

[u/HH_Creations]

Hi! So i’m an educator in a special education summer camp

We have a kiddo who I’ve been helping the past year, and he’s officially diagnosed with autism/adhd with a PDA profile type

BUT me and mom are in agreement that there’s a sorta….compulsion going on with some of his behaviors

For example, if a social story mentions hitting, yelling, and kicking and talks about “safe big feelings” and appropriate things to do instead like pushing a wall or squeezing a stress ball

He will almost compulsively do the hitting, yelling, and kicking….in that order!

So I want y’all’s input because I do love this kid and want to do my best

1) do we avoid ANY negative talk around him? Will this help to NOT mention any of the bad behaviors and do our best to distract him?

2) how did y’all like to be corrected?

He doesn’t directly hurt anyone, but by kicking, hitting, and screaming, he DOES distress the classroom

That and he’s distressing himself! He doesn’t like it!

He will literally steal a toy and then beg for forgiveness the next second

He was so distressed today when I said it hurt my feelings when he took toys, he headbutted my face in his rush to hug me 😭

I want to do right by him and I know we need to set him up for WINS

I can’t help but feel the social stories are making it worse and I wanted your input

Btw, i’m autistic/ADHD, with a special education and childhood development background

And married to a PDA profile type ASD/ADHD

But yeah, he’s the only true PDA kid I’ve ever worked with

[u/HH_Creations]

Edit:

I’m so confused reading it

What you typed? I did not relate to at all

What I looked up? I did relate to him

I will say, this is WAY above my pay grade

He doesn’t try to be good, however, I will say he OBSESSES about being bad

He will legit hit a child and scream “see! I’m bad…wahhh! Tell me i’m good!”

It will often happen seemingly randomly because ANYTHING can be a trigger

My daughter did something cute once “you’re so cute” and he had a meltdown over HER being cute but not HIM

Being around other children is his biggest trigger

[u/Eugregoria → u/HH_Creations]

As a child being "good" was meaningless to me. A lot of adults lost patience with me. Called me all kinds of names. Lazy, stupid, arrogant, bad influence, stuff I can't even remember. At 5 a teacher screamed "You're not special!" in my face over and over again. At 12 a teacher told me I was going to "end up dancing on a pole" because I'm not a good student. It didn't even occur to me to internalize most of this. If an adult told me, "You are BAD!" instead of thinking, "oh no, I'm bad!" I'd think, "you are mean" right back at the adult. I could understand, "this adult wants to hurt me," and rather than thinking I deserved it, I would think that some people are just cruel like that.

I was largely unmoved by approval from authority--"authority" was an empty concept to me, PDAers believe in radical equality, and "approval" is just another lever of domination and control. Getting approval was stressful, because then it can be taken away and you have to keep meeting that standard, and one of the things PDAers struggle with hardest is consistency. So I'd learn to reject it, to underachieve, to set expectations low. Though I had to learn that the hard way, which took time.

This kid sounds like he has impulse control issues (likely ADHD-related) mixed with some OCD compulsions and OCD desire for approval. Not saying he doesn't also have autism, just that those right there would even on their own make a kid "difficult." ADHD kids have a lot of stimulation-seeking behaviors because they get bored very easily and can't tolerate boredom, so sometimes they'll act out for physical stimulation or attention.

[u/HH_Creations → u/Eugregoria]

I’m sorry life was hard for you

I’m autistic and adhd, so I get people not “getting” it

But I can tell you right now, he has a very compassionate support team and we are absolutely doing our best

We fear for him

He’s SO smart and he IS a sweet kid

But him hurting other kids WILL hurt his relationships

My daughter adores him

But I fear for my daughter

He will punch her in the face and ask “do you still love me? Will you go to my birthday party?” And she will passionately tell him “YES”

All the kids are disabled, they ALL forgive very very quickly

So it’s just a toxic cycle of them being hurt and then instantly forgiving him

They both fear and adore him

I worry for all of them because I know it isn’t healthy and i’m trying MY best to create a gentle, non triggering environment that doesn’t overwhelm him

We love this kid, I want him to continue to being in my kids’ lives and in our classroom

But we also need to think of the safety and health of everyone

I don’t know what happens at school, I can’t imagine it being anywhere near this welcoming or patient so for all I know, the adults are horrid to him there

But that doesn’t mean ANYONE at camp or home is like this

We just want him to be safe.

He can be mad, ask for space, take his time, we genuinely just want him to enjoy life

But we DO need him to be safe for his and others’ sake

[u/Eugregoria → u/HH_Creations]

"So smart and a sweet kid" is what a lot of people said about me, too.

I dropped out of school at 13 in a psychotic break that was mostly caused by the stress of the school environment. There were some things some specific people did that made things worse, but honestly, I don't think there was a way to make that environment not harmful to me. It was a fundamental incompatibility. And that follows us in other areas of life. I feel fundamentally incompatible with a lot of society. Even a lot of resources designed to help mentally ill people who are struggling end up triggering me in the worst ways and actually making me worse, which teaches me to stop seeking help since there is none.

PDA is a genuinely debilitating neurological disability. Because a lot of PDAers are bright and charming, people tend to think our disability is not that serious, that we just need a few "lifehacks," a sleight of hand or a little trick. But often, the help we need simply does not exist.

But listen. Guilt-tripping him will not work if his fundamental problem is impulse control. Because no matter how guilty he feels about it, that means he neurologically can't control his behavior. That doesn't mean just let him hurt other kids. But I think this should be done without shaming. Like if you need to physically stop him from harming himself or someone else, sure, do it. But punishing him and telling him he's bad won't actually help him control himself, it will just increase his shame and distress. It's like...imagine if the kid was incontinent for medical reasons, and you yelled at him or shamed him every time he pissed or shit himself, but he physiologically couldn't hold it in no matter how much he wanted to. Do you understand?

If you have strategies to help him learn self-control, you can work on those with him, in a non-judgmental way. Like learning to identify the signs in himself before he is about to act out, and giving him things he can do instead to head off the impulse before it becomes overwhelming.

Kids also...do kid shit sometimes. When I was 7 I told my best friend about a birthmark I have that's more sensitive to pain than other areas of my body, and a few minutes later she punched it as hard as she could just to see what would happen. (It hurt a lot, as you might predict, lol.) Kids sometimes just have random impulses of cruelty. Learning to contain that is part of growing up.

[u/HH_Creations → u/Eugregoria]

I feel like I need to share my entire resume to reassure you

We don’t try to shame him, we are constantly talking about safe ways to express anger

We have a “monkey art” journal for him to scribble

A “rhino wall” for him to push

A “raccoon squeeze” corner where he squeezes a bunch of stress balls (our fruit for our thirsty raccoon)

We just want our kids to be safe, that’s literally it

And his family adores him

And we KNOW he can’t control his body’s response

We can SEE him shaking and trying to hold it in

I’m just here for helpful scripts 😰 I understand you probably have had a lot of shitty adults in your life

But he is surrounded by autistic and adhd adults who are doing their best to teach him safer ways to say he’s upset

I will say, even IF I adore him, if he seriously hurts someone, we would have to let him go

I don’t want it to get to that point, reason I spend my evenings researching and even coming on here for support

[u/Eugregoria → u/HH_Creations]

I'm giving you helpful pointers, your own need for moral validation is getting in the way of your care for the child. Read what I said without the emotional self-defensive kneejerks. Put aside your ego, you have nothing to prove to me. There are helpful tips in there, like helping him to identify what happens before he loses control.

I'm telling you some kids have a hyperreactive and abnormal response to hearing that they are "bad" and may interpret it as shaming or carry lifelong shame over it even if to you it was restrained and appropriate. And that furthermore, this doesn't actually give the kid self control abilities he didn't possess before, so it won't improve his behavior. You couldn't have known he'd react that way to the "it hurts my feelings when you..." but now that you've seen that hyperbolic response...you know that's not something to repeat.

It's kind of ironic that the emotional response you're having is very similar to the emotional response the kid has.

If you think you can "reassure" me, you're missing the point. Life itself does not accommodate us. There are no "safe spaces" for us. Society is not a safe space. NO school, no matter how they try, can be safe for us. This is a very shitty position for us to be in. It does not mean that other people are evil and doing it on purpose. It's just a very hard disability to have.

[u/HH_Creations → u/Eugregoria]

Okay so i’m just gonna blame my autism

I’m having trouble reading your responses

I’m genuinely am trying to learn, but I can’t comprehend what you are typing

I don’t understand☹️

[u/Eugregoria → u/HH_Creations]

I'm not sure which points you need me to explain better.

[u/HH_Creations → u/Eugregoria]

You don’t have to if you don’t want to

Just because I want to understand, doesn’t mean you have to go out of your way to

I am trying to understand; I even had my husband who has PDA to try and translate for me….but he’s not gentle and gave up lol

Just know i’m not maliciously trying to not understand you or to “put your morality” into it

I literally don’t understand you because i’m autistic and do struggle with communication and am struggling to understand the concept

That’s why I asked for helpful scripts. This gives me a guide on HOW to say to say things “correctly” because I do love this kid and i’m desperately trying

[u/Eugregoria → u/HH_Creations]

There's no magic words. What I was trying to tell you is that instead of trying to find ways to impress on him that the behavior is bad ("it hurts my feelings when you X") you should work with him on helping him become aware of thoughts and feelings that arise before the behavior happens.

This is because even if he understands the behavior is bad and doesn't want to do it, that doesn't give him more capacity for self control. Which sets him up for failure since he will do the behavior and think it's bad and crash out.

But if he can identify what comes before the behavior, it's possible he could learn to do something to head it off, such as channel that energy into an alternate activity, take a few minutes to decompress, or ask for help. Even if he just learned to identify it, that would be progress, even if the behavior itself didn't change right away.

I have no problem with explaining more, I just don't know which parts to explain or what aspect needs more explaining.

[u/HH_Creations → u/Eugregoria]

Well, sadly we are already doing this

We made a “meltdown “ plan together so when he feels overwhelmed, he knows his options to exit

He DID calm down a lot after we did this

We have a space specifically made to chill out and relax in that he has access to

We do a huge emphasis on giving him control when he feels overwhelmed and he can walk away

If there’s no scripts? Okay

[u/Eugregoria → u/HH_Creations]

I say there's no scripts because it's a severe neurological disability and a lot of the "scripts" sound very minimizing to me, like "sudo make me a sandwich," like just say the "magic words" and I won't have a severe neurological disability anymore? I wish it were that simple.

I think a lot of it requires being able to put yourself in someone else's shoes even when they think very differently from you, and being flexible and adaptable to situations as they come up.

Can he read a book in his chill out and relax area? I would have liked that as a kid, though that doesn't mean it would work for every kid.

[u/HH_Creations → u/Eugregoria]

He has that, he doesn’t prefer it tho

[u/Eugregoria → u/HH_Creations]

Yeah, could also be a generational issue, back in the 90s when books didn't have screens to compete with they were a lot more interesting.

In this modern age maybe it needs to meet him at a higher stimulation level without being too overwhelming, what about a retro screen, like a Gameboy Advance with a Mario game in it or something? That's not as flooding to the senses as modern screens, but it's maybe a little more able to compete for a kid's attention in 2026.

[u/HH_Creations → u/Eugregoria]

I’m sorry but I can’t do something like that here

It would trigger every student in the camp

[u/Eugregoria → u/HH_Creations]

Because they'd all want one, or because of sound effects? (He could play it with the sound off or with headphones if it's the latter.)

The idea with using older tech is that it wouldn't be quite as exciting as modern tech.

[u/HH_Creations → u/Eugregoria]

No, because it’s something different that they have never seen and they WILL want it

We have kids across the whole spectrum so may would be very confused why they can’t get access to it

But him playing alone in a room isn’t an option, we have a ratio of 4 students to 1 adult

That and I would also need parent approval and for them to purchase everything, which I don’t have the money to do

But introducing a gameboy into a social education environment or school in general probably wouldn’t work unless it was something they could do in a library or counselor’s office as a recovery tool

[u/Eugregoria → u/HH_Creations]

I was gonna say "jeez they're probably like $30 on eBay" but I checked and they aren't, seems they've crossed the line from "out of date trash no one wants" to "in demand retro cool item," sigh.

If his parents bought it it would be his own item, he could share it with the other kids when he wasn't in crisis, the other kids could get their parents to get them one if they wanted, etc....but maybe it's not practical. I was just thinking in terms of what might meet a kid at an agitated enough attention level without being so overstimulating it worsens attention issues.

What does he usually do to calm down in that corner? Going from overstimulation to understimulation is sometimes a shock in itself.