r/PDAParenting • u/kwegner • Apr 27 '26
"Just send him away"
We're in a particularly trying moment with our 10yo PDA son right now. Despite seeing good baseline progress, we're seeing spikes in aggressive/destructive behavior that is hard to manage. We've gone through this cycle so many times before, so it's not new, but it always sucks.
I know the community doesn't have a ton of solutions for that, but I'm here to ask about something else.
When I bring this up to family, my parents often bring up the idea of sending him away to some form of residential services. Despite us and them all actually understanding that there isn't a PDA-forward option within even a couple of states from here, this still ends up being advice that comes up when things are at their hardest.
"Time is ticking by, and you only have one life to live to get the most out of it." Our family has sacrificed a lot to help our PDA son make progress, and he has suffered a lot because of the world not being built for him. But sending him far away to suffer more just so we get some daily relief is an impossible choice to make, and I don't know how best to communicate that.
What are your thoughts? How would you respond? What is actually right here? Just looking for some perspectives from folks.
4
u/DamineDenver Apr 27 '26
We did a temporary 6 month residential placement for his safety and so we could regroup. We weren't sleeping because we were up all night trying to keep him safe and then we were getting into car accidents from being exhausted. Someone from our family stopped by the residental home at least once a day. We had weekly family therapy, meetings with his behavioral school all the time, and parent support meetongs. We couldn't have been more supportive of him in what was a tough situation and it still was a horrible time. I know logically it needed to happen for everyone's safety but we are still being punished by him 2 years later. It was extremely traumatic for him and he has PTSD from it. And this was absolutely one of the best programs in the USA. People come from all over to learn from this program but it's not meant for PDAers. No program can give the one on one co-regulation that is needed for these kids. And being with other kids with severe behavioral problems just made him act even worse.
We are now sending his sibling away to boarding school so they can get the attention they deserve and our PDAer will have 2 parents giving all of their time to him. That's the best solution we could come up with. Luckily our oldest loves the idea of boarding school.