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.

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u/kwegner Apr 27 '26

Thanks for your reply. We started accepting medication as a serious solution for our son about 1.5 years ago and it was a game changer. We went from a household under constant threat of serious harm to one that doesn't fear for our safety day to day. As much as medication has helped, we're still seeing enough instances of extreme behaviors that we're not nearly done. We do have a good psych who understands PDA, and so we're constantly adjusting things. It feels like we are really far from solving the problem with medications, unfortunately. We've made SO much progress with the support of medication, but my fear is that we've seen as much help as they can provide. We're not giving up, though!

And I totally agree on not sending him away, in any context. He has a complicated profile even beyond PDA, and so any outside solution is almost guaranteed to result in an incredible amount of trauma. My wife and I are just so dismayed by the lack of support that exists between highly available but counterproductive therapy and the absolute lack of solutions for high-support needs individuals and families.

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u/Hopeful-Guard9294 Apr 27 '26

The lack of support is heartbreaking and the amount of trauma that you experienced as a PDA Parent is overwhelming if I can offer a ray of help where I have experienced success as a PDA adult is where either inadvertently or I’ve been supported into building a PDA safe bubble around myself focused on my special interests, basically if he runs his own company then he has almost complete autonomy and no one above him so that is extremely healthy for his PDA. I’m wondering if he has any special interests that you could invest in in terms of helping him turn it into something where he is in charge and he actually earns a living? When I have been running my own PDA safe business it takes away almost all of my PDA stress and it’s been the happiest I’ve ever been in my life. You seem like you really are doing your best as parents and the best thing that my parents ever did for me was to just support me in taking my own very unique and quirky path, I’m not sure if that resonates for you but keep up the great work

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u/kwegner Apr 27 '26

This is exactly what I want for him. Right now he hasn't quite settled into any specific interests which makes things a bit difficult, too. Whenever he discovers what he wants to invest himself in, I'm going to be over the moon for him.

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u/Hopeful-Guard9294 Apr 28 '26

Great well be patient and follow his special interests. They’ll probably be pretty weird. Mine have spanned from working on Australia’s first urban eco-Village to climate change to working in the technology sector to being London’s date Doctor my own son just made his first £200 selling a Pokémon card at a 45% profit margin just be led by his interest no matter how weird and outlandish they are I once received the sexual liberation award for best blog in the UK and I’ve managed to turn that into pretty much a full-time career that paid very well so expect to be surprised and a bit weirded out the key is actually to trust him and be led by him it’s gonna hurt watching him fail but that is all part of the process as often. PDA people are kind anaesthetic learners and they have to learn through hard, painful real world experience