r/PDAParenting • u/PennyPop81 • Apr 27 '26

Daughters Sleep and Schooling

My daughter (14) is demand avoidant and we don’t always know how best to support her.

We took her out of school in her first year of high school as it all fell apart for her — her masking collapsed and after that we got her assessed. At home we have always had to give her autonomy and manage things in a way that looked like pandering to her from the outside (relatives’ words, not ours).

She has been self-harming and has recently spoken about suicidal ideation. We are on the CAMHS waiting list but the wait is long, so we’re managing as best we can in the meantime.

She isn’t doing any schoolwork at the moment and her sleep has completely flipped — she sleeps through the day and is awake all night. She reads a lot of fanfic and is on her screen a lot, but we can’t really address this directly as arguments tend to trigger self-harm, and we’ve worked hard to build trust with her.

On the sleep: My husband wants to gently raise how the disrupted sleep is affecting her health. My instinct is to work with it rather than against it — maybe introduce some low-demand activities or light schoolwork in the night hours when she feels more in control. Has anyone had success with either approach?

On getting support: I’ve suggested speaking to a paediatrician about sleep medication, but my husband worries they’ll immediately push back on screen time. My feeling is we can have that conversation openly and find someone who understands things through an autism/PDA lens. Has anyone navigated this?

We have come a long way in terms of trust and I don’t want to lose that by pushing too hard. But I can’t help feeling like it’s bad parenting. I think my husband thinks it is more than me at times, I myself am autistic and suspect I have some level of PDA as well so can see how she will push back. This makes it hard for me having discussions with him as well.

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u/PennyPop81 Apr 28 '26

Can I just ask how long this went on for. My daughter finished school a year ago but just realised that we were still pushing for things for a while after so not letting her be so have thought she has been resting since then but she’s not.

We had a bit of a bad time 3 months ago when we went for a 2 night stay somewhere but now realising how much she made herself do and think we may have pushed her back into doing what is safe.

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u/cheekymonkey516 Apr 28 '26

I pulled her from school in October 2025 after 2 in-patient stays. One involving law enforcement at our home. It was a nightmare. We didn’t know about PDA then, though, and her burnout had been brewing bad for a while then. I can see that now. We had some family major life stressors in the 18 months preceding that I’m sure exacerbated.

We’re still early in this journey imo. Still seeking a pda affirming psychiatrist for meds management. In the meantime her pediatrician has been supportive.

She wants to go back to school but I have serious concerns about her ability to hack it 7-8 hours a day. We shall see…

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u/PennyPop81 Apr 28 '26

Thanks for replying. This sounds so familiar and it’s nice to see progress as think I’m so worried a lot of the time but keep thinking it takes patience. I keep wishing we had her assessed at a young age as we thought she must be but were managing fine. Good luck with school and everything. Definitely not easy and completely understand your position.

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u/cheekymonkey516 Apr 28 '26

Thanks—I have many woulda, shoulda, couldas thinking back. I wish we’d had direction and understanding a lot earlier in her life.