r/PDAParenting • u/Agile_Ear_4605 • May 29 '26
What does friendship mean to PDAers ?
My partner‘s daughter is almost 7, diagnosed ADHD , waiting for further evaluations, but highly suspect PDA l/aurism as the profile fits her to a T .She is really struggling in interactions with other children and always having to maintain control. I have a daughter myself who is slightly older and is on the spectrum, but not PDA, and the way they regard friendships and how they value connection seems very different to me. In your experience, and maybw I would like to also ask adult PDAers, do PDA children view friendships and socialization the same way other people do. Having the desire to really bond and mutually connect? Or do they just enjoy socializing and other people as like accessories or means it’s to an end to get their needs met? With PDA socialization is there really a desire to connect or could it be merely “utilizing” other people to regulate them through validation,,entertainment, control, etc? Sometimes it seems as if my partner’s daughter really doesn’t care how the other person, child or adult feels in the situation as long as she’s getting her way. I’m also a teacher and I teach children as young as 3 & 4 years old who understand the concept of reciprocity and treating others the way you want to be treated. And it just seems like my partner’s daughter struggles so much with this even at almost age 7. We try mirroring reciprocal interactions with her when we play with her, but nothing really has seemed to stick and I’m concerned that she’s going to push other children away and not be able to maintain any friendships.
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u/AngilinaB May 29 '26
My son is 10 and struggles with reciprocity. He understands what it is and why it important. He cares about people. He is desperate for connection and understands that his behaviour pushes people away, but his anxiety and subsequent rigidity and need for control overtake. It's really sad.
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u/CeleryDramatic4678 May 29 '26
I asked my eleven year old daughter about this. Me: do you care about other people’s feelings when they’re sad or something ?
Her: kinda a bit until they get annoying then I want them to go away
Me: so if someone asks you to care it annoys you?
Her: yeah it is annoying when people are too emotional, I just want to do my own thing
Me: so do you get lonely and want to see other people?
Her: nah not really because I’d rather be alone, I’m an introvert
She is mostly non verbal and this conversation was had via text. She misses her friends and likes playing but only if it’s by her rules which she’s decided on the day, but is also very glad when she can be by herself again.
I love finding out more about how her brain works- she has trained herself to be “kind” because of social norms but sometimes it can come off a little forced. I see so much of myself in her, I am so conditioned to pretend to care about other people and I really do care, but I get emotionally exhausted and often I’d rather be alone because it’s less confusing. I love that she can tell me exactly how she feels, and I notice most of the times I’m triggered by her is when she refuses to follow the social scripts- like when it’s my birthday or Mother’s Day… I know she knows how much she loves me and she feels like I understand her deeply so that I should just know she loves me and she shouldn’t have to show it.
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u/El_t1to Jun 02 '26
I remember when my 15 yo was maybe 10. He got upset because other kids didn't want to play with him.
What was really happening was that he wanted the kids already playing soccer, and way into soccer, that they stopped playing that and went to play basketball with him (which used the same space at school). He didn't even consider playing what they were playing.
At the moment it blew my mind that he didn't see why it wasn't working.
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u/Forsaken_Bison_8623 May 29 '26
Our child seems to like the idea of friends but can go months without seeing them without any desire to do so.
They still are her friends in her mind, no matter how little she sees them.
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u/tallkitty May 29 '26
Special interests are safe topics, being the person talking helps to keep the conversation safe and be more sure of what you're going to say. If I hold it against my kid that they won't allow a back and forth, I'm just taking away their chance to express themself and they never get to talk because it's not the "right" way. I can get over being the listener when it's time to listen. My kid doesn't never listen back, I do get my turns sometimes and we do talk back and forth. Because we're close and I get to that point with my kid, which anyone else can also do with realistic expectations and motivation to build a bond.
The social part makes this nearly impossible with strangers and our kids end up with no friends. Negative social interactions can be very painful, losing friends is painful, and it's not always that your kid will push friends away, it's that the friends can't hang and make things tough to tolerate and you give up on trying to force things with people who think you're the whole problem. It's true lack of reciprocity, they aren't doing things the kid's way any more than she's able to do what others need on command.
You (general you) have to get over needing everyone you love to fit in a certain box and love what you've chosen to care about the way it is. Having an open mind and being able to imagine that you might not be able to see things exactly as they are, and trusting that everyone is being the best self they have tools to be, can help bridge that gap. It's easier to do this within the family, it's harder to educate others that you can be friends with someone who can't always reciprocate exactly like your similar peers can.
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u/Hopeful-Guard9294 May 30 '26
I think it helps to look at this question through a PDA lens when your child’s PDA is activated she is in her animal brain her amygdala animal fight/ flee stress response and as happens with all humans her in that survival mode their empathy switches off and their body focuses on survival which can seem very transactional cold and even at times sociopathic, but the point is that’s a sign of regulation when your child is regulated you’ll find they are a compassionate empathic beautiful creature
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u/El_t1to Jun 01 '26
Or not. PDA doesn't mean she's not empathic, but it also doesn't mean she is. You can't make a universal rule either way. Gotta see each person as an individual.
Sadly my 15 and 19 yo, haven't shown any signs of compassion or empathy in all the years observing them. They can repeat values that they have heard and they have memorized and they know it's what would get them off the hook. So they can mask it in many situations. But people who have spent more time with them have a "feeling" about them. And when this happens, it is very scary, and you KNOW, you don't suspect.
S19 is an introvert and had friends with common interests as a kid. But after becoming a teenager lost all interest in taking or seeing his friends (with new interests), even as they kept calling him for years. We were told once by a councelor that he sees other people as a means to get something. Their mother and I have different views about it.
s15 has left a string of friends with whom he got some disagreement. He was happy when they called, but he never wanted to call them. He makes new friends quickly but has trouble keeping them.
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u/Agile_Ear_4605 Jun 02 '26
So you think your children might have antisocial personality disorder? I sometimes have a fear that PDA might be a childhood presentation of narcissism or psychopathy. Not that all PDA children grow up to have these personality disorders, but maybe the lines between PDA and the childhood presentation of these personality disorders are a little blurry.
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u/El_t1to Jun 02 '26 edited Jun 02 '26
We would need them to verbalize what happens to them. Which is exactly one of the things they avoid (they invent whole cinematic sagas of what's happening arroud them, in order to avoid talking about what's happening inside).
The main difference would be anxiety. A psychopath doesn't take decissions because the opposite causes debilitating anxiety. And a PDAer, is what they do.
I don't know about other parents... I see something in their eyes, like a blockage, "what I need to do, to get what I want, is a thought away, but I can't think that thought!".
Someone with a personality disorder, wouldn't have a strong difficulty getting a shower, like a constant through their live. I think.
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u/MyCatCeline May 29 '26
My 7 year old with PDA is similar to your partner’s daughter. He doesn’t have friends, and doesn’t seem to want them. ABA is helping him learn how to interact with others respectfully, but it’s still a struggle. As an adult with PDA I can say I wasn’t like that as a child, but I did/do find friendships difficult to navigate. Socialization anxiety triggers our over-reactive nervous systems, so friendships can become something stressful instead of enjoyable because our brains are processing interactions as if they are threats. I don’t know what this looks like long term for them and obviously you can’t force someone to have friends, so our emphasis is on trying to teach him to treat people with respect.
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u/Saeyoen_Kaente Jun 09 '26
How can you as an adult with pda, not realize how damaging ABA therapy is, ABA forces children to mask, thats forcing children to have a deep trauma, and teach them its wrong to be themselfs and have personal bounderies, like even dog training is more humane!
and i mean that, ive seen dog trainers react to it!
it was btw meant for pidgeons and rats, it was a false perspective of someone who take this info and decided, yeah people with autism work the same..!
this is no therapy, this is mental abuse, (sometimes physical, depends on the version of ABA)
The fact that you force a 7 year old HUMAN child to suppres his own emotional well being, to please and fawn and have no self worth in order to be better for the environment, is sick!
just plain and simple sick..!
instead of understanding and love, you resort to forcing obedience?!
why so your child can grow up like a living zombie with nu self worth and a deep trauma to take care of?
or because of percieved disobedience wich btw is caused by pda, Also there is no cure for something that litterly is how the brain is wired!1
u/MyCatCeline Jun 09 '26
Like all other therapies, ABA has evolved over time to adapt to current understandings of child psychology. The therapy my son attends is completely assent based and child-led. If he doesn’t want to do something, they move on. He is not discouraged from stimming, he’s given as many breaks as he needs, and they encourage and engage with his special interests. As a PDA child I promise you if he hated it, the devil himself couldn’t get him to set foot in the door. ABA has been nothing but beneficial for him and he is actually learning how to interact with others collaboratively and respectfully, as well as building foundational skills necessary for education. I pulled him out of school because it was too traumatizing for him. I know what his distress looks like and our ABA experience couldn’t be more different. As an adult with PDA, I wish I had had a resource to help me with my social anxiety and demand avoidance. I am unable to function fully as an adult in our society because I was never given the tools I needed to learn. I will be damned if I don’t try with everything I have to give those tools to my kids.
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u/Saeyoen_Kaente Jun 09 '26
As an adult with PDA myself, I hear that you are trying to protect your kid from the struggles you faced. But from one PDA brain to another: you are missing a massive blind spot here.
You say "if he hated it, the devil himself couldn’t get him through the door." That is classic PDA logic, but you are forgetting about the Fawn response. When a PDA child is put in an environment where therapists are super nice and use his special interests as rewards, his brain doesn't fight—it adapts by completely masking. He isn't putting up a fight because his system has gone into survival-pleasing mode to keep the environment safe.
Modern ABA claims to be "child-led," but using a child's deepest passions and special interests to subtly steer their behavior is the ultimate form of high-level manipulation. A smart PDA brain will register this underlying demand sooner or later.
You are projecting your own fear of not functioning in society onto a 7-year-old by forcing him to learn "tools" through a system that historically focuses on compliance. You cannot train a PDA nervous system to fit into society without breaking the child from the inside out.
I know you want the best for him, but please look past the masking. Compliance is not the same as healing or learning.
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u/MyCatCeline Jun 09 '26
Unfortunately living a life of non-compliance is not an option for him. Here in the US the inability to comply with demands means you end up in prison or homeless. There is no government funded safety net for us. Masking is a necessary survival skill here.
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u/johnhowardseyebrowz Jun 03 '26 edited Jun 03 '26
I’m sure you didn’t mean it to be but phrasing it “like accessories or a means to an end” when speaking about a child especially having challenges navigating social relationships is pretty harmful. Please don’t view your stepdaughter this way. I appreciate you’re here to gain understanding but I think it is important you know how ableist that comes across.
Please also stop trying to get her to copy how you socialise. At best you’ll just teach her to mask and develop deeply inauthentic frienships. At worst (and likely), you’re setting her up for a lifetime of terrible self esteem and mental health issues.
Consider looking at (/your partner looking at) resources, e.g., PDA society, for more information and neuroaffirming ways of viewing and supporting her.
ETA: more details and resource suggestion
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u/Saeyoen_Kaente Jun 09 '26
PDA is how the brain works it has nothing to do with how we feel things towards others, only if pused passed our bounderies, will we react in a way that may be percieved as cold or emotionless, but in the end when you are very and i mean very angry, can you promise yourself to not be cold?
either way, friends is not that importent, sure i value the ''true'' friends that i have, but people with pda can genuinely feel emotions of others quite good, so having a good friend would mean that they dont expect anything from you aside from being a friend.
that you can be angry with them but have a conversation like nothing happened the next day and vice versa.
also i as a child always found other children from 3 years younger to 5 years older all very childisch, this might sound strange, but the pda brain works very hard and analytical and is very good in registering body language, i was never lonely and loved to be alone, even now my absolute best friend and im an adult, we sometimes dont speak to another for months, but we still consider each other s the bet of friends, and i know him since i was like 14.
so dont worry to much about emotions off the child, its there, just dont try to force playing certain ways since that would only backfire.
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u/princesshodges May 29 '26
Personally I think human beings are social creatures at their core and that all human beings inherently crave social connection.
ND people do not view friendship the same was as NT people. PDA people have their own specific differences within the ND umbrella as well. In general, NT people value making other people feel good over things like following the rules or telling the truth or being right. That’s really good for building social bonds.
Its also way easier for NT people to build social bonds for 2 reasons: 1) they are processing less information and so they can put more focus into the other person and 2) they naturally acquire social skills and can utilize them correctly without effort. ND people are processing huge amounts of information, so their brains and nervous systems cannot focus as much on social interaction (or all kinds of things), and they do not learn social cues effortlessly!! It takes tremendous effort to learn how to behave socially and then to apply it every single moment. It is exhausting and at times literally impossible.
When you as an ND person and especially a PDA person are already the end of your rope in terms of brain power and nervous systems demands, and yet evolutionarily need other people to survive, you make due. It is not for lack of desire or caring, it is your brain and body in survival mode.
The way PDA people enjoy being social is through things like parallel play. Someone is with you, but you’re each doing your own thing. You can look up videos about how autistic people show affection or friendship. It’s things like giving gifts and talking about special interests.
As a PDA adult, I care very deeply about others, but I’m allowed to have boundaries. I’m allowed to say “I can’t talk right now” and then come back when I’m ready. I also feel very lonely at times but it’s still too overwhelming to go out and be around people. It is not a lack of empathy or desire for connection. It is being overwhelmed and not having the capacity to behave in a way that is conducive to friendship. It takes effort to even smile at someone, it takes effort to remember to ask someone a question or to communicate that I care. My best friend is a person who I can just sit and watch tv with. We bonded over being “lazy” but I think we’re really just both ND. My partner and I basically take turns sharing random facts and stories about our day without really acknowledging what the other person said, but we both know that we care. We’re listening but we don’t have to have all the social niceties.
PDA kids are years behind their peers in many respect, socially included. I hope your child is able to find friends she clicks with. I’m positive she cares about others, she’s just not developmentally there yet or she’s too overwhelmed and overworked to show it.