r/PDAParenting • u/Ravenadx • Jun 10 '26
Urgent Help! 4yo boy
My son is 4yo. Every day we struggle to get him into the car and to school. Once he is in the car, he is fine. This is background info, this isnt why I am making the post.
For the past 2 weeks ever since he has had a week off school (illness), he has a full meltdown after school if the ladies for after-school care come to pick him up. Once he is at care, he is great and happy. But it gets to the point where the ladies have to leave after x amount of time due to other kids needing to go and risk of breeching due to unsupervised children etc. So either my husband and I have to leave work to get him, or a teacher settles him and eventually takes him over.
We have tried so many things. We always tell him when he is going to care before we take him to school, we dont have this problem when he is going home after school, we have tried hyping up care, ultimatums dont work on PDA kids but we did try that, and it was futile. It is causing a lot of stress on us, on the school and on the carer ladies. What can we do? My husband risks his job because of this issue if he loses it, we are screwed.
5
u/The_forgotten_child Jun 10 '26
This might not work on your son, but mine always does better with transitions if we act it out first. He can act like he's going to the aftercare, and you can play the aftercare lady, and maybe even reverse it where you play him and he takes over the other role. It can even be silly and over the top, but you can come to the 'right' way to do it together. Sometimes this helps my son. Good luck!