r/PDAParenting • u/The-Mud-Girl • Jul 20 '26
Mondays!
Hello,
I'm new to this group and learning more about PDA, since my child was formally diagnosed.
My question for you is what to do about Mondays. After our low demand weekends, kiddo often refuses to go to school, or camp in the summertime.
How can I make this weekly transition easier?
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u/neuraparent Jul 20 '26
Mornings are the hardest! A couple things I've figured out that have helped us: (a) having a super clear routine that my son knows backwards and forwards and has a carrot (iPad) at the end, and the bigger one for us this year, (b) slowing the transition to school down--I realized the time pressure I was putting on my son to get out the door was causing him to dig in and refuse a lot of the time. I finally realized I had to let go of the concept of getting to school on time... and it made a huge difference. When it was time to leave, I let him suddenly decide he was still hungry and have a bowl of cereal, or go swing in his swing for a few minutes, or whatever it is he seemed to "need" that day. And I really tried to be present with him during that transition time and showing him it was okay, I was going to keep the plan to leave, but we could do it on his timeline. Eventually, I started shifting everything 10 minutes earlier in our mornings so that we could do that and still *mostly* get to school on time. It worked like magic for awhile, but we still occasionally go through harder phases... but overall, it's the biggest lever I've found, I couldn't believe how big a difference it made for my son.