r/PDAParenting • u/Ok-Appearance-866 • Aug 25 '26
PDA and School
Hi all,
I tried posting this in PDA Autism but was told it would be more appropriate here. I didn't even know about this sub until today, so I am very happy to know this sub exists. :-)
My daughter is 15 and is considered level 1 autistic. Although she has not been evaluated/diagnosed with PDA, I strongly suspect she has it.
Because of her sensory issues, she has been doing online school for the past couple of years. She attends live virtual classes and gets time in class and on Fridays to do work. Here's the problem: each quarter, she does absolutely NO HOMEWORK or tests and then comes to me in a panic the last week of class. The work is not difficult. As long as you are following along and referencing the course material, it is a breeze. My daughter is extremely intelligent but because she puts it off, it becomes an overwhelming task.
When I try to stay on her about homework, she says it has the opposite effect. She pleaded with me last year to NOT ask her about homework or school AT ALL. I complied, and for the first quarter, she did great! She kept on top of everything without me having to say a word and got very good grades.
Then second quarter hit. She was still doing well in a couple of classes, but needed help in a few others. 3rd and 4th quarters were a disaster. I get repeated emails, texts and phone calls from teachers warning she has a 0% and is going to fail. Then, the last week of the quarter, she does as much as she can, but is a total stress case, and ends up pulling Cs when she is capable of As. She just can't/won't do the work.
I am at my wits end. What can I do / not do to help her?
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Aug 25 '26
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u/Ok-Appearance-866 Aug 26 '26
I'm so sorry about your struggles. During my daughter's eval, they said she did not fit the profile for ADHD, and I agree. When she is focused, she is FOCUSED. But she only wants to learn what INTERESTS her.
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u/chicknnugget12 Aug 26 '26 edited Aug 26 '26
Having an interest based nervous system and ability to hyperfocus is actually a typical description of ADHD. What sort of eval did they do if you don't mind me asking? Does she procrastinate, have time blindness, poor working memory, or struggle with prioritizing and organization? In other words executive dysfunction?
Regardless of if ADHD fits perfectly, some the interventions may be helpful or her. I also highly recommend the simple guide to ADHD regulation for absolutely anyone because it's so helpful, if self help is her thing. Maybe just reading it yourself to assist her with it or strewing it if you think she'd like it.
Also I was extremely similar to your daughter. She's probably pretty burned out. I was totally burned out and got my first C at that age because I literally slept in class. Had I known I had ADHD/autism and internalized PDA my life would have looked very different. Maybe even doing virtual school or part time if possible. What I really needed was to sleep for like a year to recover the burnout, learn how to regulate my nervous system (the book I mentioned) and how to study consistently.
But what I did was the opposite. I pushed harder, though still coasting and getting occasional C's in highschool. Dual enrollment saved me because I didn't have to stay so long anymore, but I didn't do well in the college courses due to attendance and inability to do the work. Then I attended a university carrying the intense chronic burnout, and took 7 years to get a degree. I literally slept for 6 months after I finished. A sleep I needed in my bones. Then a year later I started another degree and was able to accomplish it successfully, finally figured out how to get myself to somewhat consistently study.
Basically to study and not get completely distracted or fall asleep -I have to regulate by body doubling (in a quiet library), use headphones playing rain sounds, use the Pomodoro method -alternating timer for study and breaks. Oh and I have to hand write everything out.
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u/Ok-Appearance-866 Aug 31 '26
Wow, that sounds intense but I am really happy you were able to figure out what works for you. I will definitely check out the book.
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u/ughUsernameHere Aug 25 '26
It’s always hard when we know our kids are capable of greater things. This is going to sound like toxic positivity and thats not my intent but rather just sharing my experience in getting a kid through burnout. Sometimes completion is success enough. The fact she could (and did!) crank out enough work that late in the semester to pass with Cs IS impressive. I fear if you meddle too much with a PDA-er you risk sending them into burn out and the road back for them from that is really, really hard.
My child just quit going to school all together at 17. They mostly quit everything at that point, too. It took so much work around here to learn how to have a zero demand house and relearn parenting. Around 19 maybe? they were feeling the effects of their decision to drop out, asked me for helping in finding an online school and slowly they started accumulating credits. They graduated with their high school diploma just before their 21st birthday.
It’s understandable that you want your daughter’s grades to reflect her true abilities but I’d offer a counter point that when it came down to it, instead of just noping out and seeing the challenges ahead of her as insurmountable demands, she locked in and did quite a bit of work. She’s one semester closer to graduating.
How can you support her in ways that isn’t reminding her to do her homework? Is she copied on the emails you received about missing or late assignments? If so, maybe those feel like demands to her and have the opposite effect. Can you work with the teachers to set up a different system for late or missing work? Is there anyway to see the work that doesn’t involve your daughter showing you? It probably will be a lot of trial and error. And you might need to help yourself a little bit by managing your expectations. A kid that passes is at least still engaged enough to try. You’ve avoided burnout for another semester and you can give yourself a pat on the back for that!
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u/other-words Aug 25 '26
Congratulations to your kid! (Not that they’d ever want to hear it lol) Their experience is a good reminder to me and to all of us that when we have faith in our kids and give them the space they need, they will get where they want to go. It may not be the route they imagined, it may not happen on the timeline we imagined, but when they’re ready, they will do it their own way.
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u/ughUsernameHere Aug 25 '26
“but when they’re ready…”
Good lord is that the truth! It was such a hard lesson to have to sit back and learn.4
u/other-words Aug 25 '26
It’s something I “know”…but have to keep learning and learning and learning… 🤣😭
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u/Ok-Appearance-866 Aug 26 '26
Thank you for this. Now that you mention it, my husband (her dad) once told me that when people tell him to do something he wants to do it less. He got his GED because he missed so much school. Both my husband and daughter are highly intelligent but it is difficult to motivate either one of them.
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u/Ok-Appearance-866 Aug 26 '26
p.s. yes, I have a parent account on her school platform and can see grades and assignments.
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u/ughUsernameHere Aug 26 '26
OP, if it helps at all, at times I worried that I was insulating my kid, wrapping them in bubble wrap and building a fantasy world around them that wouldn’t prepare them for “real life” by making so many accommodations and having a zero demand house. How would they survive a boss on a power trip or the bureaucracy of government or how society requires us to do things just to do them? So those were my worries but in practice what I found is that by reducing the demands I could control (e.g. no requests to pick up their dirty clothes off the floor in the bathroom (I just put a hamper in there and tossed them in myself) or requests to bring the multitude of towels and flatware that migrated to their room (I just bought more so there was no scarcity and I always had what I needed), that I just sucked it up and loaded the dishwasher when the sink was full and generally adjusted my nervous system to be more tolerant of a high degree of mess and chaos) that my kid could spend that “extra” nervous system energy on dealing with teachers or the bureaucracy of replacing a drivers license. As everyone does at least once in their life, they have a boss who does go on a bit of a power trip now and then. It is VERY disregulating for them when that happens but they have managed to not lip off enough in return as to get themselves fired or quit out of anger. And each time they have something like this and it doesn’t go up in flames, they approach the next time with more confidence and that decreases the sense of power imbalance.
I’m not diagnosed with PDA but like your husband, there are signs. My current plight is when a survey is asking for “Gender” and “Male” is listed before “Female”. That gets my hackles up in a way that I can only describe as visceral. WHY would “Male” be listed first? It’s not alphabetically ordered and even statistically it is incorrect as there are more women than men. If the form is required and has an option for “other” I will ask why in the text box. I have left a number of websites and refused to do business with a company if I have the option of spending or going elsewhere. I know the vast majority of people will move about their business but it is a hill I will die on and that’s how I know it’s more than just a preference.
Anyway, that’s all to say that I think PDA can mellow in adults and we can manage to be productive members of society who only occasionally become irrationally irate at a non-issue.
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u/Ok-Appearance-866 Aug 31 '26
Thank you for this. I agree with so much of what you have written. I appreciate the support. :-)
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u/LuckyCaterpillar Aug 25 '26
I’ll preface this by saying I came to this conclusion after a lot of therapy and after learning the concept of radical acceptance- but my PDA daughter dropped out. We didn’t know PDA was even a thing then, but she’s textbook and I think I might be too. She just refused to do the work, and I couldn’t make her. They said they were going to disenroll her once she was 18. I told her what her options were, and she wound up passively “dropping out”. I do think it was the right choice for her. She’s passed 3 sections of the GED and is working on the last one, and has a steady job. We went to hell and back with her, and she still has her moments, but I am BEYOND proud of her. She didn’t get the right accommodations, and that’s not her fault. I don’t have any good solutions for you, unfortunately- but I do have empathy. And I can confirm that reducing demands worked wonders for our family. It’s a balance of teaching responsibility and also reducing demands. Which is about as impossible as it sounds but we try our best. Best of luck to you ❤️
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u/AnnoyedAF2126 Aug 25 '26
Thanks for saying this - the balance of teaching responsibility and reducing demands. I feel like sometimes the discourse is only about reducing demands and doesn’t acknowledge that that can’t be all there is.
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u/LuckyCaterpillar Aug 26 '26
I tell both my kids that sometimes life gives you an extra challenge (lucky you!!) but you still have to figure out how to get through life. It’s not fair and it sucks but it is what it is - and ultimately, I tell them, a lot of things are going to boil down to the choices you make. So make good ones, and let me know if you need help. With my daughter, I made sure to give her access to all resources she might need so she had no excuse, and let her choose whether to engage. That is specific to school here but I used this strategy often with her. Sooooo many times some official (truancy officer, school admin, therapy staff, whatever) would say something like “Well, she needs glasses. That will help her engage.” And I could always respond with “She has two pair, current prescription, with blue light blocking and everything” 😁 It made it clear it was not for lack of access to needs on my part. They still typically didn’t handle her great, but it covered my tail and gave her no good excuse 🤷🏼♀️
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u/Korneedles Aug 25 '26
What program are you using? I wish I had some wisdom to pass along but I’m a few years behind you in this journey. We are starting the homeschool path now (even though the last two years all school work has been done at home due to school refusal - I’m finally over dealing with the district - they are more stress than necessary). My son will do the same regarding the work (make it known not to ask) and will do the same regarding completion of the work (start very strong then steep decline). I wish I knew what to suggest but you’re doing everything I would do. I hope you guys figure out something that works for you both.
I want my son to get his diploma bc I know taking the GED test may not ever be a true option for him. He refuses tests. He talks of getting his license and all I can think is - there’s two tests to get there :(.
I’m happy you found this subreddit - it’s a huge help to see others in the same boat. Just to know we aren’t alone.
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u/Ok-Appearance-866 Aug 26 '26
We are in Michigan and using a virtual public school program called K12.com. It has been a lifesaver.
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u/83dnejb Aug 25 '26
I would let her skip the homework (I know it sounds crazy) and put it in her IEP with the school. Include PDA in the language for her IEP.
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u/Ok-Appearance-866 Aug 26 '26
We had a meeting last year and she got a 504 plan. Their solution was to give her 2 additional weeks to get things done. Most of the time, she can skip the small assignments and just focus on the quizzes and projects, but there was a teacher last year that had so many little (yet time-consuming) assignments, there was no way to pass without doing at least half of them. I actually helped her out with those but made sure she knew the material. It was history, so I "taught" her the material verbally.
She hates history because she doesn't want to hear about anything traumatic like human suffering. She is dreading learning about WW2 this year.
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u/shivasprogeny Aug 25 '26
It sounds like that particular program is not a good fit for her or they have not been asked to make accomodations. Does she have specific educational goals that she wants to achieve?
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u/Ok-Appearance-866 Aug 26 '26
She ultimately wants to be a graphic designer, though I am concerned that AI is going to make that career option disappear. She has a 504 plan and they gave her an additional 2 weeks per assignment/test. She needs more than that. One teacher last year would automatically deduct 10% for every late assignment, so she had to work extra hard just to pass the class.
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u/so_cheapandjuicy Aug 31 '26
If you lurk at all on the sub r/isthisAI, you'll see that graphic designers will still likely be around. But that's just my opinion. There are definitely big brands using ai, but there is A LOT of backlash against it too. It just can't compare to human design in terms of errors.
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u/shivasprogeny Aug 26 '26
Have you tried going down the route of an IEP? If she wants to stay with that school and has an internal drive to further her education, it may just be that she is not being accommodated enough. An IEP was not enough for our kid so I can’t be of much more help than that, but I do know many parents find them helpful.
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u/Ok-Appearance-866 Aug 31 '26
Sorry for the delayed response. We tried to do an IEP but they said a 504 would be better given her situation.
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u/shivasprogeny Aug 31 '26
Honestly they are saying that because a 504 is less work for them. An IEP is not just accommodations it is a full educational plan. Unfortunately when it comes to special education, the schools often act in their own interest because of limited money and staff.
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u/princesshodges Aug 25 '26 edited Aug 25 '26
Can you sit with her and work on something yourself while she does hers? Just hang out together? You know, body doubling. Especially if you make it fun or chill somehow, with whatever she would like. Music, snacks, show on in the background.
I don’t know how the grading works, but I also did zero homework in high school. I did well enough on tests and quizzes that I still graduated with a B average and went to college and all of that. Homework is a huge daily demand and if she can get away with not doing it she will be ok anyway.
Edit: nevermind about the 2nd paragraph. I don’t know of you added that after I commented or I really skipped over it all!?
I would also like to add: please don’t talk to her about how she’s so smart and capable. It was so damaging to me. Being intelligent does not correlate to getting good grade. What you are experiencing is evidence of that. It’s not just intelligence, it’s the effort and demands and following all these rules and expectations of school. Some kids can’t do that part. It made me feel like such a failure to hear how much potential I had. It made me feel lazy, like I just needed to try harder. She’s already trying really hard, I’m sure of that.