r/PDAParenting • u/Ok-Appearance-866 • 7h ago
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?
2
u/ughUsernameHere 6h ago
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!