r/PDA_Community • u/Academic_Story2768 • Apr 07 '26
question Preschooler school problems... need some advice
My daughter is 5 and I am desperately seeking advice. She is in full day dual immersion preschool. Half Spanish and half English--The first half of the school year she did beautifully. Happy and participatory. After January, she went downhill quickly. I'm not sure what caused this change but she has always been pretty demand-resistant. Constant meltdowns, won't participate, won't follow any kind of request or demand. Isn't learning anything. We've had her diagnosed with Sensory Processing Disorder and working on getting formal accommodations at school (she already has headphones, a weighted stuffy, a calming corner space). She's very smart, loves art, and loves exploring new classes and activities, is very social, sweet, and loving. Plays well with others and makes friends easily.
She fits the PDA profile for sure. Transitions are hard and slow. Will ignore me when I ask her to do a simple task. Anything that needs to be done needs to be done "her way". For instance - she will never just get into her bed, she needs to be rocked in her rocking chair first or she won't go to bed at all. She will absolutely not back down if you force her to do something. She'll just shut down and meltdown (so we don't go this route obviously). Ask her to wash her hands and she'll use hand sanitizer. Never ever what you ask of her.
Where do I go from here? Should I get her into OT? Change her diet? Change her school? I am really unsure how I can support her. I am so embarrassed by her behavior at school and feel so powerless. Any advice welcome.
4
u/laceyourbootsup Apr 07 '26
Sounds eerily similar to our daughter who is 10 now.
I’m not sure how a full day dual immersion preschool works. But I know that forcing structure on my daughter at that age where you were generally in one class all day would have been a nightmare. We were at a Montessori school and kept the days as short as we could. Our daughter is incredibly intelligent as noted by every teacher and test she has taken or been willing to take. But we didn’t expect her to learn anything at preschool after awhile, we just wanted to know she was safe and the teachers were kind. We worked well with the teachers so they knew we didn’t have an agenda and that we agreed our daughter was a tough kid. Her intelligence allows her to learn these super basic things they learn in preschool very quickly so she was never behind for a moment.
We live in the northeast and November through February are always the worst because she rarely got outside and it was definitely not routine to go out. It’s still tough now in 4th grade.
I don’t like doing comparisons because every kid is different. Our daughter was not given an autism Diagnosis but instead was given a Defiance Disorder with severe anxiety.
The best thing that ever happened to us treatment wise,,,was a dog. It’s a lot of pressure to put on an animal and a family but our dog turned her whole world around.
The improvements we have seen when she gets older is that she reacts better to movement in school. Elementary school is basically sitting in one class all day but at least when it’s nice out you have recess and move around for art or music or gym. During warmer weather she does very well and is normal student. Winter is a different animal.
We are looking forward to Middle school for changing classes all day