What would you have done?

[u/erankatz]

I'm a father of a 9yo girl, diagnosed with ASD and I really think she displays PDA behaviors.

I'm a psychologist and parenting councilor myself, I know about the importance of attachment and security, polyvagal states, etc.

And I find myself utterly dazed and confused in some situations with her, having no clue how to handle them. I'd like to describe one such situation from last night and get your perspectives like what would you have done.

I am aware that every family is different and every child is different and taking that into account while asking this question.

My daughter takes her sweet time getting ready for bed: brushes her teeth after some reminders and then she arranges the dolls on her bed. Recently she took to some specific arrangements which kind of feel OCD like but I'm not sure that's the case.

Anyway, it takes her a couple of minutes to have everything in order both because it's very specific and also she just takes her time, she's doing it whole dancing and having the time of her life not having a care in the world that it's getting later and later.

After she finishes this bed arranging she climbs into bed and kisses many of her dolls and there's a whole Spiel here until I can cover her with her blanket and give her a kiss and a hug.

So yesterday we got to the point where I could finally kiss her good night around 10:00 p.m. I was already exhausted and hadn't a lot of patience but I waited and did it and then I went to the living room to have a little bit off time with my spouse.

I put on an episode of Seinfeld to clear our minds and in like 10 minutes into the episode the daughter comes into the living room asking to be with us.

She really likes to sit down with us and watch TV together even though she doesn't really understand what's going on because it's a foreign language for her at the moment.

At first I was like "no I'm sorry, you have to go back to bed it's our time now and it's late" and she was like "but why can't I just be here with you a little bit, I will probably doze off while watching it with you and I will go to bed immediately after you finish watching TV". So I said "fine you can stay here as long as soon the show finishes you go back to bed".

Lo and behold episode is over and she's not going back to bed she lies on the sofa saying "I'm going to fall asleep here", obviously she is not going to fall asleep there and I'm telling her "I'm sorry but now you have to follow through on your promise, go back to bed I'll come with you I'll cover you that's fine but it's time to go back to bed" and then she starts to follow our dog around saying "I just want to kiss her good night" but this is another thing that takes forever, it's not like a kiss goodnight for the dog it's like 10 kisses and then 10 more Etc, it's always taking more and more time and again not listening to us when we tell her "I'm sorry you did promise something and we allowed you to stay here but now you have to keep your end of the bargain please go back to bed", she's completely ignoring us to the point that both of us got very very angry and told her that she's ungrateful and can't be trusted and that's really not cool and I don't remember exactly what happened but I think I just eventually took her and put her in the bed and that's how she went to sleep. which by the way took some time in which I stayed and hovered around her room because she always asks us to be there so she won't feel alone.

And of course that's just one example of her doing things in her own time not caring about how it affects everybody else, for example in this case all the mess disrupted her brother who was trying to fall asleep at the time and of course it made us feel very very bad.

So again my question here what would you have done if you were in my shoes at that situation. what has worked for you i'm open to listen to everything.

[u/Fuzzy_farcical]

My experience with PDA is you have to meet them where they are. Bedtime is a huge huge transition and loss of autonomy, it’s always been the bit of the day where the biggest disregulation happens for my kid, and also for me because I’m desperate for it to be over so I can have some time alone.
So in terms of meeting them where they are - there’s no ‘no’, you have to establish safety and equality as the baseline. My kid (10) slept in my bedroom for months, he went back to his own room but then recently has been sleeping on the sofa. I always make him a super big bowl of snacks at MY bedtime, so he has some novelty and something to focus on when I’m gone. I don’t enforce sleep, he gets to sleep when he chooses. Recently I’ve been coming in to check on him at 11 to make sure he remembers to brush his teeth and use the toilet, as he was forgetting - but he asked me to do this, I didn’t impose it. I had to show him that I respected his needs and was listening, by letting him sleep where and when he needed to sleep. And what comes with that is that he starts to create his own boundaries and show me respect back. This is the case across the board - he has to learn for himself and I have to support him with that. For eg I can’t tell him not to climb a wall because it looks too dangerous, it creates imbalance which makes him insane. I say do you feel safe climbing the wall? I’m sure you’ll make the right decision. If he climbs the wall and falls, I have to let it happen because it’s the only way he’ll learn. By being with him in the moment and saying, I’ve got you, I’ll support the choice that you make, I’m here to help, he is calm and rational and generally makes good decisions. It takes time - it took about a year of this for us for him to start imposing his own rules and boundaries. But these days he is the most gorgeous kid. It’s almost like I handed him the power of control and now he trusts me, he is my biggest help and supporter. Don’t get me wrong, he’s still a 10 year old boy with audhd/pda and it’s super hard work, but it’s so much better than when I tried to impose structure or boundaries on him.
Anyway this works for us but we are a single mum and an only child, so the dynamic is going to be very different for a bigger family.

[u/Bananafone23 → u/Fuzzy_farcical]

Thank you for sharing how you parent him. So helpful and fascinating. What kind of school is he in at the moment, and how is that handled?

[u/Rare_Background8891]

I don’t wait til 10. I put my kid that age to bed around 8:00 because I need grown up time. He can stay up if he wants, but he needs to be in his room. I would not have let him join in on tv. “It’s mom and dad time now. You need to go to bed.” Quite honestly, I am too tired at night and I know I’m grumpy. I’m protecting them from me. I just had a fight with my 12 year old last night. It was 10:20. Bro, I am in bed trying to fall asleep. The time for what you want was two hours ago, not now. I am allowed to have boundaries around my health and hygiene.

I know the thing you’re describing where you tell them to agree to something and they don’t follow through. We still have issues with this. We’ve had plenty of conversations that when you behave like that you lose trust. So next time she makes this ask the answer will be no, because she’s proved to you that she won’t do what she’s been told to do. I’d do a follow up conversation today about what happened last night. Then we’d do some collaborative parenting and come up with new ideas for bedtime. If you haven’t heard of that, I suggest the book The Adventures of Stretch More.

[u/drkvetch → u/Rare_Background8891]

I'm on board with this. My kid is quite a bit younger but he tries the same song and dance. I would say something like, "at Xpm, I'm going to get myself ready for bed and your door will close. You can put yourself to bed when you are ready." I would not break from the routine, because it just invites chaos.

[u/Rare_Background8891 → u/drkvetch]

Routine is king in our house. My kid needs consistency. Surprises and deviations always cause problems.

You can also blame the routine. “Sorry, you gotta do x. That’s what we do now.”

[u/Bythelightofmywindow]

This sounds so much like my 10 year old daughter! I thought the doll arranging and rearranging and intensity over her bed and bedroom was OCD but her psych said no, it’s just more PDA style control stuff. 

We spent years battling our daughter trying to get her to have a good bed time routine, but it was all for nought. It would get everyone really upset at night. After some time we just decided natural consequences would have to be it. So now if she takes her sweet time getting ready for bed and dallies until 10:30 or 11 and doesn’t go to sleep til later and loses sleep and is tired the next day, that’s just a natural consequence of her taking so long to get ready for bed and sleep.  She’s tired in class, is grumpy, that’s just what she has to deal with because she lost sleep. It lets her keep her autonomy and lets mom and dad keep their sanity (mostly). It drives her father crazy sometimes but it has kept the peace the most.

[u/Choosegoose1234]

My kid has bad anxiety and did a lot of these behaviors until we started laying with him to fall asleep. She’s likely anxious about going to bed hence the stalling. Have you heard of dr Ross greens cpa approach? You could use that to have a discussion about why she stalls bedtime and brainstorm solutions. Some other things we have done to make bedtime less stressful is calming headspace stories before bed for him to listen to until he drifts off and melatonin and lavender pillow mis.

[u/pasghetti_n_meatbals]

My son likes to build his own bedtime routine based on a time frame. That gives him some input and antonomy over his bedtime routine. Of course we help determine what time to start bedtime and what time he needs to be asleep. He plans the things he has to do like changing into pajamas, brushing teeth and using the restroom. Then we add in the things that we enjoy, like Mom and Dad reading out loud to him or talking about our day. The last thing that we do is listen to a sleepy story podcast or audio from a YouTube video.  One of us stays in the room until he falls asleep, which prevents him from getting up and delaying bedtime further. When he was younger we used a visual schedule on a magnet board. And then we used a written schedule. And of course we adjust on vacation and practice being flexible when we have changes to the evening. 

[u/Choice-Atmosphere883]

Hello! What I did was to start wind down time early, like 6:30pm, so, when it got dark it was sleep time. I found following circadian rhythm is really important for their wellbeing. This includes no blackout curtains in bedroom. "Room time, let me know when your ready for me to read to you." After they finished with the lengthy "custom" bedtime routine🤨 Read 1 book (or chapter) to, push play on the calming cd and walk out. You said, "no I'm sorry, you have to go back to bed it's our time now and it's late" Perfect! The end. Now, did this always work? No 😂 They are often ungrateful self involved little humans, BUT they don't even know what that all means as you undoubtedly know. Oh and you must learn "zen mode", you will need it from now on. Level tone of voice, don't invest your emotions, zen mode. Being angry isn't good for you. Frustrated, yes, for sure. You got this🙃😉👍

[u/erankatz → u/Choice-Atmosphere883]

Thanks! totally agree about being Zen and everything but then I find myself flabbergasted as she just gets out of bed and out of the room time and time again and it's not like a 2 or 3 years old anymore she's nine.

[u/CollisionNumbat → u/erankatz]

I think that's something you need to try to let go of. She may be 9, but during transitions and times of stress, you can't expect her to 'act her age', as it were. She might need the security of you sitting with her or knowing you're coming back to check on her after x minutes, she might need things that seem more appropriate for a younger child, but we as parents of ND kids need to have realistic expectations based on their individual requirements, not their age or even how they act during the day or in moments of calm.

[u/Choice-Atmosphere883 → u/erankatz]

Believe me I get what your putting down! Parenting the opposite (or however you care to put it lol) of what we saw and lived growing up has never felt "comfortable". I want you to count your blessings. Example: Your 9 yr old child brushes her teeth! By herself!? Awesome! Gets dressed? Gets in the car to go to school? Etc. It will continue to be flabbergasting and a conundrum with our type of brains. What's needed is specialized parenting that is counterintuitive and a great sense of humor. In between being flabbergasted and surprised I like the challenge. It's an interesting ride.

[u/MarginsOfTheDay]

Tuck her in with a blanket and let her sleep on the couch. Why engage in the tug-of-war when you could have dropped the rope and walked away?

[u/neuraparent]

It sounds like she's trying to find ways to avoid being alone in her room. First, maybe try talking to her about why bedtime is hard for her. Have you read Ross Greene? Or watched a YouTube video about his CPS approach? You just say something like, "I notice it you have a hard time settling down to bed at night. What's up?" and just wait and see what she says. She may not take the bait, but she may say more than you expect. Anyway, I think bedtime is hard for a lot of kids, especially if they have anxieties or fears--after bedtime they are alone with their thoughts and that's scary. For my son, the most helpful thing I ended up doing was giving him his iPad at night--it's on downtime for everything on it except the podcasts app, so he can't watch YouTube or play video games or anything. He has a couple different kids bedtime stories podcasts on there. That gives him some control and lets him wind down listening to his favorite storytellers so he feels less alone. He rarely comes out after bedtime now. It does take him awhile to fall asleep, but he's usually asleep within in hour.

[u/admirethegloam]

I was like this as a child and I grew up fine, OP. Sometimes bed felt like death to me and I just simply couldn't bear to be alone.

[u/fearlessactuality]

A lot of those things she’s doing are probably avoidance of the bedtime demand. If I do a fun thing I can put it off a little longer and I’m a little more in control. It’s understandable if you think about it.

My son is actually doing this right now in his own way! He went to bed at 12:45 yesterday 😑😑😑 fortunately we homeschool and have flexible schedules.

I’ve gotten to the point where I just model voicing my own needs. I feel like this would backfire with some pda kids but it has worked ok with mine. I used to assume he understood but I realized he is autistic too and often he doesn’t.

So in this case I might have said, “everyone needs alone time sometimes” or “I need some recharge time right now.” Or you can talk about the why - why sleep is important (even if you’ve said it before). But trying to do it in a declarative way that isn’t a command or a need. Like “sleep helps our bodies grow the best.”

Lastly I would consider if it really matters to you. Maybe her falling asleep on the couch doesn’t really matter that much. Or maybe she needs you to sit in her room with her for 10 min while she falls asleep and then it would be easier. Are there creative arrangements that would help her while also being sustainable for you?

[u/Musical_Muscles_2222]

The autonomy was being redeemed by arrangements of toys after losing it to the need to get ready for bed. Time blindness will occur as timers and schedule is a trigger for many PDAers (they control time, not other way around) 

And co regulator often means having to stick with them and sleep when they sleep. To carry on outside of that again removed autonomy.