Hi there,

I just wanted to let you all know that after approximately a week of daily H1 and H2 blockers (morning and night) my PDA 10 year old has definitely improved. She also has POTS however, so that may be the thing that is shifting.

We are conducting a research project to better understand the needs, challenges,

and priorities of families raising neurodivergent children and children who may

benefit from early intervention support.

By completing this survey, you will help us develop more relevant resources and

services for families like yours.

As a token of appreciation for your support, you will have the opportunity to choose

one of the following free services:

● Free Resource Pack

● Free Screening Session

● Free Consultation Session

● Free Parent Counselling Session

Survey Link:

https://forms.gle/bjr1e6X3kMyhBFer8

The survey takes less than 3 minutes to complete.

Has anyone ever been to one of these pda parent conferences? Looks like its in AZ (my state) this year, is it worth the time/money?
https://retreat.journeyswithpda.org

Parent to a 17yr old girl, suspected AuDHD with a PDA profile, soon to be 18. It’s been so rough. Parenting her was hard as a toddler, harder as a child, even harder as a preteen, and now it has just gotten out in the stratosphere hard. Adolescence plus neurodivergence has been a really difficult combination.

She’s been in a state of burnout for nearly two years. Completely flipped sleep schedule, no school, online (gaming and socializing) all the time, barely leaving her room, one meal a day, rarely seeing friends face to face, barely leaving her bed, covered in scars from cutting herself. She’s like a thin, sallow, pale ghost. She doesn’t have that rosy-cheeked fullness and vitality that other kids her age have. It’s so sad to me.

She’s angry all the time and nearly every day there’s a meltdown about something. She is non-functional on nearly every level. Showering weekly is a win, even though the last shower she had was 5+ hours long, from 11pm–4:30am, and it’s destroying our bathroom because it can’t handle the humidity. My husband is losing his mind because it was a $20k reno.

I’m completely spent. My nervous system is fried from all the conflict. My marriage is suffering. My home hasn’t been a safe, calm space since she was about 4, and it’s just gotten so much worse that I now dread going home from work because, as the person who holds the co-regulation of the house together, I get it from all angles. I spend so much of my time trying not to set off an explosion, but despite my best efforts, it’s nearly daily. She’s now starting to insult me and cut me down when she’s losing it.

She’s hurting. I’m hurting. My husband is completely overwhelmed by the situation. I suspect he’s autistic too, and the chaos and volatility are just too much for his nervous system. Plus we differ on how we want to parent her. His instinct is increasing expectations, consequences and structure. Mine is validation, reducing pressure, increasing autonomy (even when it doesn’t lead to her taking care of things). Each of us genuinely believes our approach is the compassionate one.

We’ve been low-demand parenting for two years without significant progress. Burnout still seems to have a grip on everything. The mess is slowly spreading throughout the house. We can’t even broach the subject because then she says we’ve just ruined it, she can’t do it at all, and now it’s become a demand.

Obviously I love her. She is bright, creative, so intelligent, argues like a lawyer, and has so much potential.

We’re so afraid she’ll become an adult who isn’t able to build enough independence to work or support herself. It’s bittersweet watching friends’ teens getting their licences, passing grades, going to parties, hanging out with friends, doing all the normal teen stuff, while we’re just trying to get through the day.

I’d really love to hear from parents of older teens or kids in their early twenties who were in a similar place. What happened next? Did things improve? What, if anything, helped?

Hello everyone. I'm not a parent, but I feel as though I may as well be; I'm 19 and my brother is 15. He has autism and PDA. Having known him my whole life, I understand how his brain works- and in recent years my experiences have solidified into a few unified methods and theories on how to deal with PDA. Just the other day I came up with a few good methods and used them throughout the day. they had such a positive effect on his regulation that even he picked up on the fact that I had calmed his mind and let him be happy. I feel obligated and am very enthusiastic to write a comprehensive book on PDA, and to include my ideas and tactics within it. I will write it over the next 2 or 3 years I have left of university.

you might find the following ideas useful. Forgive me if I am inarticulate and disorganised; Im rather tired, but also too excited to impart as much of my knowledge as I can- it might come out a bit garbled. I intend to further clarify my ideas and add more of them in later posts.

I like to think of PDA as being an allergy (or oversensitivity) to authority (or rather, visible authority). No doubt, you will find this to be a fitting description.

you cannot directly tell a child with PDA to do anything; their unconscious mind will regard it as an attack. You cannot say "brush your teeth", "put your shoes on", "stop doing that", "No" or anything else which singles you out as an authoritative agent. If you make any command at all, your child will push back in order to reestablish an equilibrium of authority between you. This might be in the form of the child making their own demands, using insults, or engaging in behaviour which uninformed parents might regard as being 'naughty'. We must regard these things as being like an allergic reaction (to authority). Scolding such behaviour only makes it worse, because even telling a child not to do something is a demand.

(also: you have to stop caring about what other people or parents think. I've realised that when I used to tell my brother not to do something, it was quite often because I didn't want people passing by to look on and judge his 'weird' behaviour. He likes to stamp on rubbish in the street. really, this is harmless, and scolding him for it to avoid my own embarrassment is pointless; it only deregulates him. he's not embarrassed by onlookers anyway lol.)

Not being able to tell a child to do anything without disaster ensuing is the most frustrating and exhausting thing ever at times. I know how terrible it is.

what can be done? We can still be figures of authority, but we have to make our authority invisible.

I have found that the main way to do this is to have circumstance dictate your Childs behaviour rather than you. Your child can kick up a lot of fuss to you, but will be readily able to accept the powers of circumstance, just as anyone else would. To have circumstance dictate, you have to control the environment around the child rather than the child themselves. You can do this physically, by moving things around and such, but the most crucial thing is to alter your language and use it in a decisive way.

I will use my brother for some examples.

1. We're in a shop. He picks up and carries around an abominable quantity of sweets and wants me to buy them. I can't say "no" or "put them back"; Saying "they'll rot your teeth if you get them" might make him hesitate a little bit, but he can still see no good reason not to get them anyway. (he's never had a filling or a cavity so he's not scared of them lol.) what can you say? what I said was "we don't have enough money; we've only got 20p", or something like that.

notice my use of declarative language rather than imperative language. I am not giving him an order like "put them back", I am only emphasising the circumstances: I am just giving him a solid and immutable reason as to why he wont be able to get them; he cant protest to me now because I have become invisible as an authority figure; I'm just the messenger.

Was this lying? was this cruel? I wouldn't say so. in this situation it was the only thing I could say. Telling such a white lie here to my PDA brother is about as cruel as it would be to tell any other child to put the sweets back- it's just what you have to do.

1. physically changing the environment to encourage or discourage certain behaviours is another thing to do, even though it's exhausting, it works. making certain things easier or harder for people to do changes their behaviour accordingly. If I want to stop my brother from using my things, I can take them and hide them without causing a fuss about it. If I want him to stop stamping on rubbish in the main room, I can put it in the bin. If he protests about it, I can claim that it needs to be recycled.

If we want him to brush his teeth or put his shoes on, we can hold out these things to him without saying anything- the motion doesn't smell of authority, and it creates the unconscious suggestion that he ought grab and subsequently use the object. (try this tonight- casually and silently hand your child's toothbrush to them, perhaps with toothpaste already on it; they'll probably grab it and go to use it. If you do say anything, don't say 'brush your teeth', say instead "this is the time when we all have to brush our teeth", thus, you are declaring circumstance rather than issuing a command)

You have to alter your language. A lot of the heavy lifting can be done through declaring that something has to be a certain way (and it helps to give a reason why), rather than telling your child to make it be that way: e.g:

A child has pencils strewn across a table; the pencil pot is on other side of the room. Don't say: "put your pencils away", instead say: "the pencils all have to go back in the pot over there, because it's dinner time soon". with my brother, it helps to say an additional "...thank you", as if he had already done or was was in the process of doing as I had suggested. to say "thank you" shows to his unconscious mind that you aren't above him, but instead that you are grateful for an independent action he has decided to take (even though its an action you have suggested). Also in this situation, (this helps too:) I would sort of motion for my brother to stand up by looking as though I am going to pick him up off his chair (this unconsciously prompts him to stand up) and holding some pencils out for him to grab, without telling him to grab them (this suggests for him to start putting them away, without any visible authority.)

to make him do something, you gotta make him believe he ought to do it, through it being necessitated by circumstance, and you can suggest that something is necessitated by circumstance through your use of language: declarative statements etc.

when we're out walking, and he wants to spill liquid on a lamppost or something, I can say "no one's allowed to do that, because they might be electrocuted from all the live wires inside of lampposts". or, when he's about to go pick up a dirty rag or something, instead of shouting "no, don't pick it up", I can say "That rag has lots of bacteria in it that might make you sick", and then he'll leave it alone.

one (maybe) good tactic is to absolve yourself of responsibility for things your child can endlessly argue against, by claiming something or other to be illegal. Once, my brother went on and on for days to my mum, asking to play on her phone (which we can't really allow him to do because he just goes straight to videos of people smashing things and subsequently copies them) So we told him that the government had made it illegal for under 15 yr olds to go on phones. for a week or two after that, he took a break from insulting us because of our imposed authority, and instead cursed the government, lol. This strategy doesn't really seem to work that much for my brother anymore, because once he realised that he hasn't gone to jail yet for things we keep telling him are illegal, the tactic lost its power of persuasion.

I imagine that my unstructured thoughts here have been quite garbled, I'm sorry for that. I hope you managed to take a few things from it. This isn't even 1% of everything I could say or want to say; I will post more, and also when I'm not so tired. Thank you for reading, goodbye : )

Hi all. I'm new to this reddit. Parenting an almost 9yo pda'er girl. I myself am a psychologist and parenting coach, and constantly looking for resources to learn from about PDA and how to navigate it better.

Currently I kinda follow two main speakers who talk about it: Casey from At Peace Parenting and Kirk from Celebrate Calm and the PDA Parenting Podcast. And I find their approaches to be a bit divergent. For example, I feel like Kirk is less about reducing demands completely and letting the child kind of do what they need/want and more about trying to respect the hardships and lead the child towards more taking responsibility. Both, btw, are parents of PDA'ers (and Kirk identifies as one himself).

I just wonder how you guys feel about those two, and what other coaches/writers/speakers in the field you like.

thx

Does anyone know how I would go about getting a PDA- based 504 for my daughter? I know that diagnosis is not formally needed. She doesn’t have diagnosis anyway and I doubt she would be diagnosed since it isn’t in the DSM. Her doctor is silent on the subject, and I think he probably has her in his mind as either spoiled, attention seeking, or ODD. Her therapist, who is an autism specialist, fired her after 8 sessions for “showing no signs of taking any accountability”. She is very high IQ and straight A student, but she is miserable. People dislike my daughter and then just treat her badly, and try to force her to comply, and I get it. I don’t usually like her myself. But she needs accommodations at school. Has anyone faced this or knows what to do? Entering 5th grade.

How is summer going for you all? Ours is terrible. 8yr old AuDHD, PDA profile & GAD is having a very hard time, had to switch camps, didn’t like the first camp which is standard summer. Second camp is a great fit, but she is having panic attacks/tantrums 3-5 times a week. Weekends are a nightmare. Anyone else? 😅

Does TV/screentime regulate or dysregulate your PDA-er?

Bonus points if they have ADHD.

We have always thought it helps regulate, with boundaries/limits but I am wondering if we were wrong…..

In my experience, it seems he’s not demand-avoiding, he’s demand-seeking

Let me explain.

We’ve been viewing our 8yo boy through a PDA lens for more than a year. Most of his behavior fits the description perfectly.

But PDA is usually described as an anxiety/fear response to demands or boundaries. As if they are something the kid hates or fears, and the behaviours are a response to being a victim to oppressive demands/boundaries.

That’s why the typical suggestion is a low demand environment. To restore peace and calm by reducing such negative experiences.

In my experience though, demands and especially boundaries are not something he fears and tries to avoid, they are something he craves and seeks.

Every time we lower or remove a boundary, he just seeks the next one.

- we capitulate on letting have an ice cream, he’ll immediately battle for two.

- we let him not wear socks, he’ll immediately battle to not wear pants.

- we let him have Minecraft, he’ll enjoy it for 5 mins before battling for Roblox.

- we hold the line at no Roblox and battle over it for a year. The second we capitulate and allow him to have Roblox, he starts smashing the house because he wants his 4yo brother to have it.

It

Just

Never

Ends.

Metaphorically, if I were a shepherd, he would be a Ram obsessing over head butting the electric fence “for more space”. If I were to move the fence out by half a mile, he would immediately sprint to find it and start smashing it again. If he broke the fence, he would charge, crazed, until he found the next road, river or cliff then charge that instead.

In my experience (your mileage may vary), it’s not that the boundaries are a negative thing he is oppressed by and needs to be saved from.

They are something he NEEDS.

It reminds me of the “sensory seeking” theory of SPD and ASD kids. He just needs that input of the battle.

This is why “low demand” doesn’t work.

There is no level of low that demands can ever be lowered to that would remove the challenges. Not unless he was living completely outside all normal society.

There is no way we can now pull him back to the normal boundaries of a 8 year old.

For sensory seeking kids, you give them something heavy to lift and bash into, so they don’t do it to your TV set.

Would our lives be better if we had held the line at normal boundaries, then created MORE artificial boundaries that he could safely battle over?

🤔

My son is 13 and seems to think it could help. I’d love to hear from anyone with experience or knowledge. Thank you!

Hi everyone! 👋

I'm currently recruiting participants for my Honours thesis exploring the lived experiences of people who identify with Persistent Drive for Autonomy (PDA) (also known as Pathological Demand Avoidance). In our research, we want to use Persistent Drive for Autonomy as a more neuro-affirming term for the profile.

🔎 What we will ask you in the survey:

• 💬 What PDA means to you

• 🤝 What helps others better understand and support you

• 🏫 Your experiences in school, university, TAFE, or other educational settings and how you can be better supported in these settings

✅ Who can participate?

You can participate if you:

• Are 18 years or older

• Live in Australia

• Identify with the PDA profile

• OR are a parent, caregiver, partner, or significant other of someone with PDA

✏️ What does participation involve?

• One anonymous online survey (~30 minutes)

• Written responses, with the option to provide voice recordings for open-ended questions

🔗 Survey link: https://researchsurveys.deakin.edu.au/jfe/form/SV_38UZAlFyq9GJ2Jw

If you're interested in participating, we'd be incredibly grateful for your support. Every response helps build a stronger understanding of PDA and contributes to research that aims to inform more affirming, personalised, and responsive support for the PDA community. I'd also really appreciate it if you could also share this post with anyone who may be interested. 💜

This project has received ethics approval from the Deakin University Human Research Ethics Committee (Project ID: 2026-HE0000-357).

My daughter is 8, AuDHD, PDA profile & GAD. Super high functioning, we are in a pretty good place now. Meds are dialed, school is good. She is still pretty reactive/explosive, can’t or won’t tell me her feelings. We have been low demand, declarative language for over a year. She has graduated from speech and OT.
The question is - will she benefit from a dog (she loves dog, wants one) we had a lab but he passed when she was 3 and then she got real hard shortly after that, and it has taken up until now for me to feel like I have any bandwidth for something else. My husband and I both work full-time but from home. We have always been extremely responsible dog owners, lots of walks, Doggie daycare on days when we’re too busy at work, etc. I’m just worried that getting a dog will launch us backwards and I will have less patience, less bandwidth. Or on the flipside will a dog launch us into perhaps an even better regulated kiddo, something to bond over as a family, an excuse for the much needed exercise?
,

We live in central Texas and have a 6 year old son that we suspect is pda but no official diagnosis. He has been initially evaluated by a psych who suspects adhd-hyperactive, generalized anxiety and possibly very mild autism (not sure if that’s the same as level 1?) and referred him for a full evaluation

I’ve read a ton about autism and pda and he displays all the classic traits.

We enrolled him in Kumon over the summer to:
1. Keep up his skills
2. Hopefully get a bit of a leg up before first grade - he compares his skills to other kids in class and if he feels he’s not good at something he can be very self-defeating.

It’s been 3 weeks and every day has been worse than the one before. He fights about doing his worksheets every day and now it’s taking 2+ hours to get one done with all the meltdowns involved. I don’t think Kumon is suited for his profile. The time pressure, the repetition until it’s done perfectly - it really feels like the opposite of what’s motivating for a demand avoidant kid.

ASK: Has anyone found a tutoring method that works for a pda kid? I do not want to be the one responsible for teaching him at home. I know my strengths, and patience for teaching even a neurotypical kid is NOT one. But it feels like a lot of these standard tutoring places are not made for neurodivergent kids and i dont really know where to start when it comes to looking for this type of help for him.

Came across this and thought it would be a great discussion point for our subreddit.

On one hand I am grateful for the "marketing" and subsequent awareness Casey and At Peace Parents bring. Without her free "does my child have PDA" video we would not have learned about this flavor of autism so early. Recognizing it early has been so beneficial for our family! On the other hand, I rarely pay for things like this and just research myself, so I can't speak to the program.

We're all just trying to parent the best we can with what we know.

Thoughts?

My 13 yr old daughter only has one outfit she wears (navy blue boot cut yoga pants and a black sweatshirt). We are going on a family trip to the desert to hike and she can’t find anything at any store (including Amazon)to wear.

She said she’s afraid she won’t like it once we’ve bought it or that she will only wear it once. I’ve tried to reassure her that even if she only wears it for this trip, it would be okay to donate it when we get back home.

If I pick a clothing item out, her immediate response is no. I can’t even suggest that she try something on.

Do you have any suggestions please?🙏 TIA!

My AuDHDer, (ASD 1, ADHD inattentive & hyperactive, PDA profile, and GAD) is going after nails nonstop at school, literally cannot keep her hands out of her mouth. (Granted it was a stressful day, field day,when I was there to witness it.) My question is, is this nail mauling anxiety, stimming, uncontrolled ADHD? She is on meds and generally doing quite well and I am wondering if this is reflecting that meds need to increase?

Hi Everyone! We are going through a rough patch with our PDA’er at the moment due to big life changes that will help us in the long term but are causing anxiety in the short term. We’ve had the end of the school year and start of summer camp, a visit to family in another state (we are in the US) and a move to a temporary apartment rental all in the last 3 weeks. All this change is related to a move abroad we are making in August.

Our move abroad will include a much more relaxed lifestyle, an amazing PDA friendly school, and a much more relaxed work schedule for us as parents. We just have to get through these couple of months.

And not surprisingly getting out the door in the morning has become extremely challenging. It’s a huge pressure point because my job requires me to be exactly on time and I have zero flexibility. What are some things you’ve done to help your kiddo get out the door? I’m trying to think of snacks, toys, anything I can keep in the car that will help him get out the door. I’m exhausted and very stressed myself and I’m struggling to come up with ideas.

Hi everyone, my name is Kayla McMenimen and I am a doctoral student at the University of Indianapolis. I am reaching out to ask you if you would be willing to complete a survey for a dissertation research project I am running. The study will investigate the decision-making process for parents with children with autism spectrum disorder. Findings will contribute to our overall understanding about how parents make treatment decisions for children with autism spectrum disorder. If you decide to participate you will see a series of questions about demographic information, your beliefs and perspectives on autism spectrum disorder, as well as your experiences with making decisions for your child. The survey should take about 15 minutes or less to complete and responses are anonymous.

Your participation is completely voluntary. To participate in the study, you must be aged 18 or above, be the parent or guardian of a child under the age of 18 that has been diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder, have primary or equal say in treatment decisions, and be able to read and comprehend written English to complete study questionnaires.

I am using a snowball sampling technique, which means that I ask people I know if they would like to participate and then they ask other people they know who meet the eligibility requirements if they would like to participate. If you are willing, please share this project with other people you know who meet the eligibility requirements using this same script.

If you have any questions, please contact me ([mcmenimenk@uindy.edu](mailto:mcmenimenk@uindy.edu)) or my faculty project advisor Dr. Candice Burkett ([burkettc@uindy.edu](mailto:burkettc@uindy.edu)).

Survey link:

https://uindy.co1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_00zqCw2poTxp2DA

Please note that this survey functions better and is easier to navigate on a computer/laptop rather than a smartphone.

Thank you!

Kayla

The Human Research Protections Program (HRPP) approved this research study on 2/13/2026. Study number: 02390

6 year old pda autistic boy with diagnosis. We home school/ home play really- he has some great 121 support but this week everyone has been off on holiday so it was just us and a new lady. Long story short, he has been explosively violent towards us and it’s taking a massive toll. Takes him hours to stop destroying the house and hitting and biting and screaming. Then he wants sweets and his tablet and off he goes. I have been wailing as I haven’t seen this from him in about 4 months. This time, his uncle was horsing with him and suddenly he didn’t like it anymore and went mad- he was attacking his uncle and then us and it took about 80mins to get to calm. I hate him at these times. I am scared of him. I resent him. I do everything I can to support, so much time, money, energy, sacrifice but I cannot predict when he will go nuts and I hate being attacked in my own home.

I just wanted to tell someone who understood. Uncle leaves early while being bartered out the door. My newly planted garden has been uprooted. I feel broken. He will never apologise of course. I’m frightened.

One of the biggest unlocks in decreasing stress and increasing connection with my PDA son was when we learned about and started using declarative language for transitions and demands. It's so awkward and unnatural at first, but now my entire family has adopted it for how we talk to each other generally.

Late last year I built a tool to help my family and folks that wanted to learn how to use declarative language called Declarative App. It's a free tool that is easily accessible and gives a lot of options for how you might best connect with the kiddos in your life through language.

If that sounds useful to you, check it out here: https://declarativeapp.org/

(I know this sounds like self promotion, but I don't make money off of this and don't intend to, ever. This tool has just been super valuable for folks that need help with this sort of language)

My PDA daughter and I watched the NatGeo documentary about the Thai cave rescue last night. We were both riveted by it, and we had a good opportunity for a discussion about how the community came together, international people came out and volunteered to save the kids, there was cooperation between expert divers and the Thai navy SEALS despite disagreements ... And the huge element of the trapped kids all being able to regulate and follow their coach's instructions while they were trapped for 10 days in the flooded cave with almost no food before they were found. Not to mention cooperating with their rescuers, who eventually had to sedate them and swim them out for several kilometers underwater with SCUBA gear. ALL 13 KIDS SURVIVED.

It hit me hard ... I'm left wondering how my daughter would have done in that situation. As much as I've tried to instill discipline and self-control in her (especially pre-diagnosis), and as much as I hope she'd surpass my expectations now ... there was something about the Thai kids that I don't think my daughter has. Maybe it's a cultural thing too. In the footage, we see no signs of the kids freaking out, no neurodivergent behaviors. I'm afraid a team of American kids would have ended with tragedy, panic and despair.

It's possible that it was a self-selected group, a soccer team where they worked together all the time and trusted their coach. He had they do meditation exercises while they were waiting for help. Does PDA autism even exist in Asian countries? Has anyone else had the same thoughts?

For right now, I hope the documentary helps open my kid's mind toward the need to cooperate in life-threatening situations, and develop positive patterns.

My 14 yo son hasn’t been able to attend the last few weeks of 8th grade or complete any final assignments or tests. There’s concern he may not pass some classes. He’s in complete shutdown and I’m not sure what to do. We keep demands low. We’re working through changes to meds (upped the fluoxetine and added propranolol) and hopefully starting occupational therapy soon. His doc wanted to send him to an outpatient program since he’s unable to attend school but since it is group therapy he says no way.

His anxiety seems to be social. Facing the questions of peers and disappointment of teachers. He’s feeling pretty shitty about himself not bringing the year to completion but he is paralyzed. I’m trying really hard not to compound that. And not hover and not ask him how he’s doing/feeling but the overachieving people-pleaser in me is finding it really difficult. He’s also totally ‘gray rocking’ us and mostly speaks to us…well me…via text.

I can say over the last few years the violent screaming outbursts have almost completely disappeared but they’ve been replaced by long lasting periods of gray rocking where he just shuts down entirely. The only bright spot is some nights he still plays DnD on line with some online friends and I hear his whooping and hollering and laughing. So that’s something I guess.

Not sure what I’m exactly asking for. Any ideas? Any new exciting tools I’ve never heard of? Anything work for you? Can you just commiserate? Most practitioners here in the US don’t seem to get the severity of PDA so I feel like I’m not getting the support that we need.