Happy belated PDA Day

I have written about Pathological Demand Avoidance (PDA) quite a bit over the past year, so for PDA Day / PDA Action Week I thought I would do a small review of the themes I keep returning to.

It’s not wilful behaviour, usually

Schools often read demand avoidance as refusal, manipulation, defiance, escape, or “not using strategies.” Sometimes children are annoyed, resistant, fed up, or trying to get out of something — because they are children, and children are human. But with PDA, adults should not default to wilful non-compliance as the explanation. That framing matters because it determines the response. If adults think the child is choosing not to comply, they reach for pressure: rewards, consequences, firmness, consistency, charts, contracts, and “you still have to.”

The narrative itself can become part of the demand. When adults insist, “you are refusing,” “you are choosing this,” “you are manipulating,” or “you need to take responsibility,” they are not just describing the child. They are demanding that the child submit to an institutional story about their own distress. For a PDA child, that can land as another form of coercion: not only do what I say, but accept my version of why you are failing to do it.

If adults understand demand as threat, the question changes. It becomes: what landed as coercion, what removed agency, what story was imposed on this child, what made this child feel unsafe, and how can adults reduce the demand load before the child’s nervous system tips into survival?

See The high stakes of understanding PDA and When “I hate you” becomes a reflex: understanding PDA, nervous system overwhelm, and emotional repair.

PDA is not just anxiety

The second theme is that PDA is not just anxiety either. Anxiety language can help, but it can also flatten the issue. PDA is not simply worry about a future event. It is often a real-time autonomic response to perceived control, pressure, expectation, or loss of self-direction. That is why ordinary supports can backfire. A question can be a demand. A choice can be a demand. A cheerful invitation can be a demand. A self-advocacy goal can be a demand. Even something the child wants can become inaccessible when it is wrapped in adult expectation.

See Pathological Demand Avoidance (PDA) and The high stakes of understanding PDA

Autonomy is not a reward

The third theme is that autonomy is not a reward. It is not something children should earn after compliance. For PDA children, autonomy is often the access condition. Without a felt sense of agency, the child may not be available for learning, care, connection, or even pleasure. This is why low-demand practice is not permissiveness. It is not giving up. It is the deliberate reduction of coercive pressure so the child’s nervous system has a chance to stay online.

See I only asked for gentleness: on parenting a PDA child in a punishing world and On euphemisms, PDA, and the rebranding of autism.

IEPs can turn support into compliance work

The fourth theme is that IEPs often turn support into compliance work. Many goals sound caring on paper: manage responsibilities, ask for help, use a break, organise materials, self-regulate before becoming overwhelmed. But for PDA students, those goals can quietly relocate responsibility onto the child while leaving the adult environment unchanged.

A PDA-informed plan has to name what adults will do differently: reduce verbal demands, offer indirect support, honour breaks without interrogation, provide multiple communication pathways, avoid public performance, and track adult implementation — not just child output.

See The compliance trap: why IEP goals fail PDA students and How public education discriminates against PDA children through performative care.

Evidence-based does not mean appropriate

The fifth theme is that “evidence-based” does not mean appropriate for this child. Sticker charts/token economies, reinforcement schedules, social skills programs, and exposure-based approaches may have research behind them in some contexts.

That does not make them automatically safe or effective for every autistic child. Autism is heterogeneous. Children are not averages. A tool that helps one child may harm another, especially when it increases pressure, surveillance, or coercion.

See When provincial bodies dismiss parental expertise: POPARD, sticker charts, and the refusal of heterogeneity, POPARD’s PDA doublespeak, and They still haven’t learned: POPARD and PDA.

Parents are treated as anecdotes until professionals agree

The sixth theme is that parents are often the experts systems are trained to ignore. Families notice the patterns first. They know which tone escalates, which questions shut things down, which supports work only when offered indirectly, which “reasonable” expectations create panic, and which interventions have already caused harm. Too often that knowledge is treated as anecdote until a professional repeats it in more acceptable language. See They still haven’t learned: POPARD and PDA, The material costs of educational harm, and The longest deployment: sending my son to school.

Progress may not look like school progress

The seventh theme is that progress can look nothing like school thinks it should. Sometimes progress is not a worksheet, a transition, a full day, or a neatly documented goal. Sometimes it is a child unloading the dishwasher because nobody asked. Sometimes it is a moment of voluntary engagement after months or years of being crushed by expectation. Sometimes it is a nervous system finally finding enough safety to move toward life in its own time. See The dishwasher, the hard drive, and what counts as progress when your child survives school.

PDA can be profoundly disabling

The final theme is probably the hardest: PDA can be profoundly disabling. Softer language can reduce stigma, but it can also erase severity. This is not simply a child wanting more control. For some children, the demand load of ordinary life can make school, care, friendships, hygiene, chores, travel, appointments, and leaving the house inaccessible. A child can be funny, bright, loving, capable, and still profoundly disabled by the way demands hit their nervous system. See Debility versus disability: what the system cannot acknowledge and The dishwasher, the hard drive, and what counts as progress when your child survives school.

What PDA awareness should actually ask of us

So for PDA Awareness Week, my writing keeps coming back to the same place: awareness is not enough if it leaves the compliance structure intact. It is not enough to know the term, debate the label, soften the language, or share a graphic once a year while children are still treated as behaviour problems when their nervous systems cannot tolerate coercion.

Stop treating these children as compliance problems. Stop assuming distress is strategy. Stop making children perform insight, gratitude, flexibility, and self-advocacy before they are allowed support.

The goal is not to dress demands up as choices.

The goal is to dismantle enough coercion that the child can breathe, trust, connect, learn, and live.