SEND Parenting Podcast
Welcome to the Send Parenting Podcast. I'm your neurodiverse host, Dr Olivia Kessel, and, more importantly, I am a mother to my wonderfully neurodivergent daughter, Alexandra, who really inspired this podcast.
As a veteran in navigating the world of neurodiversity, I have uncovered a wealth of misinformation, alongside many answers and solutions that were never taught to me in medical school or in any of the parenting handbooks.
Each week on this podcast, I will be bringing the experts to your ears to empower you on your parenting crusade.
SEND Parenting Podcast
EP 138: Anxiety, PDA and self-regulation with Caryn Price & Georgina Benger
If you're exhausted from daily battles with a child who seems to resist everything – even things they used to enjoy – this episode will change how you see their behaviour forever.
Karen Price and Georgina Benger, leading PDA experts who've supported thousands of families, reveal why Pathological Demand Avoidance isn't defiance or manipulation – it's anxiety. Using the heartwarming children's book "Olive's Day" as their guide, they brilliantly illustrate how your child literally "can't, not won't," making this complex concept suddenly crystal clear.
Discover why your child appears "perfect" at school but falls apart the moment they get home, and learn practical strategies that honour their neurological needs without creating chaos. Through the relatable story of Olive and her challenging day, Karen and Georgina demonstrate how visual choices, environmental modifications, and the power of co-regulation – literally "lending your nervous system" to help your child manage overwhelming emotions – can transform your family dynamics.
You'll walk away understanding how to support your child's drive for autonomy through collaboration and flexibility, create classroom cultures that build empathy rather than entitlement, and transform daily conflicts into genuine connection. Plus, discover how "Olive's Day" can become a powerful tool for helping others understand your child's unique needs.
Stop walking on eggshells. Stop questioning every parenting decision. Your child isn't broken, and neither are you – you just need different strategies for a different neurotype, beautifully illustrated through one little girl's very relatable day.
This 45-minute conversation, brought to life through Olive's relatable journey, could save your family years of struggle.
📘 Click here for Olive's Day
✨ Click here for 30-day Guide to Better Sleep
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Join our growing community of Warrior Mums inside the ADHD Warrior Mum’s Recharge Station
— your space for support, connection, and calm.
Welcome to the Send Parenting Podcast. I'm your neurodiverse host, Dr Olivia Kessel, and, more importantly, I'm mother to my wonderfully neurodivergent daughter, Alexandra, who really inspired this podcast. As a veteran in navigating the world of neurodiversity in a UK education system, I've uncovered a wealth of misinformation, alongside many answers and solutions that were never taught to me in medical school or in any of the parenting handbooks. Each week on this podcast, I will be bringing the experts to your ears to empower you on your parenting crusade. Before we get into this week's episode, I wanted to share something with you. If getting your child to sleep feels like a two to four hour battle, you're not alone. I know I've been there, but research actually shows that 70% of children struggle with sleep with ADHD and 50 to 80% of children with autism also experience sleep problems. So that's why I created the 30 day better sleep starter guide. Although it's designed with ADHD in mind, the strategies support all neurodiverse children. So as we settle back into routines after that long summer holiday, this is the perfect time to focus on your children's sleep. You can download a free copy at sendparentingcom backslash sleep or through the link in the show notes. Here's to better nights sleep, which then lead to calmer mornings.
Speaker 1:In this episode we are diving into an often misunderstood part of neurodiversity, PDA, or pathological demand avoidance, sometimes reframed as persistent drive for autonomy. Joining me are Karen Price and Georgina Benger, both mothers and passionate advocates for education. Karen holds two master degrees in psychology and responsible inclusion in education, while Georgina earned her master of education from Cambridge, specializing in restorative justice in childhood relationships. Together they bring years of experience, specialist knowledge and creative, evidence-based approach to supporting learning and well-being through the wonderful medium of a children's book. This is going to be an invaluable conversation for any parent navigating PDA. So welcome, Karen and Georgina. It is such a pleasure to have you on the SEND Parenting Podcast.
Speaker 1:Today we're going to be diving into a really important and often misunderstood area of neurodiversity, which is PDA, which is more commonly known as pathological demand avoidance, but it's also referred to as persistent drive for autonomy, which we're going to pick up and talk about later. But really, today we're going to unpick what PDA really means, explore some of the misconceptions but, most importantly, talk about how we can support our children who experience it, and this is, you know, this is a critical discussion for my listeners because we have a Send Parenting what's Up? Private community as well, and this topic of PDA comes up a lot and there's a lot of questions from our listeners. So I am super excited to have both of your brains here today to talk about it, and I'd like to start with you, Karen, and can you tell us a little bit about your journey and what inspired both of you to write Olive's Day, which I'll show right here.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much for having us. We've been very excited and we love your podcast, I think for me. I grew up in a neurodivergent family. I certainly consider myself as neurodivergent as well and what that gave was really good insight of as a sibling growing up in a neurodivergent family. I know what great schools, not so great schools do. I know what great therapists, what great family members and the flip side of all of that and I think from a very early age I knew that I was always going to be working with children and I'm very lucky. I love what I do, really, really, really love what I do.
Speaker 2:I did my bachelor's teaching degree in South Africa and then, like many Antipodeans, I finished that and decided to come overseas to travel, see the world and really learn from the UK, which is considered a first world country, and hopefully take whatever. I learned back but met my super handsome husband, who we love and have stayed um. But in those kind of early career settings I worked in profound and multiple learning difficulty schools SLD schools, mainstream schools, private schools, state schools and in those settings what I really felt like I learned was that the special sector kind of knew more what they were doing than the mainstream sector and as a young teacher, I didn't have enough training. And all those children who weren't quite for the special sector but also didn't quite fit into the square pigeonhole of the mainstream, those were the kind of children who I really wanted to learn about and give some back to.
Speaker 2:So I retrained I've retrained several times but I felt that what I really needed to do was have a deep, deep insights into what was going on, and so I did a special inclusive master's at UCL, and then I felt like we were more up to date with what was happening in the 2020s. But, like so much of what we do in school settings and with our families, I felt like it didn't quite overlap with the psychology as much, and that needed to marry. The education field and the psychology field really have to marry, I felt so I did a master's in psychology and now doing a PhD. So I'm in it, we're in it forever, you're well-educated, you're definitely life learners.
Speaker 3:Yeah, life learners.
Speaker 2:We are a bit geeky, aren't we?
Speaker 3:We do love a little learning.
Speaker 1:We do a little study yeah, and it it sounds like your passion for neurodiversity is very personal as well as career focused, and that's kind of what what you bring to lie to life in olive's day and and shine a light kind of in a in a very unique way, in a way that, like you know, my daughter read your book and she's like mommy, that sounds like me, I get it, you know like, and she, you know it, resonated with her. But then you also tie those two worlds of school and home, which often can be disconcerting, and I know we're going to talk about that today. But so what was your inspiration? To kind of bring those worlds together in the kind of format.
Speaker 2:Well, I mean, we've loved each other very, very much for about two years. We sit having musely breakfast kitchen tables and and chatting and what we? What we really want, as so many of us, is just this complete and utter acceptance of all children and human beings, but also realizing that we can't be naive in that this, our systems are not ready for that yet in any system throughout, and so what we wanted to do was look at the steps before full acceptance. How do we, how do we get the mainstream system to understand, um, truly understand, what these are talking about, pda, what it really feels like, what children feel like, what parents feel like, what it looks like in a classroom setting, with very non-expensive, not rocket science ways and strategies of putting it through.
Speaker 2:It's a tool, the book. It's not saying oh, this is how you cure PDA, this is what you do, it's all going to work. It's starting conversations with families, starting conversations with teachers and schools and wider extended families. This might work for us. Let's have a look at it, let's understand it a bit better from the person's point of view, the lived experience.
Speaker 3:And we very much needed a teaching tool. We needed friends, colleagues, peers were asking us and instead of us just lecturing, which we wouldn't do, or talking or or directing, we, we just sat together and very much we said, well, we need a teaching tool, we need, we need olive's day and we couldn't find olive's Day, so we made Olive's Day and also knowing that neuroscience has always said that through storytelling we remember things better, and so blurting out facts or talking about definitions, what?
Speaker 2:even in my PhD, the facts I remember the most are the stories that my professors have told, and so we wanted to kind of gather it all together. It's quite meaty, there's a lot in it, but we feel like that way you can find what works right for you on certain days and on other days have the option to discuss and learn together and the feedback from children and adults has has been very positive and there's been a narrative running through it which has been um, thank you, we've we.
Speaker 3:It's just, it was made it very clear there was. They felt very strongly. Certainly lots of children said, oh, I really understand, oh, I can do that. A lot of parents and children said, oh, I'm going to do that, I can do that. So we hope it's, yeah, we hope it's a tool, we hope it's a teaching tool and it's accessible.
Speaker 1:Because by bringing that awareness you bring understanding and it's through the story that you illustrate that understanding. So, if you know, how would you define, I guess, pda either in the terminology of pathological demand avoidance or in persistent drive for autonomy, because I think you know why that wording matters it, just it gives it a totally different lens. How you define that term PDA, and I'd love to get your input on that.
Speaker 2:Well, I think, in terms of pathological demand avoidance, we're not keen.
Speaker 3:We're not keen on pathological to medicalize.
Speaker 2:The avoidance really sounds like it's a choice. We understand that and even with the persistent drive for autonomy, I think it doesn't. It doesn't explain the anxiety behind it all and I think we've got to be very clunky, isn't it?
Speaker 2:it's quite a mouthful, it's quite clunky um, and we have to be careful because there's there still needs to be so much more research around it. So in order to be careful with our wording, we just refer to the pDA society that has done a lot of the research to families and really I'm going to read it exactly. So I don't I don't mix up anybody with any words, but the PDA societies. There's a PDA is an extreme avoidance of everyday demands caused by anxiety, and I think that really underpins the anxiety level where I think schools in the mainstream society haven't quite caught on to that yet. They don't quite understand the level of anxiety that persists.
Speaker 1:And that this child is in extreme stress and that's you know, which is a complete, you know turnaround. Because there's a lot of common misconceptions and I'd love you to talk through some of them with us so our listeners, who are also hearing this from teachers, from relatives, for them to understand what's the reality really.
Speaker 3:I think I was many years ago. Karen was leading a team, a team of teachers, and I was lucky to be there and this really resonated with me and I use it myself and I think about to be to be there and it this really resonated with me and I use it myself and I think about it all the time is, karen said this is can't, not, won't. Yeah, and for me that summarized it yeah, because it's so hard in the classroom or at home to to, to, sort of there's so much, there's so much to be learning and reading, and people have everyone, everyone has different opinions. But I keep coming back to when Karen said this is is can't, not, won't. So this is not behavioural choice. This is not. You're not choosing to stamp your foot and not do something. You can't and, as you so correctly said, anxiety and stress.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and that is neurological. This is not a choice. Again, really underpinning that neurological side of things, I think also the misconceptions that they are being, uh, or children or teens or adults we now know a lot more about with pda or pda profiles. That um, often it is for really unenjoyable activities. And so we weave that in the book where olive loves acorns. She they great fiddles, she loves to go walking and finding acorns. But when her mom says let's go, let's go on an acorn hunt or let's go find acorns, that that it's, it's the demand that makes her feel so anxious and so stressed and that's what's so difficult about it. And I don't think people realize how hard it must be in that moment. Yes, you really want to do something. That's self-imposed demand of. I can't.
Speaker 1:And especially as it is based in neurobiology. And you think about how many demands I mean, how many demands you make as a mother, how many demands the father might make the siblings, the school we demand of our children constantly. You know.
Speaker 2:All the time and I think that's what we've tried to weave into the book too that there are strategies in place to help that. So she goes into school earlier, before it's too noisy and busy. These are things all schools can do. It doesn't cost any money. It's not rocket science. She gets to choose, before she starts a day full of demands, how she regulates. There's a room where she can regulate and then go in and have a look at her day, and so these transitions are not miracle cures. What we're doing is just showing that you can have these kind of conversations to give choice, where often children haven't had that time or the space to have those choices and, I think, returning to when you asked about persistent drive autonomy.
Speaker 3:Um, so, talking about the, the term and whether or not we like it or not, is that there's no mention of anxiety in there at all. There's no mention of anxiety and the stress of the underlying and, as you both just said, the neurobiology.
Speaker 1:I think that was the well, you know and this takes us really nicely into you know the the definition of pda by the dsm-5. You know, um is it there?
Speaker 2:I can't find it anyway.
Speaker 1:I don't know I mean, you know it, it it does seem like it needs another revision, in my opinion, not not just for PDA, but for for other things, because they forget, but you know it's, and it's often tacked on as something that, oh, it's, this is something that's related to autism.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and so we've. We've veered away from that in this book because that obviously there has to be a lot more research on it all. But we haven't mentioned anything about autism and we're not qualified um because it's. There's so many things around it and I think the dsmv doesn't doesn't look at that anything really truly in in the sense that we would perhaps look at it um. But also the pda society has put together guidelines in 2022 of what to look at, and so when we're talking to parents about whether they think their child might have a PDA profile or not, it's really about just collating as much evidence as possible across environments and then taking it to your doctor or your clinical psychologist or those who would be able to have these more in-depth conversations around it.
Speaker 1:Psychologist or those who would be able to have these more in-depth conversations around it, and we can include the link to that in the show notes for listeners. But I think it's also important, as it is with all neurodiversity is you see one person with PDA? You see one person with PDA? You see one person with autism? You see one person with autism? They are not cookie cutter spit out, which is where the problem with the diagnostic well, one of the problems there are many others, but you know comes to being so.
Speaker 1:It really is that explorative approach where you're looking at criteria across environments and then speaking to experts and getting a picture and then trying some of these simple strategies and seeing how it works. They might not have the definition completely, you know, but it can really. I mean, my daughter is not diagnosed as PDA, she's ADHD and dyslexic. But you know what, if I give her choice and I follow some of the strategies that you've so nicely outlined in Olive's Day, it makes for a better household and it makes her feel more autonomous and more you know less.
Speaker 2:And also shows a lot of my, my work. I have to work backwards, so thinking about when some of my kids are 22 and 25 or just 16, if I'm working with little ones and being able to self-advocate and say you know what? What really works well for me are having visuals. What really works well for me is that when I can't think and I'm mute, I I'll write it down for you and so again, just starting those conversations so that when our younger children, we have no learned helplessness, we're actually building the autonomy that was hugely important to us.
Speaker 3:And I think certainly that was explained to me was that this is a low-risk strategy. The worst thing you've done is you've implemented some of the. You've given a child visuals at the breakfast table. Well, you know they may not or they may have pda. It is not, as you say, including the dsm-5, but it's just pictures of um different breakfast options and they've they've answered. You've got a happier household. They have some agency, some autonomy. Doesn't cost anything.
Speaker 1:Doesn't cost anything and it's not rocket science and it's not the end of the world that you've got and it's not sticking them on the naughty step where they can stay for hours and have. I mean you know what I mean. It's not destroying your child, which a lot of the popular parenting advice with children who are neurodiverse does. It's cruel.
Speaker 2:It is cruel.
Speaker 3:It's cruel.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's very simple, and it's how we use our language and how we make choices available and how we give them a say in what they're doing, which I think applies to all children as well. But it's particularly important and therein lies the kind of education aspect of this, because, you know, parents can often say, if we're looking at it through a parent's lens, they can say you know, we've talked to school about this and they're fine at school, they follow all the instructions, they're, you know, they're the ideal child. And then the parents saying, well, but they're coming home and they are, you know, ripping the house to shreds and they're having meltdowns or they're totally shutting down and they're unreachable. You know, how would you, what would you say to parents who are feeling like because we do feel like you're doing something wrong?
Speaker 2:Yeah, yes, I think masking is huge and I think there's a lot more talking about masking now and hopefully parents and schools are understanding more about masking so that when they are home they are finally in a safe space, and letting parents know that those meltdowns, those upsets are really where their bodies feel finally safe enough to let it go. One of my favorite books is the body keeps score. It's that kind of holding, holding, holding, release, and I think that's the immediate thing for parents to know is that they are that safe space and so really it is quite a compliment and you can see it in schools, can't you? With many, many of the really wonderful teachers that we work with, where these children feel safe and they are able to articulate it, I think, with PDA, again coming back to one of the reasons we wanted to use this as a tool, there's so little known about it and there's so many misconceptions, and so parents are going to be judged and that's tough and that's really many misconceptions, and so parents are going to be judged and that's tough and that's really really hard, knowing what works for you, knowing that we have our parents and their parents and generations of parents on our shoulders, telling us how we think we should be teaching, how we should be parenting, what they should be able to do.
Speaker 2:Our best advice, which we think is is quite good, is it is also about giving your child what they need. In that moment, yes, they are in huge flight, fright fawn, massive anxiety mode. I know we're done with covid, but that kind of feeling of so out of control, we don't know where we're going with this. Is the world falling apart? What's going to happen? They feel like that constantly and so understanding it from that base will hopefully help parents kind of go.
Speaker 3:You know what at this moment in time, this is what we need and I very much as a parent, can remember this that sort of oh no, this isn't happening at school, goodbye, goodbye. Sort of you know, thank you so much, but we don't see this here. And then you do. You feel quite isolated, feel quite alone, and I think Karen's advice, which I've really taken from as an educator and as a parent, is in this moment. So I'm going to stop thinking about will he ever get GCSEs? Ah, what's going to happen? We've got a match in to happen, and this is about the cocoa pops. Yeah, and and why? Why isn't he trying out for for the england netball team? Because everybody else's children are doing these sorts of things. It's in the moment. I need now to be in this moment and I thought I've always felt that's very, very good, clear, no, no risk of life it's also a um, an insight into the stress they've had during the day.
Speaker 1:And that's what I found with you know, my daughter is that when this is happening at home, then it's really time to have a discussion with school to find out what's going on, you know, because it's kind of like a warning sign on a car when your child is coming home and doing that because it's too much. So you need to kind of that.
Speaker 2:That starts your detective work into figuring out what's going on and I think the opposite in many ways, where sometimes they, they we've seen it with lots of children where the perfectionism they sit too still too well, the coloring in it is it's too perfect losing a mark in a maths exam that kind of real pressure, pressure, pressure. And I think sometimes we look for the real outliers and those children are missed. So that's where you get schools coming back and saying, yes, they find in school, they're amazing, look at this work. This is incredible for me. Sometimes it's looking for the too perfect, yes, the ideal student. That's where we sometimes see it too. Yes, like I agree.
Speaker 1:So if we unpack kind of with kids who are like this, both at home and at school, and where autonomy is so important, how can we, how can we give them the autonomy that they they need to a huge degree and still be able to live your life at home, you know, with other siblings, and you know it. It becomes very complicated, doesn't it?
Speaker 2:It's not easy.
Speaker 3:It sounds easy, but it's not.
Speaker 2:You know how long is a piece of string Very person and family dependent.
Speaker 2:In the book we use a couple of strategies where, like in the classroom setting, they are learning about countries and where countries are and olive has this phenomenal way of getting round doing some of the work where she doesn't have the sparkly rainbow pen and the classroom is set up in a way that the different areas still have learning environments so she can choose to go and sit in an area and she chooses to read a book about Japan, so when she comes later back onto the work she knows where Japan is on the map.
Speaker 2:And I think it's about those kind of environmental settings, that when at home there are certain spaces that you can go to that are safe and quiet and okay that you know what, is it the end of the world if we are sitting having our breakfast cereal at dinner time in the bath? For me not today, that's okay. Today it's gonna not gonna happen all the time and I think it's about looking at the environment, how we can extend that in a way that there are choices, but you also have to brush your teeth at times.
Speaker 3:You can't have your teeth falling out.
Speaker 2:So how do we get around that? What are the creative ways of doing that? And certainly from what we've read in research, what we've heard from parents, what we've listened to with our children and our teens that we've worked with, there are great strengths to having a PDA profile Amazing humors, humors really independent.
Speaker 1:So tell us about the tooth tooth brushing. I'm sure everyone wants to know how have you cracked?
Speaker 2:that well, what you crack one day, you might not crack the other day.
Speaker 1:So that's really important key factor, right?
Speaker 2:so what works one day might not work the next day, and that's super frustrating, remember that traditional kind of ways of doing things like behavioral charts, stickers, having a little scream and shout. It's not the same way. It's not the same way. It's not the same way.
Speaker 3:I was just going to add there that I think supporting autonomy, which you mentioned then, which is so key here, doesn't mean letting your children just run wild. It doesn't mean, oh, let's just have a free fall, do whatever you want. It means that you're offering flexibility. You yourself are flexible, you are in the moment, you offer choice, you collaborate so that they feel they feel safe, they feel supported. There are boundaries.
Speaker 3:You do have to clean your teeth because otherwise your teeth are going to fall out and you're going to be in pain, and I love you and I'm your mum, I know, and you have to trust me on this. Do have to clean your teeth because otherwise your teeth are going to fall out and you're going to be in pain. And I love you and I'm your mum, I know, and you have to trust me on this. We have to clean your teeth. But it may be that one day you slam down the penguin toothbrush and you wanted the pink toothbrush Great, just use that pink toothbrush.
Speaker 3:So it's being in the moment, it's not letting them run wild, but he's thinking about that flexibility, just leaving the toothbrush with toothpaste on for a bit. It doesn't have to happen, right, this very second, yes, in this moment, but it is not a, it's not um. I know many parents often say sort of just let them do whatever they want. You know, it's running wild and that's a term that's been used to me and I said no, no, no, you're using collaboration, communication, flexibility, using your skills and what's so funny is I get.
Speaker 1:I've gotten into some heated discussions with people in my family and friends who are like, oh, you're always negotiating, like that's a bad thing with my daughter. You're always negotiating, you know. But for me the negotiation is what works. You know, if you do this then, or you know that works for us. You know she can make some decisions of when she wants to brush her teeth and what she wants to do and what toothbrush she wants to do and how she does it.
Speaker 2:And we do that all the time as adults. We have to negotiate what day work for us to do the podcast. We have to negotiate how we're going to write our stories, because we all have different lives. I don't think it's about letting anybody get away with it. It's about a conversation and, I think, using the person's strengths, using your own strengths. Some days, as a mother, I'm terrible. I have no patience.
Speaker 3:I cannot just get on with it. Not at all, not at all.
Speaker 2:But I think it is being a little bit more open and again, not having those generations of parents on our shoulders.
Speaker 3:Why are you negotiating Georgia? They're getting away with it.
Speaker 1:Yes, you know, and they surprise you Like we just drove back from Cornwall two days ago and it was a hideous journey.
Speaker 2:Like there was so much traffic, we got home like after eight hours of driving.
Speaker 1:You know it was just miserable. Unpackpack the car that. You know everything had gone wrong. And you know we watched something on TV that had something scary. We went up to it and my daughter was like she was about to go for it and I just looked at her and I almost started to cry and she goes. Mommy, you know what I'm not going to do this. You look really, really, really tired. She goes. You know she's learning as well through like having these discussions and these negotiations. She's like you know, I can see you. I can see that this is too much right now. Let's talk about it. In the morning I was like wow, you are really evolving into such a beautiful person.
Speaker 1:You know, despite all the negotiations, yes, yeah, no, and because of the negotiations, I would argue that's what I mean, despite everything that we're not doing the right way.
Speaker 3:It's working yeah I think.
Speaker 2:I think it's an important thing to remember and our children need that autonomy and they show us from a very young age that they want to do things by themselves and they want to be part of the community and they want to give back and I think we're looking at the strengths of the person, but also so many of these strengths that are kind of threaded into children with PDA profiles. They want to be autonomous.
Speaker 1:And what do we want as our children growing up, as adults? Do we want them to just follow rules and follow what other people say, for example on social media or you know what some of our politicians are saying, especially in the US? No, we don't want them to follow that. We want them to be autonomous. I mean, that is our kind of desire when they grow up, but when they're a child, we want them to follow the rules and follow what we say.
Speaker 3:Do as I say, and also with no explanation. You know you need to understand why you've got to clean your teeth. So you're making a choice here. But when you suddenly realize actually I'm cleaning my teeth not because mommy's just shouting at me and granny says I have to.
Speaker 1:There's a reason why it's completely so. Um, that it helps a lot. Yeah, yeah, and and you're realizing that it's their choice. You know that they want to have the rotten teeth and then take them for a teeth cleaning and and picking your moments, which parents don't always have.
Speaker 2:You know we're rushing to work, we've got to get to school in time, all sorts, I think for me, like we are, we've always well, my husband's always been a very early riser, but I'm better, and I remember when our son was a toddler and three and four, and just having time to stop and smell the flowers and just making sure that we have more time, so that there is time, like all of her and her mom, put like an imaginary arm around for the day, so that you it's not like you have to brush your teeth get out of the house now, go, go, go. Because if the day starts like that, I know, when I'm late and discombobulated, how it feels. I've studied it a lot, I've learned a lot about myself and I still have grappled to get it back, and then we put our children in those kind of positions and they're just children, and they're just children.
Speaker 2:So it's about time. It's about picking your battles, really picking your battles. Do we have to brush our teeth right this very second? I don't think we have to.
Speaker 1:Let's just take our foots off the pedal for a minute and that brings up a great topic, both in the school and at which is this topic of co-regulation, which has been, I would say, one of the hardest things and probably one of the greatest lessons my daughter has given me, because, you know, I probably flip to anger quite easily and probably due to my own neurodiversity. So she has taught me how important it is for me to co-regulate and I'm not 100%, I'm a lot better than I was and I realize how important it is. But let's unpick that topic because it's important in the home. And then there's the classroom, which is someone who's not related to that child and has 30 other children that they have to kind of. So there's two sides to that. But let's start with a mom or a dad. How important is co-regulating from your perspective in a PDA kind of profile?
Speaker 2:huge. I mean we, we literally talk about borrowing a nervous system ready to be and I think I'm also getting better at it, not not, you know, progress is not perfection in my house, but it's, but it is um, it is really about stopping in the moment and that kind of self-control, which is not easy either if you're rushing, stressed, worried about paying bills and and and there are a lot of external forces about lending that, and I think your example of your daughter is so beautiful because she's clearly learned that that co-regulation coming into self-regulation and then going hold on a second mom.
Speaker 2:Actually, tonight's not the Tonight you can borrow my nervous system. Yeah, exactly, I think sometimes it is. You know, in our house we have this phrase that sounds a little I don't know movie-ish, but it works. I respect you enough to walk away at this moment. I respect you and myself enough to walk away at this moment and then come back and I think sometimes, when we cannot cope ourselves, we have to be able to say that in terms of the pda setting and a home environment, I think it is about also just stopping and breathing. The more we rush, the more we force, the more everybody's uh anxiety is going to go up. We, if you feel stuck in a corner, you will fight or fright or flight. It's not ever going to work and I think we regulate quicker when we can co-regulate and lend our nervous systems, and I think that's that's always been a top tip for me that I've learned from, from my families that I work with.
Speaker 1:I also use my dogs, actually because they're very calm dogs and often, like the dog, can do more than I can do for both of us. Actually, we now have two dogs, so we can each have one and you know, just petting the dog and putting your hand on the heartbeat of the dog, it's just so phenomenally powerful of having a dog on your lap yeah, huge, I'm a great.
Speaker 2:I have a. One of my schools has a therapy dog who I adore and she loves me so much and she has she has helped my sessions incredibly because she can do things that I can't do.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I completely agree with that. Now, now let's switch to the classroom, where you know you've got 30, maybe plus, children in a classroom sometimes and, um, you're in a very stressful profession, you're under-resourced, your anxiety and stress levels are up to here. You've got kids that you know maybe don't speak English. You've got kids with neurodiversity is quite a large proportion and you're trying to hold it all together to meet with an Ofsted report. So it is, and you're not paid very well. So I mean, you're really you're. You're in a, you're in a stressful place already. Co-regulating, then, is difficult. What, what strategies can you give to that teacher? Um, well.
Speaker 3:So we, we sat together because this is a very important subject and one we were often asked about. I'll just quickly read from these, because then we get exactly it's going to be accurate then. So we um have spoken about this before um, before two educators. So when people interpret refusals as challenges to their authority, they may escalate the situation and by that term it's just so easy to do as you've just described. You've described perfectly the teacher standing there with all of this in their head. Data needs to be put in, reports need to be written. So if I instantly go into that, you're challenging my authority and I'm in charge here. I'm the adult, I'm the adult and I'm telling you and you will, this is going through your head. This will escalate the situation. Pretty pretty or pretty certain.
Speaker 3:So if we suggest, karen and I suggest to educators that you see behaviors as signs of the distress, of the anxiety that we've already spoken about, you then suddenly shift that change in your mind, yeah, and you respond with compassion instead of anger or yes, height, heightening the situation. So, by offering choice reframes the interaction and it communicates. I trust you. We're together, we're on the same side, we're in this classroom, we're moving your learning forward together. This isn't me the big teacher. I'm informing you and I'm telling you, but it's giving them some control. But you're not losing your control. You know you're not saying do whatever you want. So anxiety naturally decreases, engagement increases, connection increases, communication increases.
Speaker 1:So that is our recommendation, just it's a paradigm shift for for both the mother and father and and the teacher, from thinking they're doing this to me and they're being disrespectful to me. And this is, you know, manipulation and this is, you know that that's very personal, that's an attack on you and if you switch that to, this child is hurting. This child is crying out, we all. If a kid was, you know, hurting, none of us wouldn't want to help them. So it totally shifts the paradigm of how we're viewing that behavior. In my it has to me personally as a mother. You know to, to, to take those to take because that's how we were taught, right? You know you're behaving, you're naughty. Take, because that's how we were taught, right? You know you're behaving, you're naughty. My mother used to say my hand is itching and then whack. You know like it's what we come with. What we are pre-programmed with is very different to what we now know.
Speaker 2:And I think that knowing that is the first step that we don't have to conform. That is the first step that we don't have to conform. But we also are very much of the pre-warned is pre-armed. So I go into schools. We know that certain behaviors are happening, so let's understand where and why it's coming from it personalized stories, talking about the child in a way that is respectful and understanding what their nervous system feels like and what they're going through. But then also having the proactive and preemptive strategies before it happens. I like to be prepared for a doomsday, because then at least everything in between is great. I know what's going to happen when it all kicks off.
Speaker 2:I think, knowing that olive loves the rainbow sparkly pen, that there are rainbow sparkly pens, that these are specific triggers, how do we get around that? What are the conversations that we need to be having with the child? I've noticed that you feel really, really anxious on a swimming day. How can we help you with that? Maybe this week let's just put our feet in the water and I'll come with you. We don't have to all do everything all the time, and I think those bringing children and families into the conversations within schools, mums and dads saying to them you know, swimming is actually a life skill and one day you might want to be scuba diving, wouldn't you love starfish? Why don't we work towards that together? Doesn't mean you have to get into the pool today when it's your swimming lesson, because I've paid for your swimming lesson. How?
Speaker 3:do we get there, and I think that's exactly going back into the moment where we are in that moment and I think, as an educator is we're returning to that flexibility and thinking, actually this is we're leaving for the swimming pool, but actually this child I know needs to just go now, just a few minutes before, to calmly walk and get there and unpack their things and and just have some time and that is absolutely fine. You know, I don't know about you, but I'm quite old and I I remember teachers. You're lining up and you're going and there's no acceptance of we're just going to let Karen go five minutes early. We're going to support Karen. Karen needs to just leave for the swimming pool. It would have been you're getting in line, hurry up.
Speaker 2:Why are you crying? Stop crying.
Speaker 3:Panic before crying Off you go. And it's a choice for us as the adults now, isn't it?
Speaker 1:You hear from educators and from parents as well, though if I do this with one child, the whole classroom is going to erupt into chaos, because if I let her do that, well, why won't they want to do that? And all chaos will ensue. Similarly, if you've got multiple children at home.
Speaker 3:I tend to suggest to teachers and I've done it when I've gone into schools and suggested and I have used it in practice is I, I, we're a team, we're a wonderful, wonderful class, yeah, and we are going to support karen, yeah. So it's only when I say out loud to, and I look at all of the, the boys and girls and I say we're going to support karen, yeah, and karen needs to just go to the swimming pool slightly early. Now. We're going to get ready and I will you are so good at this, you go, yeah and we're not.
Speaker 3:I'm not really giving you a window now to all start saying, oh well, and it's very rare when I've certainly been in schools, um, mainly in London that you know educators come back to me and said very much, oh, that we were all together. So so later on in the afternoon we're going to support um freddie with the fact that actually freddie now needs to just go and sit in the book corner. You, we are in the middle of our english lesson, we're not all going off to the book corner, but we are going to support your friend and the children start to use that language and they feel proud of themselves because they're supporting their friends and we all need to be supported at some point.
Speaker 2:You know, my chameleon would have died and I needed support. You would have got to work late and you needed support Everybody.
Speaker 1:We all need support.
Speaker 2:And you do that so well. I love it, when you do that yes, I think.
Speaker 3:And that's the language you use. It's the language and there's a lot of research. There's a huge amount of research evidencing that when you're coming together, you're collaborating, you're a team, we're all on the same team here, and that tends to work. It would be my personal hint and tip.
Speaker 1:Does that help? I think that's a very good hint and tip because you know, I think it's reframing it and it's you know you brought this up in the conversation today it's not a free for all. There are boundaries, but it's then providing the support that's needed in those instances where it's needed and for who it's needed. Just everyone can go and do anything they want in the classroom, which is at home in our family.
Speaker 3:I would say, right now we need to support my younger son. He really needs the car. We can see he's not coping. Yes, you think you need the car. I will fancy the car. I can leave my food shopping. Let's talk, let's collaborate, let's communicate and let's be kind. Let's just be kind here. Let's support right now the fact that my youngest son needs whatever it is he needs and that's yeah, that works for us it definitely is a paradigm shift for many uh, educators and systems, um, and family systems included in those systems.
Speaker 2:But I think once you kind of get around that and understand it in its essence, it doesn't feel like you, you know, have your great, great granny you know rolling your eyeballs and telling you that you've done it badly. I rule.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, the beauty in it is that it really works, and, and, and. You see children responding and life becomes much calmer. You, you don't see the, the, the meltdowns you don't have. Life becomes better, and I think the proof is in the pudding, as they say. Uh, with all of these things is by understanding how the neurobiology works and why, what it's causing our children to feel and experience.
Speaker 2:It then helps us to give them an environment where they can flourish and grow, and life becomes better and we always say to parents and um schools you know, the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over, expecting a different result and nothing changes if nothing changes. So this is clearly not working for you. Try it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and as you say, it's cheap, it's not. These aren't like you're not signing up for an expensive course or you know having to. You know eat sardines every day for a year. You know it's, it's, it's simple. These are simple things. It is difficult. I won't underestimate that either, because we make a lot of demands and I don't, I think, you know, one of the things I first did is wrote down all the demands I make of my daughter during the day, and you know that was an interesting exercise for myself because I didn't realize how many and I think for teachers too, is it? You know? It starts with yourself and understanding how many demands you're making and then seeing where you can flex and where you can implement and it's not going to be a hundred percent of the time and be kind.
Speaker 2:And that's what we're saying. Like this, this book is not a solution. We're not saying this is going to fix everything. This is about giving creative ideas and showing from lived experience, from people that we've worked with, that we've observed, that we've had a look in, linked in with the research that we have up to now, pulling it all together to open conversations so that we truly understand what it feels like, what parents could suggest to schools, what, what schools could suggest to parents to put in. You know that end of the day where they're just about to fall apart, don't ask how their day was. Maybe put visuals on the fridge Easy.
Speaker 1:So, before we leave, I actually want to ask you what three top tips would you give either to parents or to educators about PDA that they can take away in their back pocket with them?
Speaker 2:First, our first and probably most important is that, just to remember that this is a can't, not a won't. This is not, I won't do it. This is like in this moment, right now I cannot, cannot, cannot do it. And that's how children have explained it to us, how they feel. So that would be probably our biggest, biggest top 10.
Speaker 3:Can't, not, won't. Our second one was connection, and I know we spoke about this. We've just spoken a lot about this. So you're thinking of empathy, of collaboration, of trust, safety, relationship, all those words. Yeah, you're thinking about connection, you're connecting With that human being.
Speaker 2:With that human being, yeah, yeah. And our last is flexibility letting go of all our preconceived ideas of what things should be and how they should be, about time Just being flexible with ourselves, with our children, with our teens, with our co-workers who may have a PDA profile, and understanding that through connection and understanding, we can be flexible.
Speaker 1:Those are fabulous three top tips. Thank you very much. Yeah, easy solutions. Well, thank you both so much. It's been an absolutely fascinating discussion and I know that not only parents but educators who listen to the podcast are going to really appreciate this. And the good news is that you are coming back next week to discuss another book called Willow's Day, where we're going to be talking about restorative justice and that sounds very complicated, but, georgina, you're going to unpick it for us and you know we are going to understand what you mean by that very fancy term. So I'm looking forward to having you come back on the show next week and I want to say a big thank you for your time today.
Speaker 3:Thank you so much, thank you. Thank you so much for having us, lydia. Thank you your time today. Thank you so much, thank you.
Speaker 1:Thank you so much for having me. Thank you, Thank you for listening Send Parenting Tribe for this important discussion on PDA. Karen and Georgina. Your insights as both mothers and specialists have been so valuable. We explored how PDA shows up at home and at school and how parents and teachers can better support children with a persistent drive for autonomy. Next week, Georgina will return to talk with Karen about their book Willow's Day and how restorative justice can transform relationships in school. I am Dr Libby Kessel and this has been the Sun Parenting Podcast Until next time, Thank you.