What is PDA (Pathological Demand Avoidance/Persistent Drive for Autonomy) and is it a new thing?

Gillian and Joelle talk about the framework of PDA and how it can both reinforce approaches we have long-used very wisely, as well as inspire some new ways of understanding student responses and needs.  As with any new concept, we can temporarily lose our sense of confidence and competence.  The ideas offered by the PDA framework can also increase our depth of understanding of the capacity for our community to support all learners.  Joelle and Gillian talk through some examples to play around with how the ideas offered through PDA can help us anticipate the reaction to various strategies and find approaches that are likely to work for a wide variety of students.    

PDA resource mentioned: Casey Erlich at At Peace Parents

https://www.atpeaceparents.com/

Other great PDA resources:

Low Demand Amanda: https://www.amandadiekman.com/

PDA North America: https://pdanorthamerica.org/

Collaborative and Proactive Solutions:

https://cpsconnection.com/

Find us on Instagram!

Gillian: https://www.instagram.com/clearconnectionpsychology/

Joelle: https://www.instagram.com/joelle.vanlent/

Transcript

Welcome back to A Stance of Curiosity. I'm Gillian Boudreau. And I'm Joelle Van Lent. Hello, everyone. Joelle, you had a great idea for a topic today. Yes, I was hoping that you could talk about your, I think that you have expertise and are more kind of in the mix on the conversation around PDA as it's come up for autistic students, ADHD students, other students. And there's been an interesting conversation in Vermont about that, that feels a little zigzaggy. So I would love to hear your take on it. And then maybe I could share with you some of the clunkiness that's come up in my work. That sounds great. So my general sense of PDA, so the official name for PDA is Pathological Demand Avoidance. I prefer to think of it as pervasive drive for autonomy.

It falls in an interesting space. So it's not an official diagnosis as far as the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, though it is a framework very widely used to understand kids who; the best experiential way I like to sort of start getting people into it is it can feel like very prickly or very reactive kids. In a specific way. I have really liked that there is now a name for PDA and a framework for thinking about it because it kind of encapsulates, for me, I think a lot of the work I've been doing the whole time as a person who often works with kids who might have wound up needing more care. In part because they are struggling, but in large part because adults are frustrated with them.

So I think PDA is a really affirming way to understand kids. There have always been kids with PDA, and I think adults have always found themselves getting quite frustrated with them. And I like this lens as a way to help us all understand each other a little bit better. So, some of my understanding of this also comes from Casey Ehrlich, who has a whole program called At Peace Parents; she can be found all over the internet on Instagram and on the web. And she herself was a PDA parent, or is a parent of a PDA and is not a psychologist, but has a PhD in sort of, you know, understanding data and systems, and, you know, kind of pulling things together.

So she kind of uses her systems brain and her lived experience from figuring out how to help a kid who was pretty deep in something called PDA burnout. So the idea is that PDA is a nervous system disability where certain things can register as a genuine fight or flight emergency that just the mammalian version of the kid will work to correct over and above certain survival functions. So I'll explain exactly what I mean. So for a PDA nervous system. Um, anything that feels like a lack of autonomy or freedom, anything. So anything that might make a person feel trapped or anything that might make a person feel less than or ashamed or anything that might make a person feel out of control, right?

So, uh, being put down or being put in any sort of stance of conscription or submission is both what the vigilance of a PDA nervous system is scanning for all the time. And the hard thing with brains is that what we scan for, we will also find. So a lot of things are going to look and feel like that to a PDA nervous system. And then once there is something that looks and feels like that, the PDA nervous system is really going to go on fire and go way into fight or flight. So for example, right, PDA kids, we cannot use the adage, once they're hungry enough, they'll eat. Because eating is a very important survival drive.

However, for a PDA nervous system, the drive to essentially not be told what to do or not to have autonomy taken away and feel more important from a survival perspective, even than eating. So that's sort of the beginning of what I know and often say about PDA. Okay, great. So the first thing that I heard you say that. Is helpful to clarify because this is what I've been suspecting, knowing less about it than you, but knowing some about it. I've certainly done some reading and research about it. And I've talked with many parents who have found this framework to be incredibly validating to their lived experience with their child and then wanting to share what they're understanding with others who work with their child, of course.

So one of the things that I've noticed is that educators who are hardworking and want to make sure that they function within their training and expertise, hear something new and immediately feel like, I don't know how to do that. So I have to learn how to do that in order to know. to work with that student effectively. So I've tried to come in and say, I think this is potentially a very helpful way of understanding something that is not new. Yes. That we've all been working with quite diligently and in many ways quite effectively and perhaps in some ways not so effectively for years. And so if you have worked with children or adolescents in a public school for any length of time, I think that you have come across this and also come across some general approaches that work really well, such as inviting a child, sitting.

If you want a child to color instead of scream, sitting down and coloring and seeing if they might come and join you is going to work a lot better than 'you must stop screaming.' You may color. So, you know, offering a child two choices, it seems really important for us to move through the hall in a line because that's safe. Wondering if you might want to be at the front of the line, the middle of the line or the back of the line, or perhaps you don't want to be in the line. You want to walk with me behind the line. But we do need to sort of move through the hall in some way that feels safe. What do you think? Instead of. You are not the line leader.

It is not your day for that. That is not a choice. Like, so, and I think it's like everything, everything we've ever known about, about power struggles is really applicable in the world of PDA. Right. Right. So I think the first thing is that Parents are feeling validated because they have a sense that this is not inspired by my poor parenting skills. And that's huge. Anytime a parent can feel validated and feel like what they're experiencing is real, and that there's-and I'm always someone who wants to know what is the name for this. Right. So that's amazing. And then second of all, we don't want that to then derail educators from feeling like they. Can be competent and successful and effective in supporting that kid. And so it's both new and not new, I guess.

Yes. I would, I would call it a new way to organize what many of us were feeling instinctively already. Right. So then my second thought is, I think there are when I mean, I you you for many years and me still observe educators at work and always are admiring of of them in so many ways that I've just noticed that temperamentally there are people who work in schools that are natural and and skilled at avoiding power struggles and really supporting a young person with this kind of nervous system through the day. And there are some people who are not. Yeah. Would you agree? Yes. Although I don't think it is necessarily like hardwired. Yeah. But yes, I think; I think we see many educators at different phases of

comfort yeah with this stance because I think a helpful stance for PDA um is easy for somebody like me because I'm a little bit type B which means um I I do I actually do a little better with a little more chaos than with more rigidity So I'm a little bit type B anyway. I probably didn't even come in with that much of a plan because I have ADHD and maybe I forgot to make a plan anyway. So I'm a little bit coming in with like, let's see what happens. And my talent lies more in improvisation than it does, frankly, in making a good plan. Right. So like, yeah, I'll go ahead. So I think that's some of it, right?

Like, I think the folks who start out naturally a little more ready to work well with PDA probably did not have, were not that skillful at making a plan and thus are not that wedded to the plan to begin with, right? Whereas I think that folks who struggle to work with PDA probably were good at making a plan probably a lot better than me right probably came in with this idea for what was going to happen that's probably going to work very well for a lot of kids right but just may not work super well for a PDA or in the room and so it's it's like I don't think it's like a better or worse in any way but it's I think it does tend to be if you're really good at organization and if you're really good at thinking ahead and if you're really good at making a plan, you are vulnerable to being

way more frustrated by a PDA-er than somebody who was probably going to end up thinking on their feet that day anyway, because they aren't that great at making plans. Right. And I think what I was thinking is like, it reminds me of when in the first decade or so of my career, I had the privilege to spend quite a bit of time in a group home. Yes, you did. And in residential treatment and in residential treatment, the team of staff that works in residential has a lot more time to sit and talk to each other than you ever do in a public school. Yes. And what we would talk about is our, we would recognize our tolerances, like personal tolerances for specific things that might happen.

And we would also talk about our own kind of like. strengths and challenges. And then we would play on each other's strengths as a team, but we would also challenge ourselves to improve. It's not like, oh, I'm not going to be good at that, so therefore I won't do it. No, it's like, I'm going to work harder in that regard. But if I am knowing that I'm working harder, I might reach a point of fatigue more quickly than somebody else. And so, for example, in those first 10 years, I learned about myself that I could spend hours and hours and hours with a very grumpy teenager who is saying rather unkind things to me. Yes. That's something that are skillfully personal somehow. Yes. I just don't really burn out on that.

I find it kind of. Impressive when they can really get a good like creative new swear word or they can really like get a jab in there and I don't know why but I just can't-I don't really take it personally. I admire a little bit, you appreciate you can appreciate the artistry of it without getting mired in the personal insults, exactly however if you give me a person who is physically very bouncy And in my space, in my bubble, in a lot of abrupt kind of flailing ways, I get agitated and work really hard to maintain a calm. You know, stance. So I'm going to work really hard. And I'm going to, my tolerance for that in terms of my own like internal, like wellbeing has grown immensely over the past 20 years as a psychologist, but it is still effortful.

And I know when I'm with a young person with that presentation, work hard and then fatigue. Right. So, so I guess what I'm saying is like, if we could have this. Kind of conversation in in the world of public school, it's like if we could figure out, like, what does your temperament or your style lend well to and and where do you have endless patience and energy and then where do you not. And we're all going to work with everyone and we're all going to grow. But then what are like I don't want people to feel like that person can't work with my child or um my child can't be in these circumstances because they're a PDA, or I want us to feel like adults and kids, we're going to recognize maybe points in situations that might be harder.

And then the adult is, it's on the adult to really think about flexing their approach to work for the child more so than the child for the adult. But I guess what I'm trying to say in the end is like, there are some people who are probably going to need a bag of tricks because they're going to run out. More quickly, but I'm a little bit worried that we're getting in our effort to advocate for kids who have this presentation, we're, we're getting quickly rigid in terms of like what, what can and can't happen for them. Oh, interesting. Like, like, are you seeing like almost like specific, like PDA wide? protocols being put in place or is it more like on a team around a specific kid maybe we might say oh this person can never do a field trip or something like that right like I'm seeing um really well-intentioned advocacy result in ideas that I'm not sure I agree with for example a visual schedule is not helpful for a child with

with this profile because they need autonomy to do things when they want to do them and in the order they want to do them. And I'm sort of saying, I think a predictable schedule that's pretty consistent every day and is presented visually would be really helpful to everyone, especially someone who is vigilantly monitoring for something that might feel like it is different or are challenging their autonomy. And so I guess I, I just directly disagree with that. Like, I feel like a visual schedule is really important and also honestly, just on a practical level necessary in a public school. And is it, I just want to be sure I'm understanding the nature of the question. So like in a situation like the one you're thinking about, is the idea that there like, shouldn't be a visual schedule on the, on the wall.

Right, for anyone, because the child is going to feel like that means I have to do math at this time, and that's going to make them automatically resist doing math at that time. That's not been my professional experience, is that the visual schedule creates more stress for the child. I actually have noticed the opposite. That's really interesting. Okay, so, well, there's a few ways my brain is going about that. Um, for one, I think we get into trouble whenever we make certainly generalities about what is or isn't right for a certain group of kids. Like, if we were to say this works or won't work for every PDAer I don't think that's what's happening in this example, but you know, firstly, well, it kind of is actually, Oh, is it?

Okay. So yeah. Firstly, if you've met one PDAer you've met one PDA-er, right? Just like if you've met one autistic person, you've met one autistic person, right? There can be themes and trends and things that can help us understand the generalities of things. But then, when I am thinking about PDA, and sometimes I'll frame this as just talking about highly sensitized kids in general, but I really learned it on PDA. This is really for PDA-ers. I try to think about, okay, so if we're trying to cue nervous system safety, right. And we know that in particular, like conscription and submission or the experience of that are two things that will really shoot PDA nervous systems to the roof. Then, in my experience, we really just want to think about what could make this person feel startled?

What could make this person feel trapped? And what could make this person feel ashamed? I think those are three good guidelines. But then we have to work with each specific kid and each specific family to figure out what is going to make them in particular, though, feel startled, trapped, or shamed, right? So it sounds like the visual schedule here, the assumption is that that's going to make all PDAers feel trapped. When in fact, I think we would want to, you know, if we've identified two or three PDA-ers in a classroom. Collaboration and, and deep respect and evening out the hierarchy whenever we can. For me, that's a real tenet of what can often help PDA-ers, right? Because we just want to avoid the idea that there's anyone in a one up and a one down position.

Now. Public school is inherently very hard for many PDA-ers and some PDA-ers do have periods where they need to take a break from it, right? They might be in burnout from it for a while because no matter what we do, we can never totally take out the idea of hierarchy or the idea of we kind of are expected to do things in this order simply because frankly of like just crowd control, right? Or just the fact that there are so many people in one space. needing to move through a day, right? So we cannot always make the public school situation as devoid of have-tos, right? Or of demands as some PDA nervous systems might need at certain points in their development. But we're always in good shape, I think, in public schools.

defaulting to collaborative and proactive solutions, right. Or plan B, which is a way of, you know, really going to the kid, everyone's sitting at the table, right. Like getting the demands of, you know, maybe the school team and the school community on the table. Like, you know, here's why we're doing things in a certain order. And I can understand that might not work for you. Can you tell me more about that? You know, so I, I could imagine that for kids who do feel really trapped by a visual schedule, which I agree, I don't think would be all PDA-ers, even for those kids, right? We might be able to, in collaboration with them, help them make a meaning of it that might not feel trapping, right?

So, you know, how can we help you remember that this doesn't need to apply to you if you don't want it to, right? Or, you know, can we maybe put on your desk the same like colored bars for the visual schedule? But cut up so that you on your desk can have a very tactile and visual reminder that we actually have things set up for you, right? Whether it's through extra support or what, that you do have choice over when you do these things. We're just letting you know what you can expect as far as when you might see the rest of the group doing these things, right? So I think the guidelines of startled, trapped, or shamed.

Are very powerful for working better with PDA-ers, but I don't think we want to make assumptions that the same things would make everyone feel startled, trapped, or shamed. Yeah, that's really helpful. So one of the things I say a lot when I'm thinking about anxiety, especially for people who have had caregiver trauma or the adults that were in caregiving roles in their lives were not consistently reliable to be monitoring safety and meeting basic needs so then that can translate into students coming to school and having a template that adults might not be monitoring safety or meeting basic needs this is totally different than PDA but I'm bringing it up for a reason so this is somebody who is vigilant and challenging the the adult who's in the caregiving slash authority role, which is the teacher in the classroom and questioning a lot of things.

And because there's just not an inherent trust and like you're worrying about all the adult stuff and I just don't have to. Yes. So in that scenario, I often say that ultimately the children do want the adults to be solidly and safely in control. What I mean by that, by control, what I mean is that we are monitoring. Safety and we're worrying about all the adult things like what's the order that things should happen and that there's lunch available at lunchtime and that there's snacks available at snack time and that there's markers available for a marker activity, like all of those things are adult worries. We are doing that work predictably and reliably so that kids can move through and play and explore and create and learn.

And so when we give kids too much control because they seem to be seeking it, that actually can make them feel sometimes less safe, because like, whoa, I just challenged your, because we want teachers and adults in school to be not rigid, but like solid, stable people to push against and that will respond. When I challenge you, you will be curious and calm and allow me my own flexible path forward, but you're not going to just easily waver and completely dismantle your plan just because I challenged it. That feels scary too. So I think I talk a lot about when we're getting tested in that way, we want to be sturdy, but curious and open to the idea that maybe it wouldn't go the way that I thought, but this is And I am going to move forward with that.

And it was thoughtful. And it's ultimately my job to worry about that and make that happen. So I'm just curious now about how when I say kids ultimately want adults to be in control, I'm wondering if I need to use different words for that. Because I don't think you do want adults to be in control. That's not what I mean. Yep. I think you might mean. That kids want adults to be in control of themselves. Oh, I think that's what you're describing. And doing their job, I guess. No, actually in being confident and secure enough to handle dissent. I think that's the key there. Right. So, so both for a kid who may have no reason to trust that the adults 'quote unquote' have it. Right.

So that would be maybe somebody more with a history of trauma with like, you know adult adults who didn't have it, let's say. Right. So that's one box separate from the PDA box. Right. Which does not have a connection, very different origins. Right. Yes. But either way, we've got a kid who wants to trust an adult, right? I do think that all kids want to trust an adult. They want to look to an adult as a reliable, safe, nervous system. Yeah. Safe nervous system is language that comes up in the PDA world a lot, right? But they also may need to see that the adults don't expect to be given that trust implicitly. So I think in each of these examples, if an adult can be secure enough in themselves and both sturdy and curious, right, then when questioned or when challenged, they might be able to take a stance of, 'Oh, you are not, you're feeling like you don't know why I made this decision.

And you're, you're probably not sure if I like have made a good decision or if I like have got this. Right. So, so not like, don't question me. Right. But more of like, oh, you're wondering about why it's going the way it's going. Right. And, and then as much as possible, if we can have, you know, if we can equalize the playing field, right. Even like get, get bodies and eyes at the same height. Right. And have, have a sort of converse of sort of a conversation about. Could I share my thinking with you about, you know, about what just happened there? I'd love to hear your thinking about your worries about it. You know, like I see that you also are feeling a big responsibility to make sure the day goes right.

And I appreciate that. Right. Like I think and not to and then what we look for. There's actually like a couple's therapy term, which might seem sort of weird to apply here, but it's called like accepting influence, right? Which is that in healthy relationships, each person is able to accept influence from the other person, right? Like, oh, I didn't think of it that way. Or like, you know what? That's not a bad idea. That's changed my thinking. So I think there's a sweet spot with kids who for whatever reason are not feeling. Convinced that the adults have it and/ or are really worried about being overtaken by the adults, you know, to be like you have questions about why what you know you disagree with my thinking on this, okay?

Let let me share with you where I'm at on it. I'd love to hear from you your concerns about it right; with the sturdiness of the adult to say, 'I am prepared to hold the part of this boundary that when we distill this out, does still, to my adult mind, end up being important for like ultimate like safety and benefit to all.' But I also am going to be as creative as I can to find a way to accept some influence, to be ready to amend some part of this plan, even if it's a small part, based on what this person is bringing. And that is a really important way. Trust can only build if there's true collaboration, right? And true human-to-human respect.

And not all kids need that demonstrated so clearly, but PDA-ers really do often. I know I'm now going back on what I said, which is that you can't make blanket statements about all PDA-ers. Yeah. Well, I think we're learning how to work with a lovely, complicated group of people that all have varying needs. And so part of learning is to try to make some threads of connection. Which could look like we're saying one thing about a group of people, but it's just a thread  of connection. So this is important because I feel like what people who work in schools need is for us to say, regardless of the origin of this behavior, your response would be pretty much the same because that's what gives them a fighting chance.

And so I think like, of course, we have to have varied responses to various situations. But I think what you and I just came to is from two completely separate origins, you might have a student standing in front of you feeling very alarmed or startled because you told them a must-do. And so the reaction that you would have would be very similar in either stance. And you wouldn't even have to necessarily know where that came from. It's just like, oh, so stance of curiosity, right? It's like, oh. I'm not sure that that worked for you. Let me sit down and understand that. Or I'm going to need to get the class started on something. And then I'd like to come back and understand what just happened between us. Something like that.

Either way, right? And I'm thinking of two examples that might help us like flesh this out. So one example is a student in elementary school. All of the class is at, the carpet sitting in a circle doing a literacy lesson. The student that I was noticing, not working with directly, just noticing, so I don't really know anything about this student, but that student is in the back of the room, had been invited to come and join the circle and had declined, but was participating from the back of the room by shouting. Answers to the questions. And so an adult who was supporting that student said, 'I'm wondering if we could see better if we sat closer.' And the student said, 'I am not moving.

I am not sitting on that carpet.' And the adult said, 'Okay, I'm going to go see.' So the adult went and sat and then looked back at the student and was like, 'I can, I can see better.' And then turned back around and kept watching very And casually, the teacher threw the student a question to the back of the room, right? Like the teacher said nothing about where the student was choosing to sit, had invited him to come, he hadn't. Teacher threw a question, he answered the question from across, so they had a little back and forth of just like inclusion, right? Like, and then he came and sat with the group and seemed content and fine. Very different from you are not following directions, you must sit with us, right?

Which probably never would have worked. So that's scenario one where I felt like it was an example of how we allowed that child autonomy to sit wherever they wanted to sit and allowed that they seemed to want to participate. So they were allowed to do that in the way that worked for them. And then there was sort of a little bit of modeling and curiosity. I wonder if we could, I wonder if the reason they're on the carpet is so they can see. So I'm going to go check that out. That works. And then the other example is a student having a pretty significant explosion in the classroom of verbal words and materials on the floor, not anything that was aggressive toward another person.

So yelled a lot and a lot of items on the floor and then left. Teacher speaks to class in a pretty remarkably respectful way, honoring that person and what they need and honoring the class and what they need. And then tell student later, I. I talked to the class about you after you left. And this is what I said. And this was my intention in doing so. Students said, I do not want you to talk to me about with them about me when I am not there. And the teacher said, if it was something that we all experienced together, it is my. Responsibility to talk to the class, to make sure they maintain an understanding of you and empathy for you, and also to make sure that they're okay, because we care about you.

And that was really surprising. And I think a couple of people got startled. So it's my job to take care of you and everybody else. So it's not really a choice not to talk about it. I'm not talking about you. I'm talking about an experience that we all just had. And then I'm saying that you're a part of our community. Student was still pretty upset that teacher might do that. But in both cases, I feel like the adult was able to keep the train moving forward while being pretty open, I guess, to the autonomy that the student needed. What do you think? Yeah, for me, I think both of those. Would if we think about startled, shamed, or trapped, I think both of those would fall into maybe a mix of shame or trap, but I hear a lot of the shame thing in both.

Right. So, um, you know, there can be a lot of shame and being told that you like, didn't interpreting it as you didn't know where to sit to see better. Right. So, you know, so, you know, so a teacher, you know, being like, I'm just going to check and like, seems like it worked better for me. You make your own decision, right? It really, really takes that out. It's like, we're both just humans exploring our own visual preferences. Like I'm just going to keep you updated on mine. I trust you to know yours, right? It's, it's so easy to underestimate how quickly a person can actually be made to feel stupid. If, if given information in what, in a way that can feel pretty neutral, right. To the average educator. Right.

And so what do you think? I'm an idiot. I didn't know where to sit to see better. You know, it is, I think what it can be sometimes the inner narrative, right? So the more we can be like, you're smart, I'm smart. I don't know how to sit either. I'm just going to try this out. Right. That can take out some of that. I think, man, it is such a shameful experience inherently to be a child in a classroom who's obviously struggling with something. Yeah. And so that one. I think is really hard. I have so much empathy for the teacher and the student in that position because I would not want that student to have to be talked about. I can absolutely empathize with the massive shame that could bring up for them.

And I also really appreciate the respect and care of the teacher in keeping that kiddo updated about what was discussed, right? And also explaining compassionately why. That may have had to be discussed, but that is a really hard one. It is so inherently exposing to be the kid in class who's having big feelings. And if we don't talk about it, if we pretend that nothing just happened, then we're not influencing the narrative of the class. Right. But of course the person who doesn't want to be talked about may not see it that way. Right. So that's a really hard balance. It's like, we actually are hopefully doing our best to bump the narrative to make it. So there is an environment of more understanding and less judgment around the kid.

However, the very thing we need to do to make that happen may feel very shaming to the kids so that, you know, this is all just the, the really curious and compassionate balance of PDA and public school. Yeah. I think my big takeaway from our conversation is what you said about what, what children need and want is for the adult to be in control of themselves. Yeah. Yeah. I'm going to keep thinking about that. And I, and I, I think that's really important and that would be the case for every child in the room. Yeah. On every child in the world. That's actually a good, a good North star. I think not, not that like, not that, oh, I said this thing, but as a North star, that's not what I mean, but just like, yeah, I guess what we're coming to is kids just really need a chance to be in control of themselves, which takes a ton of regulation. Like that's not easy, but yes. Yeah. Yeah. Love it. Yeah. Thanks for talking that through with me. I think I could keep this conversation going, but I want to process what we've talked about so far. Yeah. Well, maybe, maybe we'll do a part two on PDA. Thank you for listening to another episode of Stance of Curiosity.

Listeners should always consult with a qualified mental health professional whenever needed for specific concerns or questions related to their personal situation. Stance of Curiosity is produced by Gillian Boudreau and Joelle Van Lent. Our cover art is by Erin Lanute and our music is upbeat indie folk by Twin Music. See you next time.