Supporting Autistic & PDA Children Through Holiday Season Burnout

Your autistic or PDA child isn’t “acting out” — their nervous system is asking for safety, rest, and attuned support.

In this episode of Attuned Spectrum, I explore why autistic and PDA burnout intensifies at the end of the year and what you can do right now to support your child through rising overwhelm, avoidance, shutdowns, and meltdowns. December creates a perfect storm: disrupted routines, sensory overload, rising social expectations, and the emotional intensity of the holiday season — all of which place enormous pressure on a neurodivergent nervous system.

I walk you through the real signs of autistic and PDA burnout (beyond “challenging behaviour”), why these shifts are rooted in nervous system depletion, and how burnout is often the accumulated impact of masking, school stress, and ongoing cognitive load. I share examples from my own home and the community, plus gentle, realistic shifts that can immediately reduce pressure for both you and your child.

You’ll hear practical strategies to help right now: reducing non-essential demands, increasing autonomy, protecting recovery time, adjusting routines, and using co-regulation to rebuild safety.

If you'd like scripts, deeper guidance, and a supportive space to apply these tools, you’re invited to join the FREE Attuned Parenting Foundations Course, which includes 30 days of community support inside Attuned Parenting.

💜 Join for free → chantalhewitt.com/course

Key Takeaways

• Burnout is nervous system depletion, not misbehaviour.
• End-of-year overwhelm spikes due to disrupted routines + sensory load.
• Reduced demands + increased autonomy help children regulate.
• Your co-regulation plays a central role in burnout recovery.
• Validation strengthens safety after meltdowns or shutdowns.

Chapters

• 0:02 Understanding Autistic and PDA Burnout
• 2:56 Identifying Signs of Burnout
• 5:08 Practical Strategies for Support
• 7:32 Navigating the Holiday Season
• 10:10 The Role of Parental Wellbeing
• 12:14 Creating a Supportive Environment
• 14:37 Validation and Normalization in Parenting
• 17:08 The Importance of Attunement

Transcript

Chantal Hewitt (00:00)

Does your autistic or PDA child feel more overwhelmed, avoidant, or even explosive right now? You're not imagining it. This time of year pushes their nervous system into burnout and fast.

This episode is a deeper dive into Autistic and PDA Burnout. So very different from the overview that I shared in episode four. However, if you are new to Autistic or PDA Burnout, please jump to episode four before jumping into this episode. Today, we're talking about what burnout really looks like, why it spikes at this time of year.

So if you are listening in real time, it is December, so we are coming up to the holiday season. I will offer real examples and what you can do today to reduce that cognitive load, that sensory overwhelm, that sense of not being sure for your child right now and even for yourself.

If you want scripts and step-by-step support, that is actually inside the free foundations course with 30 days of free access in the Attuned Parenting Community. If you'd like, please jump on in and grab your support spot. Head on over to shantelhewitt.com forward slash course. Cannot wait to see you inside.

First, we're going to look at what autistic and PDA burnout actually is. Essentially, burnout is nervous system depletion in your child, in yourself as well, if you are autistic or otherwise neurodivergent, and parenting your autistic or PDA or neurodivergent child.

What it looks like on the surface or on the outside is challenging behaviour defiance, meltdowns, walking on eggshells constantly throughout the home. The reason why this happens is that the demands that are placed on your child at this time of year, they actually exceed what their nervous system can manage.

But please know that this is just a season and if you are a turn to your child, which don't worry, we go over within this podcast and within the community and my free foundations course.

If you are attuned to them, then Burnett is something that you can reverse and then you can prevent moving forward. I will say though, it is quite unrealistic.

to think that we would never have moments of autistic burnout or PDA burnout in our child. The biggest reason is that our world just wasn't designed for their nervous system. And that is a really big uphill battle that we can all advocate for as the years go on. But at the moment, the biggest change and support for your child will actually be what you do every single day in the home to support their environment, to help

them recover from burnout and get that rest that their body truly needs and their nervous system.

So as I said, burnout is not challenging behaviour. It looks like challenging behaviour. And it happens when demands placed on the child just exceed what they're able to manage at the time. If you think of the autonomy that gets taken away during a holiday season or during that lead up, the routines change, the parents might be stressed out trying to get the house ready for Christmas

So PDA and Autistic Burnout, this is demands are exceeding what their nervous system can handle. So their autonomy is gone. It's very much depleted. So they're overwhelmed. They...

The things that you might see are rising levels of avoiding things that they normally would love or used to do, increased shutdowns or meltdowns, those walking on eggshell feelings, emotional reactivity that might be well and truly above what they normally react to or how they normally react.

and a skills regression. This can be in toileting, in sleep, in their eating habits, in their ability to manage school, depending on what schooling environment they're in or what age your child is. More sensory sensitivities and the way that their sensory environment may have supported them in the past may not be as supportive now.

That is a really good indication that your child is approaching burnout. If you are noticing these things and that what used to work doesn't work or doesn't work as well anymore. Big fatigue, if normally they have energy at certain times of the day and you just notice that they are absolutely drained, that is their body saying, I need rest. My nervous system needs rest.

that flexibility as well that they may have started to adapt to or that you may have found within your parenting rhythm with them and you may have been able to navigate these transitions all of a sudden or maybe over time and then all of a sudden it's kind of come up it may just feel really hard so those transitions from point A to point B ⁓ different executive functioning tests throughout the day they can feel really challenging all of a sudden.

I would like to say that I am actually hearing this so much in the last couple of weeks from the parents that I am supporting within the community as well as people in the neurodiversity space that I work in and even in my own home. My son...

we believe he's been in burnout for the last few months and I'm just really happy that we had the tools in place to acknowledge that and to put some immediate changes within our routines. So for example I absolutely removed any sort of extracurricular activities, even the ones that he enjoyed. I knew that they were draining him and he said that as well. We have reintroduced screen time which is another topic

It's quite complex in our home as I'm sure it is in many other homes but what we've done is we have introduced screen time in the morning so he knows when he gets up that's actually how he regulates himself and sometimes that is a couple hours even three hours at a time because he wakes up quite early and something that helps me because this is something that I struggle with is

I do know that it is a season and that he needs that predictability of the screen to regulate his body and we can visibly and emotionally feel it, see it within our home and how he carries on through the day that he has access to that. And we also use screens at the moment during tricky transitions. So transition from after school when they get home, coming into dinner, It also helps me to

take a breath and to calm down and to be in better space to co-regulate my child.

So if you are just tuning in, this is actually week two of an Attuned Parenting Foundation series that I am running within the community.

Part one was episode eight last week, and that was when we looked at parent wellbeing and co-regulation. So that's one of the foundational pillars of how you support your autistic or PDA child from a space of calm, and then that sustainable support that it leads to, and wellbeing for everyone in your home.

Now this week, this episode actually ties into module two of the course that I just mentioned that you have free access to in 30 days of community support.

This module is supporting your autistic or PDA child through burnout. So that nervous system overload. And I have tied this specifically into the Christmas or the holiday season, whatever that looks like for you in your home. At the end of the year, no matter where you are in the world, personally, we're in New Zealand and here we have quite a long...

holiday break over the summer months. It's funny saying summer. I'm Canadian so this actually doesn't feel like summer. I'm missing the snow which actually has quite a big impact I've realized on my regulation and how I navigate this holiday season with children who are so excited for Christmas but in my mind I just can't get into it and it's actually quite upsetting. Anyway that's a story for a different day but I guess why I've said that is

that the parent, so us as the parent, the co-regulator, we have so much going on as well and it is so important that we have strategies in place to separate those things. It does not mean that how you are feeling and how you are supporting yourself or need to support yourself isn't valid. It 100 % is valid. Everything that you feel is valid. The difference though is that we have to be able to separate it to see what's going on with our child. So we can support us while supporting them

but it's really tricky and we have to make sure that we're not allowing that impact of how we're feeling to then carry over to our child. And that does happen often when we're dysregulated. I know it's very unrealistic to think that that will never happen, but the idea is that we put strategies in place to support you as the parent in order to be able to co-regulate with your child and make sure that when you show up to support them, you are able to separate those things.

And I promise you, if you are not able to separate those things, they will be impacted by that. If you need more on that module, please head over to the previous episode, episode eight. That's where we look at parent wellbeing and co-regulation.

Okay, I'm just gonna walk you through a really quick story of what has happened ⁓ over the last seven days in our household. I took the Christmas tree out of storage. That was a mistake because then it was visible to my son and he could see that it was there. He knew when to expect that it was going up, but because it was already in his mind that it was visibly there, even if I put it back, I couldn't erase that. So there was, unfortunately,

and in hindsight, I wouldn't have done that.

We were actually unable as a family to come together and set up that tree at the time that he wanted to. And the fact that he had to see it all week, I could see the burnout increasing, his anxiety coming in, his anticipation. So that's where we just jumped in and gave as much autonomy as possible. He's still finishing up his last week at school right now before the holidays. So I do know that that creates a lot of demand as well. So it is so important if you feel like your child is approaching burnout this holiday season.

what can you do to reduce those demands? Reduction of demands, increase autonomy, see where you can lighten your load so you are less stressed and then you are able to support them in whatever way that they need. So very child led here and of course this

may end up leading to a lot of stress and egg shells for other children that you have within the home or your partner or anyone else that is invited into your space. So if you are struggling this holiday season, you are not alone. I will say that you are not alone, but I would love for you to remember and hold onto that this is a season.

The holiday seasons are hard for autistic and PDA children. The reason being is that they are so overwhelmed in their nervous system. They have lack of routines, school holidays are approaching.

their safety and their autonomy that they have kind of built up or that you've supported them to build up within their day to day, those things are ending. And it doesn't mean that there isn't another way, but if you were able to prepare yourself before things get really intense, that is where you will lessen burnout and support it before it gets pretty deep into those feelings of full exhaustion and...

fluctuation or extreme fluctuation in moods and then you can actually put some different routines in place that are led by your child if they're autistic or PDA autistic which is really helpful that increases their autonomy and their control in this situation.

But I think at the end of the day, one of the best things that has helped myself and that I work to coach other parents who are in this situation is that we need to set different baseline expectations. We really have to realize that the challenging behaviour that is coming up, it is because they are in burnout or they are approaching burnout. And it is our job to reset our expectations, let some things go and redefine what support and rest looks like for our autistic child

during this holiday season and our family and if you are struggling as well just be easy on yourself it is a hard time of year and that stress does feed into their nervous system as well.

Okay, so things that actually help. So practical things that you can do today. Number one, we just talked over reducing non-essential demands. You could ask yourself, is this necessary today? Is it necessary this week? Will it add more cognitive load and increase burnout in my child? School pressures, can you let some of that go? Can you speak to a teacher and really work together? Side note at the end of the day, as compulsory as school is,

If your child is unwell in their mental well-being and how their nervous system is showing up, you can take them out of school. You can remove them a little bit early for the holidays. You can give them that break that they need. So please, if you are feeling that, know that you can trust that instinct and that is your role, but also you are allowed to do that to support your child. You know them best. All of these things are negotiable.

Number two, can you increase autonomy everywhere you can? For example, can we adjust some bedtime routines or morning routines? Have different expectations around eating. Maybe it's a different space for eating. Maybe it's the lounge. Maybe it's in their room, obviously with supervision, depending on how your child is or your safety responses there.

Can you loosen routines that you are restricted by as much as possible? Or where possible I should say because we don't want to also put that on to you because you are already caring a lot as the parent. So there's a lot of balance here.

Number four, can we protect that recovery time? Low sensory, what environments need to be changed? How can we change the environment to support the child? Even though the Christmas lights might be so cool for you to look at or for your other child, is it overstimulating maybe for your autistic child? Is that setting them off? That's just an example there because I was staring over at my Christmas tree.

that co-regulation mindset shift. So again, bringing back that first foundational pillar, this is number five. Remind yourself how much your regulation will influence their nervous system. That is so important.

You don't have to fix these moments of meltdown or anxiety, but what your child needs is for you to be there for them in present and assuring them in those moments. Yes, even if they are full on melting down, again, jump back into the previous episode or jump on over to chantalhewitt.com/course I go so deep into this and you have 30 days access to the Attuned Parenting Community for extra support as you implement these changes.

I'd like to end this episode just by talking about how important that validation and normalization is when you are approaching these tricky, challenging behaviours with your child. Because a lot of the times they aren't aware of what's just happened, especially if something was quite aggressive or their meltdown is really intense, they're quite exhausted.

you can say things to them that help to validate that how they just acted was okay and that their nervous system was really overwhelmed. You can say those words obviously depending on how old your child is. For example my child is five and a half and I use...

nervous system, I use autism, I use PDA, we talk about how much he loves and needs autonomy and control over his day and that that's okay. And we just bring it back to the value within our home that we have made, you know, amongst everyone of

that we want everyone to have this access to autonomy. We know it supports our nervous system, especially mine, I'm PDA as well, and my son's. However, we need to make sure that the choices that we are making around our autonomy and control aren't harming the other people in our home. So that's kind of the lens that we look at it through. We still come into...

challenges with that. However, that is something that we have put in place as a value and a boundary that we stick to and that is really important to our family.

Please remember that this is a season, just like it is the holiday season, seasons change and burnout will change if your child has the right attuned support. So your attunement and ability to co-regulate and understand what burnout looks like for your child is so important. And something that I actually didn't say at the beginning. yeah, jump into episode four if you want a like more of a base breakdown, but burnout

is something that doesn't just happen overnight. It is an accumulative nervous system overload. So it's not just one little thing or this little thing. It's the fact that they have been at school masking all year round. Even if they're happy at school, they're masking and it is exhausting, speaking from experience, exhausting emotionally to mask your autistic or PDA traits

in order to fit in. So that is exhausting for them. It is a whole year of that. It is also the changes within the environment, within the holiday season, the anticipation of the presence of parents maybe taking some time off work, of different schedules, of routines ending, of appointments stopping. Those things all make a change. In autistic or PDA burnout, it...

normally something that's categorized or explained by three months of these symptoms or these traits that you're seeing. So even though you might be getting the blow up of it right now or in the last couple of weeks, it could actually be if you look back that that burnout was actually existing months before and this is kind of that big almost explosion or finale that you were seeing and just the most important

point here is just being attuned to your child. It honestly matters more than any other strategy. How can you slow yourself down? How can you support their environment? How can you communicate with them in a way that makes sense to them? What burnout is and that how they're feeling and how they're acting is okay. And obviously if there are some

behaviours that aren't okay then that's different and you do have to look at that in a different way which by the way in the community we can also help you navigate that.

And finally, to end this episode, thank you for joining Atoned Spectrum Podcast, episode nine.

Again, I would love to invite you to jump on into the free Attuned Parenting Foundations course where we actually unpack three different foundational modules. This is actually module two, kind of summed up in 20 minutes or so. You also get 30 days access inside the community where parents are walking this exact journey, possibly at different stages with children of different ages, but it is all so relevant and helpful to hear from one another. I am also active in that community multiple times a day.

That is my main happy place throughout the day. I love supporting families in whatever way I can and also building community. So at the moment I'm quite active trying to engage with members as they are there and also meeting people where they're at knowing that they might not be in a space to connect with other people right now but just taking that step and maybe learning from the course that's there.

Lots of videos, really applicable. You can pop in your earbuds and just listen as you go. I hope to see you inside again, chantalhewitt.com/course You can also click the link down below in the show notes.

Please know that you are doing probably so much better than you think that you are. And your presence, not perfection, is what will support your child in burnout, through their challenging meltdowns, and to recover.

I will see you next week as we unpack the third foundational pillar which is sensory supportive environments.