PDA Autism Parenting: Co-Regulation Explained with Low-Demand Parenting and Nervous-System Safety

If you’ve tried autism parenting tips that aren’t moving the needle, this episode brings you back to your own nervous system as the missing piece. I share real examples of how to co-regulate through meltdowns and a four-step co-regulation framework—Pause, Observe, Connect, Support—that helps PDA and PDA autistic children move through meltdowns with safety and autonomy. Learn why nervous-system safety and low-demand parenting are the keys to long-term wellbeing.

What you’ll hear in this episode

• Your nervous system as your child’s most powerful co-regulator: why the parent’s regulation matters above all else
• Mirror neurons and wellbeing: how your child’s nervous system mirrors yours and what that means for daily moments
• The four-step framework to shift from trigger to co-regulator: Pause → Observe → Connect → Support
• What lies beneath the behavior: moving from behavior-focused ideas to understanding the nervous system and safety
• Practical links to low-demand parenting, nervous-system safety, and caregiver regulation to support PDA-autistic children

Key takeaways

• You are the primary environment your PDA-autistic child experiences; your nervous system safety is foundational to their wellbeing.
• Co-regulation is a practice you embody, not something you “switch on” in the moment.
• Focus on what’s happening beneath behavior (autonomy, safety, and nervous-system safety) to reduce power struggles and build trust.

🔗 RESOURCES MENTIONED:

My 4-Step Approach (simplified!)
Special Co-regulation gift! x

Explore these topics on your favorite player:

• ⚡ Regulation & Safety: Understand why PDA is a Nervous System Response here.
• 🗣️ PDA Foundations: Master the shift to Declarative Language & Safety here.
• 🏫 Education & Advocacy: Navigating masking and

Transcript

Chantal Hewitt (00:00)

If you feel like you have been doing everything right, the gentle parenting, the low demand lifestyle approach, yet your home still feels like the last place you want to be in. I understand because I've been there and sometimes still am there. But do you know that we aren't having the conversations that will shift this forward? In this video, I am breaking down my four step framework that will actually make the difference in moving your family from

burnout through to relief.

you feel like everything you've been doing to support your PDA Autistic Child isn't working or has stopped working and you've taken many steps back, I'm here to tell you that you are not failing, but you do not yet have a proven framework that will help you co-regulate with your Autistic and PDA child. Stick around until the end because I have an extra special co-regulation tool for you.

There's a hidden layer to PDA parenting that nobody talks about. And these are conversations that we need to be having. I am unpacking my four-step framework that actually produces support for your autistic child, your PDA autistic child through their meltdowns, through their shutdowns, through those big explosive moments. And guess what?

The biggest shift in your parenting, it starts with you. Any strategy that you try will never be sustainable until you nail this specific one.

By the end of this episode, you will have my four step framework and an actual roadmap forward that will support your PDA or PDA Autistic Child and yourself and the rest of the family members in your home. I want you to move into a space where you enjoy parenting again. Let's dive in.

Okay, so before we get into the science around PDA and our nervous systems and that aspect of co-regulation, I need you to do one thing. Head on over to shantelhuit.com forward slash approach.

This is a very simple four step approach that I use daily. You can screenshot it, put it on your phone. It will help remind you and support you in those challenging moments. Once you have this, this video will make so much more sense. Stick around until the end

I have an extra special giveaway for you that I'm not putting within the description. So I hope that you follow along.

conversation that we need to be having has nothing to do with traditional behavior focused parenting advice. It has nothing to do with adjusting the behavior in your child. Yes, that is usually a very nice outcome because the behavior is what is really intense in things that we're struggling with. But in order to shift that behavior, we have to look at what is happening beneath that behavior. What is happening within your child's nervous system?

PDA, pathological demand avoidance. someone with this neurotype perceives, and I'm speaking from my own experience, I am PDA as well.

A PDAer perceives threat on such a higher level than a non-PDAer or a non-autistic PDAer, non-neurodivergent person. In our parenting, if we stick to behavioral methods, things that focus on pressure, on this or that, on compliance,

What we're doing is we are covering up what is happening underneath or within your child's nervous system. What we have to do is we need to take a huge step back and start rebuilding this foundation. I call it foundation one in the parenting approach that I use as well as what I teach within my raising PDA community.

What is really important to know if you're thinking, what is co-regulation? How do I co-regulate my PDA child or with my PDA autistic child? What it means is that the focus isn't on emotional regulation within themselves because they are not able to do that when they are in meltdown, when their nervous system is overloaded, is overwhelmed.

when there's so much pressure, perceived demands, threats to their autonomy, lack of control, what actually happens is they are in survival mode. Their brain is in survival. They genuinely believe that there is a threat. That is what is perceived and that is so true to their being. And when we use approaches that don't align with nervous system safety, connection, attachment between

the primary parent or the primary co-regulator and the child, then there will be a lot of steps back and very few steps forward.

but in order to co-regulate, we have to look at the neuroscience behind this. You cannot fake your way into being calm as a parent. And PDA parenting isn't just something that you can switch to in the moment because that's not sustainable. It needs to be something that you embody, that you embed, that you practice because your child will not just need this right now. They will need this for the rest.

of their childhood as they grow, they will need similar strategies in their adulthood as well.

there will obviously be some shifts as they grow and as they develop, but essentially everything comes back to nervous systems and nervous system safety. And here is where you come in. This is super important. If you are not regulated in your nervous system, your child will mirror that intensity or that feeling of bracing. If you have a clenched jaw, if you were yelling,

I'm one of those. go from zero to 60 very, very quickly because I experience a lot of sensory overload.

So if you are one of those parents, you are also not alone. But whether you are neurodivergent or not, whether you have sensory sensitivities or sensory differences that affect your parenting, you need to be in tune with your nervous system. If you are overwhelmed, if you are reacting without pausing to see what your child needs, what their nervous system needs, then it is very likely that you

will be working in circles and you will not be shifting forward. So to break down this neuroscience, I am going to draw you a very simple diagram.

Okay, by the way I am NOT an art major.

I'm a teacher and this is how I like to explain things. So this is your child. I'm going to give them quite a sad face because usually in the meltdown, they are quite sad. They're feeling lots of feelings. Sad is one of them. And then on the other side, you have you. I will draw you as a little bit bigger because I'm assuming that being a parent you are a little bit bigger than they are. And maybe you're not, I'm not sure. But anyway, here's my drawing. And I actually don't know why.

This face is happy that should be sad as well or something. You were feeling something in that moment. Me personally, I brace myself. There's apprehension. I get so tense. I don't even know how to think clearly in those moments. And that my friends is where my four-step framework is really helpful. Promise we will get into that in a minute. The science is also really important. So you understand why we need this framework. Sad child.

having a meltdown, they're confused. What traditional parenting would say is,

Let's teach them independence, how to self-regulate. So that's the difference. How to be in control of their emotions. However, they actually cannot do that within their brain. Apparently that's a brain. They can't do that without you. You are so important because they look to you. The neurons within your brain, in their brain, they mirror each other.

They're looking to you for trust and for safety and for connection in these moments. That does not take away from the feelings that you might be feeling in those moments, but those are separate things. So yes, you can be super angry at the situation. You could be super angry at your child, but we need to pause,

to a space of being regulated in order to help our child who feeds off of that connection with us, whose neurons will mirror ours. If they feel unsafe, if they don't feel like they can trust us in that moment, there is very little chance that we will be successful with co-regulating them. Things will...

come full circle so much faster if you focus on your own nervous system. Okay?

I will jump in though and say, if at any time...

your child, yourself, the other children that you have, other family members in your home, if they are not physically safe, then this also won't work. So you will need to prioritize that. If something really heavy is being thrown across the room, that is priority number one. We're not going to get into that. So at the moment, we are assuming that nothing physically, or nobody physically is in danger, but there is a huge meltdown happening due to a loss of autonomy.

whether that is screaming, whether that is lashing out, whether that is... even if it is things being thrown but everyone is physically safe. So this approach still works with it. Okay, I hope that makes sense and I do apologize for that drawing. I hope I get better at them.

Okay, so in this approach we have four steps. Step one.

this wasn't already clear, it has to do with you. Step one is pause.

What pause allows us to do is it allows us as parents to check ourselves before we go into reaction.

whether it is something physical that you have to do like a cue, like do you have to pinch yourself? Do you have to repeat maybe a mantra or something in your mind or even out loud that reminds you me? Am I okay? Do I need extra support right now? Am I going to, in my experience, go from zero to 60 very quickly and make things worse? For me in my parenting,

If I ask myself that and the answer is yes and I can see myself escalating and getting really agitated at my child who's already feeling very unsafe in his nervous system in that moment, then it is actually a better option for me to just stop and walk away. I don't even need to say anything. You could say something, but usually what happens is if you say a lot in those moments of overwhelm with your PDA child or your autistic child, it does make things worse.

You will know your child best, so you will use your judgment on that one.

Once you have paused, once you can gather yourself, whether that is calming yourself down, maybe you need to do some deep breathing, maybe you're a fidgeter and you need to do something with your hands or you need to jump or you need to go for a walk. Go for a walk is probably a bit of a stretch if you were in the middle of a meltdown, but there are a lot of things that you can brainstorm that will support you and then support your child when this is happening.

Once you have paused, have checked yourself, your nervous system is, yep, A-okay or A-okay enough to not be reactive and instead respond in a way that is going to support your child's safety and their nervous system in that moment, then you can move on to step two.

Step two.

Observe.

Can we observe what is triggering our child in this moment? Where were there losses of autonomy? Whether that was just in the last 20 minutes or five minutes or 10 minutes. Was it an event from the day before? Is there a lot happening this week? And this doesn't mean you need to sit there with a notebook and start writing out a bunch of things, but it's just kind of taking inventory of what has just happened or what has kind of led up or accumulated within your child.

I'll give you an example. This morning, my child woke up, he wakes up really early, so I get up with him and something was off in our lounge this morning. I think it was the TV remote wasn't in the same spot that it normally is or he ended up wanting to help me with making my coffee, which he also loves and it was spontaneous for him. So we did that. But then what happened is that kind of threw everything off. So for him, everything that was happening,

even if normally he'd be able to cope. So for example, his brother getting up or his sister coming in from upstairs or him needing to wait while I went and changed her nappy. Those things started triggering him and his loss of autonomy because he didn't have me in those moments. He didn't have what he needed. So when I went through this framework, step two this morning, when he went into a massive meltdown, when I asked if, you know, or suggested

it's time to head to school, let's head down to the bathroom because we'll brush our teeth. And when I checked in and saw how overwhelmed he was and him going into full-blown meltdown, that is when, so I did, I checked myself, I used step one, did that, I was in a space. Step two was what's just happened. So in my head I went, okay, this is a bit different, this is a bit different, yep, okay, maybe that's why.

You don't need to talk to them about it if it's going to overwhelm them. So the point of step two of observing is just so you can understand the lead up to it because that will be really beneficial for you when you have a moment when your child is regulated later because they might reference it or you may want to reference it if they're okay with that. You also don't have to. It just is information. It helps you understand what loss of autonomy they had.

And if there were repeated losses of autonomy for them, you also know, okay, when I move on to step four, which we'll get to, because step three will come next, then you know for step four, what you need to do. So stick around for step four as well.

Step three. Connect.

When we connect with our child who is in meltdown, who's super dysregulated, it is really challenging. And a lot of the times they may push you away. That is okay. What I find with my child is, and all children are different, your child will be extremely different possibly than what I'm saying. However, there are a lot of similarities with PDA, even though it is a spectrum. My child needs me so badly.

and intensely in those moments to help him co-regulate. He needs me to sit near him even if he's screaming and kicking at me to go away. I usually just say do you want me here or do you want space? And sometimes I even just say here or space or sometimes we kind of have this sign language that we've kind of created together and I can read him and I know that you are turned with your child and you may have your own kind of communication method like that as well.

when you connect with your child, that does not necessarily mean that you need to speak. It could be that you are near them. It could be that they know that your presence is there waiting for them for when they're ready. It could look like not rushing them. Yes, I know that can be really hard, especially in the mornings. That's a whole other topic. But if it's possible, try to lower expectation, lower demands. Don't rush.

I personally, I'm autistic, so when things change in our morning, it can overwhelm me a lot. I also hate being late. And a lot of the times managing three children under five who are neurodivergent, we're late a lot. And there are a lot of things that I need to do to lower that expectation. Something that helps me is if I know I'm going to be late.

If there's someone that I can message, that is usually really helpful. So they kind of know in advance that this is my situation at home. If I'm going through something just to calm me in those moments, I will whip out my phone and just go big meltdown at home or running late, be there when I can. Might not work for every situation. I'm just sharing that because I know that a lot of families that I work with, they struggle with mornings and they struggle.

when they have to rush their child. But the biggest takeaway here is that if you rush your child, especially one who's trying to recover from a meltdown,

it's going to make things worse a lot of the time. Whether you can externally see that it has made things worse or internally, they may hold onto that mask and then have this huge afterschool or if they're not at school yet, just collapse throughout the day or later on if they've been suppressing that. So just keep that in mind.

Okay, was that kind of simple so far? There's one more step.

Step four.

This is support. Obviously, steps one, two and three indirectly are supporting your child. But what I'm getting at here with supporting your child is, and this is also normally when they have calmed down a little bit. So their mouth down is kind of that peak and then they've they've ended or they're coming out of that peak. So you can normally start to have a little bit of a conversation with them if they're speaking, if they have limited language, less language or if they're non speaking.

child or autistic child, PDAer, then you will be able to read your child and know when they're in a space to communicate again. And allowing your child to lead that, if possible, in that unrest environment is really helpful because then they regain that autonomy, regain that control, and then that trust is there. They feel safer. So their nervous system, it calms down and it mirrors yours.

So when I talk about support, I really look at low demand and having very few expectations, literally none if I can, because I'm trying to increase my child's autonomy after his meltdown. I'm trying to give as much control as possible. I'm trying to reduce pressure for him so he can feel safe again.

We don't need to have a lecture. We don't need to have this huge conversation about what he did because if your child's PDA and if they have this huge meltdown, you know why they've done what they've done. Yes, if there was a huge incident where somebody was hurt or the other day I was kicked and I'm not okay with that, but I do know that if I'm dysregulated in that moment as my child, I need to just say nothing and stop.

and step away. Later, when I knew my child was regulated, normally kind of before bed when we have our connecting as I'm putting him to sleep, that's when he might bring something up or I might just kind of test the waters and just see how he was and how he's kind of recovered from that. And it's kind of quite later on in like sustaining this approach, but I do just want to mention that, that it's not about giving in, it's about giving them what they need to feel safe.

So if I'm checking in with my child after their meltdown and if he says, I just need this food, then I say, yep, that's great. I'll go grab that for you.

Okay, that's it. That's my framework. That's the approach. It works. It is simple, but it is effective. If you haven't, head on over to shantelhuit.com forward slash approach, grab that PDF, take a screenshot and keep it on your phone. And if you stuck around until the end, thank you very much because for you, you can also head on over to shantelhuit.com.

forward slash audio.

If you are someone who struggles with step one, so with the foundation of your nervous system and supporting yourself and you are overwhelmed, I have created a 10 minute calm parenting audio. And what that is, is it's something that you can just download, keep on your phone, put your earbuds in if you're experiencing a lot of overwhelm and it will help connect you back with your body, ground you.

and allow you to be that incredible co-regulator for your child that they need.