Low Demand Parenting Boundaries That Finally Feel Doable (PDA + Autism)

Autistic burnout + boundaries feel impossible with a PDA child. Low-demand parenting helps you choose what to keep, change, or drop to support your PDA, Autistic and / or neurodivergent child's capacity.

Who this is for

Parents of autistic and PDA autistic children who are exhausted, second-guessing boundaries, and trying to support a nervous system with low capacity, sustainably.

What you’ll learn

• How autistic burnout affects capacity (and why “normal expectations” can suddenly be too much) and that that's okay
• Why boundaries can feel like threats for PDA nervous systems
• How to identify the value underneath a boundary (connection, safety, nourishment, wellbeing)
• A simple framework for determining your family's necessary boundaries during burnout seasons
• How to reduce demands while increasing autonomy without losing steadiness as a parent

Key moments / chapters

• 00:00 Low demand parenting for burnout relief: keep/change/drop boundaries
• 01:02 Download the Low Demand Boundaries Workbook + waitlist
• 01:49 Why boundaries backfire for PDA kids (burnout cycle)
• 02:33 Flexible boundaries for fluctuating nervous systems + family values
• 03:33 Is your child in autistic/PDA burnout? Signs + timeframe
• 04:30 Burnout isn’t bad behaviour: nervous system + decreased capacity
• 05:11 Values-based boundaries: keep vs drop + the “why” underneath
• 08:17 Collaboration over “because I said so” (how buy-in reduces stress)
• 10:35 When boundaries become demands: threat response + escalation
• 11:22 Dinner table example: value underneath (connection vs compliance)
• 15:30 Keep the value, change the method (lower demand alternatives)
• 19:20 Small next step: choose what you’ll do instead
• 20:16 Next episode: PDA North America + PDA Experience Report

Resources mentioned

• Low Demand Boundaries Workbook: chantalhewitt.com/values
• Raising PDA waitlist: chantalhewitt.com/waitlist

Transcript

Chantal Hewitt (00:00)

Are you constantly second guessing boundaries because everything feels like a demand right now within your home, within your child and within you, especially if your autistic or PDA child is in burnout. In this episode, I'm going to walk you through a low demand parenting approach that helps you decide which boundaries to keep, which to change and which to drop by anchoring everything to your specific family values and everyone's

capacity.

I invite you to pause and download my free Low Demand Boundaries workbook at chantalhewitt.com/values This is essential if you want to follow along as we go through this episode. And if during this episode you're going through this workbook and you are wanting that deeper support, I do also invite you to join the Raising PDA Community Waitlist. Head on over to chantalhewitt.com/waitlist

I will also put that link in the show notes for you.

The doors are opening soon,

So if you are interested, click the link within the show notes, get on the wait list, and over the next week, you will see the value that is hidden within this coaching community.

in order to understand boundaries and which boundaries are essential to support how you navigate parenting, your PDA, your pathologically demand avoidant or persistent drive for autonomy or otherwise neurodivergent autistic child, wherever your child falls, if you are noticing that boundaries are extremely challenging,

Within PDA children, they often are, and a lot of the approaches that we have been historically told to use actually backfire. And what this does is this creates this burnout cycle and families actually are quite minimized as they begin to navigate or try to navigate without the correct tools to support them.

In the last episode, we spoke about why boundaries are so important for healthy attachment with your child, trust, security and safety, but perhaps not in the traditional sense. And what I mean by that is that we can have rules, but we also can have boundaries and they do not need to be rigid or strict in order to successfully support our neurodivergent child or our PDA child.

whose nervous system capacity fluctuates consistently throughout the day, throughout the week, throughout the months. It is so important that we understand how to approach boundary setting in a way that honors our child's nervous system differences, as well as in a way that honors our family values. And the key here as well is that

It is honoring your family values, not society's family values or what society is telling you your values need to be based upon.

within your workbook on the first page, it is essential that you look at establishing if your child is in burnout. So.

If we think back to, or you can head back over to episode four, which talks about autistic burnout in your child. will link that in the show notes below. If you'd like to head back to that, if you are happy just looking through the workbook, you might notice signs of increased fatigue capacity being so, so much lower than it normally is. Everyday demands feel extra hard. You might notice.

regressions in learning for your child in their routines, in how they navigate their day to day. And within autistic and PDA burnout, this is usually happening for about three months. It isn't something that you've just noticed in the last week. So if you're considering is my PDA or in burnout, if you can point this to a pattern of months around three months at a time, then yes, perhaps they are.

in autistic and PDA burnout, normal expectations can actually become way too much. Please know that this is not bad behavior. And I will quote that it's not bad behavior. This is their nervous system responding to decreased capacity. So it is a nervous system, lack of support issue here. It isn't

how they are responding behaviorally. You're seeing that on the outside, but it's about what they are internalizing within and then how that is showing up. And a lot of the times that does come from burnout. A lot of families, they do wonder, well, how do I actually set a boundary with my child who is in burnout? And what that comes back to is understanding your family's unique values and which boundaries you'd like to keep, which ones are important to you.

which ones you may need to drop, and then really understanding the why behind putting a boundary in place. In this episode, we will walk through how to understand what your core family values are, and then how to match why your boundaries are put in place. If you have your boundaries, and within the workbook, you can list the boundaries and work through your values together as a family.

and find meaningful boundaries that match to your family values.

Within each boundary, you will begin asking yourself, is this necessary to put in place for my child? Is it linking or supporting a value that our family has? And your values will be different than a friend that you chat with, whether they have a neurodivergent or PDA or autistic child compared to another family down the street. It is okay.

that you have different family values. So I do just want to say that it is so important that you do not compare your family and what you need to somebody else's because that is where things get a little bit muddled, a little bit messed up. And then what happens is you are forcing somebody else's reality or thinking or societal expectation on your child and their nervous system and your unique

values within your home and the capacity of your family, which will be at a different space than the person who you are comparing yourself to.

And as we talk about understanding how to set boundaries and we're looking at burnout and a child who is PDA, pathologically demand avoidant, it is about capacity. Their capacity when they are in burnout is shot. It's gone and it will take quite some time to build that backup because it is an accumulation of events over time, whether that is months, perhaps even years.

but situations upon situations that have contributed to this burnout. So it will take time. And this may be a season. If your child is in burnout or you feel like they are in burnout, your boundaries will most likely need to be extremely minimal and focused on your deepest and main family values. For example, when my son was in burnout, we had to come back

to the value of safety and let everything else go. But more about that later on in this episode.

for healthy development in all children, they do require safety and trust from themselves to their primary caregiver. They need to know that there are limits to acceptable behavior. Of course, they need to know that. They also need to know that they can trust the person. So yourself, if you are the one listening, you're most likely that person to put in place boundaries that protect your child. But.

boundaries do not necessarily need to be superstrict and they do not need to be coming from a place of I'm the parent because I said so. It should be coming from the place, especially with a PDA nervous system. So you're really trying to balance their anxiety response, how to collaborate with them, how to support their nervous system needs, how to reduce demands and increase autonomy for your child.

And sometimes I get asked as well, shouldn't the rules and boundaries just be made by the parents and literally because they said so. And I would argue no, because any child would like to feel like they do have control and that they do understand what's going on. No matter how old your child is. And instead of generalizing, I should say kind of maybe two, two and a half, three onwards.

But either way, you are able to adapt how you explain to your child when you're putting a rule in place or a boundary in place. And it can have that understanding or that backing behind it when they ask why they can't do something of, well, this is why it's important that we have this boundary in place. And if you are able to answer that for your PDA child in a way that aligns back to a family value opposed to, well, because I don't like that you do that.

or because that's not good for you. The child's actually asking, your child will be asking because they're interested in knowing why. They're living in a world where adults dictate everything that they do for the most part. The schools that they go to, the meals that they eat, the toys that they have in their home, when people can come over and play with them, all of those things, even if they have choices within that, they do when we really look at it.

have a lot less control. So if we can collaborate and help them understand why we need to put a boundary in place and what value that actually leads to or supports for that boundary, then they will have so much more input and buy-in into that process, which will support how in control they feel and will support that collaboration aspect. And if they are PDA and need that

control and they have that drive for autonomy, it should significantly help if they are in burnout to lower their stress response.

If boundaries that are put in place are really strict for a PDA child or feel really constricting, there's this dilemma. And that is that within PDA families, for a PDA child, a boundary will feel like a demand. Their threat response increases. And the more that you try to enforce the boundary, then their

equity that they feel and their autonomy will lower and then that escalation and disconnection will just continue to happen. And please know that this doesn't mean that you cannot have boundaries in place. Children need boundaries, but it is very helpful for a child to understand where the boundary is coming from. I will give you an example of how we navigate setting boundaries within our family and one

that I love to use because I think it really gives this understanding of.

why we have this boundary in place and what it actually means is it something that we want to keep is it something that we want to drop right now and who's it actually for who is it serving and it is okay if it was serving the family at one point and now it may not be but i will use coming to the dinner table because i do hear this a lot and

when I ask parents why, so they tell me that they struggle with having their child, their PDA child come eat dinner with them at a specific time. If you look at that from a PDA perspective, that is the increased demand of you have to transition from what you're doing to coming to sit down at the table. They, even if they love the food, even if they have chosen the food, that demand to be there.

outside of their control, outside of their autonomy, that is a lot, that is another demand. Then there is the demand of coming together, perhaps having a conversation about their day. It could be really challenging that they have just come home from school or recently come home from school and are trying to maybe unmask or decompress from that.

So here, if your child is struggling to come to the table, but if the boundary or the rule is put in place of my child needs to be sitting at the table, I would ask, or you can ask yourself, no matter what boundary it is that you're working with, what is my why? What is the intention behind this boundary? And then look at if it is serving your child's nervous system or is it serving the control of the parent?

And then that gives you an indication on where this boundary might sit within the categories of we keep this boundary, we drop this boundary, or you may create a new boundary instead of this one. For this dinner table example, you could have the value. So it could be coming back to the value of.

We have a boundary in place of our child needs to be sitting at the table at five o'clock or five 30 for dinner every day. And if I ask you why, and you say, well, because they need to eat. That's valid. Is it because you want to keep their bodies healthy? Is it because you want to chat with them and see how their day was maybe to check in on them? Is it because you want to have a conversation with everyone and then foster that connection with your family? So there are.

actual values that could be hidden with underneath these boundaries and once we unpack those then it'll be really crystal clear on if this boundary is one that you do want to keep, want to adjust, want to let go of. If we look to coming to the dinner table

I used to have this boundary and it was something that we really had to be flexible with and it was something that we had to adapt. My value underneath that was that I wanted connection and to check in on everyone and to have that whole dinner table conversation, which society has kind of programmed my brain and a lot of other parents in my community circle to think that that's what we need to do.

And when that doesn't happen, it became something that I tried to force. But then what happened is I was forcing compliance on my child, but the boundary wasn't adding up to our family value of supporting family connection or strengthening our child's wellbeing. It was actually doing the opposite. It was sending him into fight or flight. He was taking so long to transition. He would become overtired.

really hungry and then outright refused everything and his whole evening was just a series of panic and meltdowns. So this example, my why behind the value, our family value was connection and I very quickly realized that this boundary was not supporting that

really meaningful family value was actually stressing myself out, stressing out our other children and my husband. And it was pushing our son deeper into burnout because he did not have control. He did not have autonomy and his wellbeing wasn't optimized in those moments. And those aren't just one-offs because that was something every single day we were trying to eat dinner together every single day.

What I did instead was once I got super clear on the fact that it was connection that I was after with my whole family, I realized that it did not have to be at the dinner table. And I started focusing on other places where I could increase my child's autonomy and our families that supported connection. Was it going to the swimming pool on a Sunday morning that was led by the autonomy of our son, our PDA son?

was it that he got to choose dessert that night or a treat that night. So very quickly we realized that his discomfort and demand avoidance and the anxiety that that caused day after day because I was forcing connection or trying to, but really it was forcing compliance.

That is just one example and I really hope that you can use that example to unpack which boundaries you may be struggling with and to understand if they are based on true family value intentions and why they are there, if they need to stay, if they need to be dropped or let go of, or if it's something that you just need to work with and adjust and then collaborate with your child.

And when you've decided which boundaries are essential to keep, and there's no magic number, it's whatever works for you right now, within the free workbook, you have space to keep track of or delete or come back to things, even if they are values or boundaries that you want to eventually have in place, but maybe at the moment you need to drop and that is okay. It is so important that you focus on

why something is a value and keep asking yourself why. It needs to be meaningful and it should be a collaborative value that the whole family understands on some level. It should support the capacity of your PDA child. It should also support the capacity of the parents and the co-regulators of that child or of your child.

If you are looking to change or alter a boundary, think of lower demand ways or lower demand versions of that boundary that still supports your family value. If we go back to the dinner example, we completely dropped the need for the time and the sitting at the table part. What we did instead was we talked about connection and how we could support

that within our family and turns out it was to do fun things together, not to ask a bunch of questions when our child was struggling after a day of masking and just wanted to fill up his belly and transition safely from school to at home and then getting ready to eat and then go to bed. But having this conversation and actually reflecting on the why behind the boundary,

and picking apart what that main family value was, was so helpful in supporting him to come out of burnout and to continue reflecting on which boundaries we need, which ones we want to drop and which ones are not essential right now for our child

And as we wrap up this episode, a reminder to ask yourself, what is the value underneath? Is it connection? Is it nourishment? Is it checking in? Is it family time? Is it wellbeing? Is it supporting happiness? There are so many values. And within your workbook, there is a whole page of examples there that you can use to brainstorm from. You can use those values.

Just whatever makes sense for you, those are your family values.

and something small that you can do once you have your boundaries in place, once you have chosen or kind of realigned your family values if you're going through this workbook.

A small next step is to actually think about how to support this boundary in action. So if you are changing the dinner table example, what will you do instead? Instead of having the boundary, that expectation of coming to the table, is it that you might offer a plate and just pass it to your child where they are? Is it that they may want to eat outside? Is it on the couch? Is it in a different room?

obviously supervised depending on their age. But once you have figured out what's not working, you align it to your value. You can make that positive next step change. And that will begin to help your child, your PDA or your child who may be in autistic burnout or PDA burnout. It will help support their capacity so they can begin to sustain their everyday routines, their happiness. And then

over time begin to come out of that burnout.

Next week, I will be speaking with PDA North America about the PDA Experience Report, what families are currently experiencing, what needs to change and what truly supportive approaches look like. If you've ever felt misunderstood or blamed, this episode will feel like the deepest exhale. Make sure you are subscribed and follow this podcast, the Attuned Spectrum podcast, so you do not miss downloading when this releases.