#70 - Your PDA Questions Answered with Kristy Forbes

We had some questions, including one from Emma, which basically just says, "How do you figure out if your child is a PDAer, especially when so many health professionals don't really seem to know about it?"

Hmm.

Yeah.

Uh, I, I am so passionate about parents and carers trusting their own instincts, and I think that journey around figuring out what's happening for our children in our homes and at school or whatever the situation is, although we're seeking support, for many of us the experience is that over time we slowly become more and more disconnected from our intuition and our knowing and our, even our connection with our children, because other people start defining who our children are.

And so I would say, and I, and I have to say from the beginning that I can only speak from my own personal lived experience.

I'm not an expert, and I certainly can't answer for other people.

I think if the ...

So if we think about demand avoidance, because PDA is so much more than just not doing things, and I think that's really important to know.

Um, I feel like there's PDA culture, but we don't really talk a whole lot about that.

We're just focusing on what people, what children won't or can't do.

If the demand avoidance or inability to do things doesn't have a rational or obvious reason, actually, I don't wanna say obvious, but if it can't be explained by other things like ADHD, executive functioning challenges, sensory sensitivities, I mean, there's, there's so many different reasons and origins for demand avoidance, but if we're looking at a young person who is pervasively unable to do things, and it seems so outside of anything and everything that we've tried, I think we might start asking the questions then.

But gosh, it's hard to answer that question, but I think I would always come back to trust what you know about your child.

Trust the relationship you have with your child, and if you think that there's PDA, it doesn't hurt to explore that.

But I would also say, you know, there are some really fantastic professionals out there, but I, I think that starting in community is the best place.

Speaking to other parents and families, PDA adults, um, people with lived experience who can actually offer information, because sometimes we're waiting for the research to catch up with what we already know and live.

So yeah.

And Kristie, for f- anyone who's listening who doesn't feel 100% confident in their understanding of PDA, how, how do you describe it?

Oh.

[laughs]

[laughs] Simple one to get us started.

Ah.

A nervous system response to life.

It's just a completely different way of being and doing.

I think, yeah, that's a huge question, isn't it? Because it looks different for everybody as well.

I think also it's important to know that two different behaviors can look exactly the same and have completely different origins.