I am originally from Germany and lived in California for about 25 years. My daughter was born there and moved to Germany with me when she was six and a half. We still speak a great deal of English in our everyday life. My daughter has a PDA profile. PDA traditionally stands for ‘Pathological Demand Avoidance.’ A more positive and less pathologizing term that is also used is ‘Persistent Drive Towards Autonomy’—a phrase I personally prefer because it places greater emphasis on the underlying need for autonomy rather than on the avoidance of demands. I have been deeply engaged with PDA for about eight years—at first because I wanted to understand what my daughter was experiencing and what helped her. Since then, I have also further developed my therapeutic work in this area and offer parent consultation for families with PDA children. What I describe here is not a set of universal solutions. These are insights and concrete approaches that have proven helpful in our everyday life. What matters most to me is not stopping a particular behavior as quickly as possible. Instead, I try to understand what is behind the behavior and what my child needs in order to feel safe, capable of acting, and connected again.
I can’t, not I won’t
A phrase often used in PDA circles is: “I can’t, not I won’t.” To me, it captures the essential shift in perspective very well. A demand can create so much stress for a child with PDA, and feel like such a profound loss of autonomy and control, that the nervous system responds with a genuine block. From the outside, this may look like refusal, defiance, or deliberate resistance. For the child, however, it can feel like a true inability to act in that moment. This fundamentally changes how I respond. I do not first ask, “How do I get her to do what I want?” I ask, “What is making this situation so difficult right now? How can I lower the pressure? What would help her regain access to herself and to the next step?”
Translating the Behavior
When my daughter is highly overloaded in the car or at home, she may say very direct things such as “Shut the fuck up,” “You’re an idiot,” or “I hate you.” In those moments, I usually do not enter into a power struggle. If she says, “Shut the fuck up,” I might respond, “Oh, you would like for me to be quiet? I can do that. No problem.” I translate the wording into the need underneath it: she needs quiet and cannot process any more words right then. If she says, ‘I hate you,’ I might answer, ‘Yes, I understand that it feels that way right now. You’re angry with me at the moment. It is completely okay to be angry. I just want you to know that I love you no matter what.’ She is allowed to express her anger and her feelings. If she says, “You’re an idiot,” I sometimes respond with humor and act silly like an “idiot” for a moment. Often the tension immediately decreases. Sometimes I simply do not pick up the statement at all and let it pass. A reprimand such as “We don’t say things like that” would not reach her in a state of acute overload and would usually escalate the conflict further. That does not mean that difficult behavior is never discussed. What matters to me is the timing. In the middle of a stress response, she needs regulation, not a moral lesson. Once we are both calm and regulated again, we can look together at what happened, what was difficult, and what might help next time.
Feelings Are Allowed; Violence Toward People and Animals Is Not
When there is physical aggression, I set a clear boundary while also trying to redirect the physical impulse in a safe direction. For example, I might offer my daughter a pillow or say, ‘Take the wooden spoon and hit the mattress with it.’ That allows the physical tension to discharge without anyone getting hurt. I say very clearly: ‘No people—not children, not Mama—and no animals either.’ We also do not destroy the apartment, kick walls, or deliberately break things. We do not use time-outs, punishment, or the withdrawal of affection and enjoyable things. From very early on, since she was about two, we have had a saying in our home: ‘Good kids can get ice cream, and bad kids get ice cream too.’ It has been part of our family ever since. I want her to know that love, belonging, and care do not depend on whether she is behaving ‘well’ or ‘badly’ in a particular moment. At the same time, necessary boundaries remain, especially where physical safety is concerned. Natural consequences also exist. If something breaks, it is no longer available for the time being and cannot always be immediately repaired or replaced. That is not an additional punishment; it is the direct consequence of what happened. What matters to me is setting necessary boundaries as calmly as possible, without shaming my child or escalating the situation through a power struggle.
Choices and Shared Decision-Making
I try to distinguish between what actually needs to be decided and where there is no reason for me to be the one deciding at all. When I offer choices, I want them to be genuine—not a false choice where the answer has essentially already been determined. On vacation, for example, I asked, ‘Would you like to go shopping first and then to the beach, or go to the beach first and then shopping?’ Both things needed to happen that day, but she could help determine the order. We also often simply take turns deciding: one time she decides, the next time I do. And sometimes she decides entirely. I do not want to automatically define the framework and then allow her only a little choice within it. I want to determine as little as necessary and let us decide as much as possible together—or let her decide herself. I learned the broader principle many years ago from Steve de Shazer and Insoo Kim Berg, the therapist couple behind Solution-Focused Brief Therapy, as ‘Leading from Behind.’ Responsibility for safety and for decisions that are truly unavoidable remains with me as the adult. At the same time, I involve my daughter as consistently as possible, consult her, and leave open whatever does not actually have to be predetermined. If we are simply going for a walk and the destination does not matter, I often let her decide entirely which route we take. If we do need to arrive somewhere specific, for example because we have an appointment, that destination remains fixed. Even then, she can often still help decide which route we take, what order we do things in, or how we get there. For example, if we need to get somewhere and I say, “Come on, we need to go left,” my daughter may want to go right instead. If we have enough time and there is no important reason not to, I may first go right with her. We might walk around the block and still arrive where we need to go. The destination remains the same, but she had a say in the route. That small detour can prevent a major conflict.
Preserving Familiarity While Making Room for New Experiences
My daughter often seeks repetition and predictability. After we discovered a pancake restaurant on vacation, she wanted to eat only there. I did not want to take the familiar place away from her, but I also wanted to make room for new experiences. So we alternated: one time we went to a new restaurant, the next time we returned to the pancake place. Later, she even said on her own, “Let’s do something new today.” Sometimes she wants a familiar sequence to be repeated almost exactly. If, for example, we once went to the zoo first, ate at the restaurant next door afterward, and then visited the nearby library, she may expect the exact same sequence the next time we go to the zoo. At other times, she is perfectly happy with a surprise or something new. What matters to me is noticing whether she currently needs the security of repetition or is open to a new experience.
Transitions Need Time and Predictability
I prepare difficult transitions as early as possible. Long before it is actually time, I might say, “It’s slowly becoming bedtime.” Later I announce, “Ten more minutes.” My daughter might reply, “Eleven minutes.” I can go with that and say, “Okay, eleven is a good number too. Do you want to set the timer?” She sets the timer herself and often transitions immediately when it goes off. I also say, “I’m brushing my teeth and washing my hands now, and then I’ll be ready for bed.” That lets her know she will be next and gives her time to prepare internally for the next step. I intentionally begin the whole process much earlier because she needs more time for transitions. Sometimes I use a humorous paradoxical intervention. If she does not want to go to bed, I might say, “What if we just stay up all night tonight?” Often she suddenly wants to go to bed. The humor releases tension, dissolves the power struggle, and allows her to act from her own initiative again. I also build in a great deal of extra time for appointments so that I do not have to constantly hurry her or pressure her to leave immediately. We prefer to leave very early for swimming. If we arrive too early, we wait in the plaza in front of the pool, where she can still run around, watch snails, or simply play. That creates less pressure while also preventing us from being late.
External Structures Can Prevent Personal Power Struggles
A direct instruction to turn off the iPad can quickly turn into a struggle over the demand itself. That is why I set up our Starlink internet to shut off automatically at a fixed time in the evening, after which the iPad no longer works online. She does not experience this as a punishment suddenly imposed by me, but as a predictable external structure. She often asks, “How long do I have?” and I tell her how much time is left. Afterward, she puts the iPad down, plays for a while, and gradually winds down. At the same time, strict rules do not work in every situation with PDA. On especially difficult mornings, for example, I allow her to take the iPad into the car and keep using it during the drive. Without that option, she sometimes would not be able to make the transition into the car at all. Once the pressure is removed, she sometimes puts the iPad away on her own. So this is not about enforcing the exact same rule at all costs. I consider what she needs in the specific situation in order to regulate and manage the next step.
Reliable Announcements Are Not a Minor Detail
For a child who relies heavily on announced plans and sequences, promises that are not kept can be deeply upsetting. If I announce something, I therefore try to be reliable. If something cannot happen as planned, I believe she needs an honest explanation, support through the disappointment, and a new orientation as early as possible. Predictability is not the same as rigidity. It creates secure ground from which flexibility can become possible in the first place.
Positive Association Rather Than Bribery
My daughter used to be unable to stay home alone, while at the same time often not wanting to come shopping with me. But groceries still had to be bought. Instead of saying directly, “We have to go shopping now,” I first asked, “Would you like to go to the playground?” We drove to the playground near the supermarket. Sometimes she stayed there playing in a safe situation; sometimes she came into the store with me and even helped with the shopping. There, for example, she was allowed to sit with an employee at the register, scan items, enter amounts into the till, interact with customers, take money, and give change. When we shop, she is often allowed to choose one small thing, such as a snack she likes, a magazine, or a small toy. This is not a direct reward in the sense of, “If you come with me now, you’ll get something.” Instead, she develops positive associations with the place, experiences choices and participation, and over time becomes more willing to go there.
Eating Without Pressure
I also approach food without pressure. My daughter prefers only a small number of familiar foods—her Safe Foods. I offer those and repeatedly place small amounts of something new alongside them. I often divide the food among several small bowls or containers. She is allowed to eat, walk away, play, and come back later. In reading about Maria Montessori’s work, I came across the idea that a child should be allowed to come to the table and also leave again. That idea resonated strongly with me. That does not mean that I give up on introducing new foods. I continue to offer them, but without coercion and, as much as possible, within a safe relationship. Hunger and fullness, smells, textures, and other body signals can be complicated for neurodivergent children. Pressure often makes access to eating even harder. Last week, we developed a weekly meal plan together. Each day, one of us got to decide what we would cook. On one day, I chose an Indian dish and my daughter helped prepare it. We designed the whole process together: planning, shopping, setting the table, preparing and chopping ingredients, cooking, eating, clearing up, and washing dishes. On another day, my daughter suggested having a vegetarian sushi night. She researched what we needed herself and discovered that a sushi mat was part of it. We got nori sheets, sushi rice, soy sauce, wasabi, and edamame. The meal therefore did not become a demand imposed from the outside, but a shared project in which she could participate with autonomy and joy.
Basic Needs Come First
My daughter’s interoception—the perception of internal body signals, and therefore one part of sensory perception—does not always function reliably. She sometimes notices hunger or the need to use the bathroom very late or not at all. Because of that, she needs gentle reminders and support. During a school visit to a museum, she was once very hungry. Her integration aide at the time initially did not want to let her leave the program to eat and was also being directed by the teachers to keep her with the group. My daughter was expected to continue participating like the other children and eat afterward. As a result, she went without food for a long period and eventually became so preoccupied with her hunger that she could barely take in the program anyway. In a situation like that, I would interrupt the activity, let her eat something, and then allow her to rejoin afterward. To me, the basic physical need matters more than uninterrupted participation in a program from which she cannot benefit in that state anyway. She also reacts strongly to sugar. After a school carnival where she had eaten a great deal of sugar, she later physically collapsed when, in my view, her blood sugar had dropped sharply. Experiences like this reinforce my belief that bodily signals and needs need to be taken very seriously.
My Body, My Choice
Already during my daughter’s first year of life, it became clear to me how strong her need was to do things herself and to have control over her own body. When she was about four months old, she took a small toothbrush out of my hand while I was brushing her first teeth and wanted to hold it herself. Later, she would close the bathroom door so she could be in there independently. While drinking, she would turn her head away; during the day she sometimes refused food and then took in a large amount in the evening. She also repeatedly resisted body care and hygiene. The phrase ‘My body, my choice’ originally came from me. When she was about two and refused something, I said to her, ‘Oh, my body, my choice.’ Even then, she picked up the phrase and began using it herself. Our nanny at the time laughed with us at the fact that such a small child was already saying ‘My body, my choice’—not laughing at her, but sharing our delight and amazement at how early this need for bodily autonomy was visible. My daughter still uses the phrase today. With hygiene, showering, toileting, or other forms of body care, direct instructions can quickly feel to her like an intrusion on her bodily autonomy. I take that need seriously while still having to make necessary care possible. That is why I work with time, choices, humor, play, and indirect invitations rather than force. Sometimes, for example, I address her teddy bear and take him with me into the bathroom. I keep talking to him, and my daughter becomes curious and follows us. That can often make body care in the bathroom possible without her feeling ambushed or controlled. To me, this is not tricking her. It is a playful, relationship-based, pressure-free invitation that preserves her autonomy and makes a necessary situation manageable.
Transitional Objects Create Safety
The teddy bear is not merely a toy. During difficult transitions, he functions as a transitional object. Through him, my daughter can hold on to something familiar and therefore to a piece of the safety and stability of Mama and home. How essential such a transitional object can be became clear one morning before school. My daughter did not want to go to school that day and would not have gotten out of the car without her large teddy bear. She could only go if the bear was allowed to come, so I let her take him with her. The school later complained that she had arrived with this large teddy bear. To me, however, he was not an unnecessary extra in that moment. He was exactly the support that could resolve a complete block—in this case acute school refusal—and make participation possible at all.
Regulation Does Not Always Look Like Participation
At school, my daughter once did crafts during an assigned task. She was told to put the craft materials away and turn to the designated task. As soon as no one was watching, she took the craft materials back out and was again told to put them away. From the outside, that can look like distraction, refusal, or lack of cooperation. For her, however, crafting can be an important way to regulate and reduce tension. If every self-chosen activity is immediately stopped because it does not look like the expected task, we may be preventing the very regulation that could make participation possible again later. For me, co-regulation therefore does not mean monitoring a child continuously and correcting every deviation. It means recognizing the child’s need for regulation, providing safety, and creating an appropriate space of possibility.
Attention Does Not Have to Look a Certain Way
In one classroom situation, pictures connected to a story were being shown. My daughter had already looked at them, perceived them, and understood them. When she was then told to look toward the front again, she explained that she had already seen everything. The teacher nevertheless insisted: ‘You have to look.’ An essentially unproblematic situation turned into a power struggle. My daughter experienced this public insistence on her visible behavior as being singled out in front of the other children. It created shame and the feeling of having been humiliated. To me, this is another example of ‘I can’t, not I won’t.’ Looking visibly toward the front again was no longer a simple request in that moment; it had already become associated with overload. With a neurodivergent child, I think it is important not to insist unnecessarily on outward behaviors such as gaze direction, eye contact, or repeatedly looking again. Attention does not always have to look the way adults expect it to. A child can listen, understand, and participate without positioning their body or gaze in the prescribed way.
Physical Safety Alone Is Not Always Enough After a Scare
During school swimming, my daughter once slipped in the water, went under with her head, and came back up in a panic. She experienced the situation as if she had nearly drowned. The swimming instructors were at the other end of the pool. Once it was clear that she was physically safe again and standing in the water, the situation was essentially over for the adults. Emotionally, it was not over for her. Later she said, ‘Nobody took care of me.’ She would have needed immediate co-regulation—someone close by who could soothe her, communicate safety, and help her nervous system find its way back. After that, I had her excused from school swimming.
Closeness Is Regulation
When my daughter seeks my presence or physical closeness in a stressful situation, I do not see it as manipulation or inappropriate dependence. She is using a safe relationship to regulate her nervous system. Once she feels safe again, independent action often becomes possible. She still sleeps in my bed with me. When she sleeps restlessly, she often moves closer and closer to me in her sleep. I understand that too as a form of co-regulation. In my view, children do not necessarily have to sleep alone in order to develop in a healthy way. When she was a baby, I did not let her ‘cry it out’; I responded to her needs. A friend once argued that children need to experience frustration in order to develop frustration tolerance. My view is that frustration arises anyway through the natural limitations of life and through the inevitable small failures of parents. We are, after all, only ‘good enough parents’ in Winnicott’s sense: sometimes we are not there immediately, sometimes we are exhausted, sometimes we do not understand something right away. Those frustrations arise on their own; we do not need to manufacture them artificially. For me, co-regulation is not a reward for compliant behavior. It is a foundation that makes development and participation possible in the first place.
Gently Facilitating Social Contact
Social contact cannot be forced either. Gentle facilitation can, however, be helpful. Before a swimming lesson, for example, I noticed a boy from Canada and said to my daughter, “Look, that boy speaks English too.” That created an opening, and the two of them then played together. A support person can point out possible commonalities or gently facilitate an encounter. If the child says no, that no needs to be respected. The goal is not to force social interaction, but to open a door the child can walk through if they feel safe enough.
Strengths Can Be the Gateway to Learning
My daughter is a native English speaker. When she is allowed to assist in English class, she experiences competence and self-efficacy. In my view, a role like that should not become available only as a reward after she has first done exactly the same thing as everyone else. Assisting itself can be a way to motivate her to participate and make learning possible. She also learns through assisting: she deepens her language skills, takes in academic content, assumes responsibility, and develops social skills. What matters to me is not that she can do exactly the same thing in every area or learn in exactly the same way as other children. What matters is that she continues to develop, remains engaged, and finds a path to learning that is sustainable for her. From very early on, she liked taking the creative, leading role in pretend play, for example as a doctor or teacher. She did not initially want to read books; she wanted to write books. First she drew her own books, and later she wrote them in words—book after book that she invented and created herself. Today, with ChatGPT, she develops stories, characters, and plot lines further and further. With games, too, she often did not want to read instructions but wanted to decide for herself how the game would be played. I adapted to that early on and, for example, played chess according to rules she invented. Later she began creating games herself: her own game ideas, instructions, and board games. She also creates songs, melodies, and other musical ideas. More generally, she does not like being taught or instructed from the outside. Preset instructions, game rules, or a classic ‘I’ll show you how this works’ can quickly trigger resistance. She prefers to figure things out herself—to discover them herself, or to invent them herself. This tension between discovering and inventing also reminds me of Heinz von Foerster and fits very well with my systemic way of thinking. When she wants to learn something, she often explores it down to the smallest detail. With the vegetarian sushi, she researched the ingredients, tools, and correct preparation herself. At home, she created a small earthworm habitat in a preserving jar and worked out exactly what earthworms eat, how much moisture they need, and how to ensure sufficient airflow. Examples like these show how persistent, independent, and detail-oriented a child with PDA can be when a topic captures their interest and they are actively involved in shaping the learning process.
Play and Conversation Can Be Ways of Processing
My daughter often processes conflicts and experiences through play with her puppet theater. Through the characters, she reenacts situations and expresses what happened. I do not intervene therapeutically—I am her mother, not her therapist. I give her that space and observe what she expresses through play. She also processes a great deal at night in bed. Sometimes I am still awake, and sometimes I am already drifting off while she continues to play beside me with her small figures or her stuffies. When she is relaxed at bedtime, she often talks about difficult experiences from the day. In that calm, safe situation, she sometimes tells me things that had no space during the day. Often, that is how I first learn what has been occupying or burdening her. Behavior, play, and language are communications. If we only correct, we may miss the information the child is trying to give us.
A Child Who Is Functioning Is Not Necessarily a Child Who Is Doing Well
The fact that a child smiles, participates, meets expectations, or “functions well” at school does not prove that they are doing well. Neurodivergent children in particular can expend enormous energy adapting, reading expectations, and hiding distress. This masking may look from the outside like happiness or good participation while the nervous system is already at its limit. As described earlier, my daughter sometimes asks me after school in the car, “Mama, please don’t talk.” She explains that all day long she has not been able to think her own thoughts and needs a long period of time to herself. In the evening she often says, “I haven’t had enough time for myself yet.” Sometimes she simply lies on the couch and can barely move. The apparently well-functioning child is therefore not necessarily an unburdened child. Participation can be masking. Smiling can be masking. Quietness can be masking. What matters is looking at the child’s total load across the entire day and taking seriously what only becomes visible later in the safety of home.
The Child Is Not the Problem
I became aware of PDA very early, in part through Casey Ehrlich and her Facebook group At Peace Parents. At the same time, already during my daughter’s first year of life it was clear to me how strongly she wanted to do everything herself and make her own decisions. That is why it is important to me not to label the child too quickly as ‘difficult,’ but to look more closely at the fit between the child, the situation, and the environment. That asks adults to look more closely: Which demands are truly necessary? Which ones can we phrase differently? Where does the child need more time, more choice, more relationship, or more sensory relief? Perhaps she needs a different path to the same goal—or sometimes even a different goal inspired by the child herself. Perhaps my goals are not automatically the goals that absolutely have to be reached.
The Child Should Not Be the Only One Expected to Adapt
I do not want children to be the only ones expected to adapt to existing structures, systems, and processes. Structures, systems, and processes must also adapt—as far as reasonably possible—to the individual needs of the child. For a child with a PDA profile, such adjustments can be decisive in determining whether learning and participation are possible at all. A child’s own way of solving something is not automatically the wrong way. If the learning goal has been reached, we do not also need to insist on a particular gaze direction, body posture, or procedure simply because it is the conventional form. I want genuine collaboration with the child, not merely conversations and decisions about the child.
Setting Impulses
Of course, this perspective quickly raises the question of how well a traditional school system can work for a child like my daughter. Peter Gray’s book ‘Free to Learn’ has been a major inspiration to me. I am also interested in unschooling communities, self-directed education, and broader critiques of conventional schooling. My daughter was part of unschooling communities in California, and many things were easy there. The major difficulties arose in more conventional settings: in Public Kindergarten, at a forest school, and also at a Waldorf school. At the forest school, she once ran away and could not be caught and brought back, and in various classes there were intense conflicts with teachers. She was also removed from some activities; during swimming lessons, for example, she once took water into her mouth and spat it into the teacher’s face. My personal dream would be an environment in which children can learn much more of what genuinely interests them—for example, an unschooling community in Portugal or California. As I mentioned above, when my daughter becomes interested in something, she can go extraordinarily deep. If she later wanted to become an architect, for instance, I can easily imagine her working her way into the mathematics she would need from her own motivation. During the summer vacation, I simply left some workbooks on mathematics, reading, and writing on the living-room table, without giving her an instruction and without applying pressure. A few days later, I noticed that many pages had been completed fully and correctly. No one had made her do it. She had done it from her own motivation. I myself have always studied and learned a great deal and for a long time held myself to very high standards. Today, my daughter’s health—physical, emotional, and psychological—is far more important to me than school or formal achievement. I increasingly trust that people learn many things when those things become genuinely meaningful to them. An important early influence on my thinking was Dr. Gerhard Huhn, whom I met during my studies in 1992. His doctoral dissertation argued that the German school system was unlawful because, based on the brain research of the time, it promoted development too one-sidedly rather than supporting the holistic development of the personality. That idea influenced me deeply. Through his influence, I continued exploring the idea that change processes may fundamentally not be directly controllable. In the 1990s, many organizational change processes failed; in my graduate thesis, I examined whether the attempt to control such processes from the outside might itself be part of the problem. That brought me to systemic thinking and to the idea of autopoiesis. Autonomous systems organize themselves; they cannot simply be controlled from the outside. We can introduce perturbations—disturbances or impulses—create conditions, and leave space, but we cannot determine what the system will make of them. That is also how I experience my child in this sense: when I set an impulse and leave space, something of her own can emerge—discovered or invented by her. Perhaps that is one of the most important lessons for me as a mother: less directing, more observing; less instructing, more enabling; less pressure, more impulses. And every day, learning anew what works and what does not.
This Kind of Parenting Is Also Exhausting for Parents
When I describe all of these strategies, it can easily sound as though I navigate difficult situations with great ease. That is not true. This way of supporting my daughter is very demanding for me, and sometimes I am just as overwhelmed as she is. I have to regulate my own nervous system continuously, remain patient, loving, and understanding, and repeatedly adjust my responses to my daughter’s current state. Often I have to put my own exhaustion aside for the moment. My stress level is frequently very high, and my nervous system often operates right at the edge of overload. Needs-based parenting does not mean that parents have no needs or boundaries. Nor does it mean that we always stay calm or handle every situation perfectly. Parents themselves need support, relief, sleep, safe relationships, and people who believe them. A regulated adult can offer regulation to a child—but adults cannot give endlessly without being supported themselves. On top of that, systems that are supposed to help often create additional stress for parents: applications, denials, diagnostic processes, questions of responsibility, and long procedures. In our case, it took about two years for my daughter to receive an integration aide at school and about a year and a half before a PDA-sensitive, needs-based autism therapy became available. In the end, important supports could only be secured through proceedings before the Social Court.
My own Neurodivergence Is Part of This Too
I do not have a diagnosis for this, and I do not want to define myself diagnostically here. I have really always known that I perceive many things very intensely; this is also connected to much of what I experienced in my family of origin and in my own upbringing. Under stress, I notice how quickly old patterns can reappear. I am extremely sensitive to sound and have hyperacusis. During a hearing test at Stanford, I was told at the time that I hear roughly one and a half times as well as the average person and that I perceive significantly more frequencies and nuances. The audiologist joked that I should become a conductor. Because of this, I find it very difficult to tune out noise. This sensitivity is not only auditory. External stimuli sometimes disturb me almost ‘energetically’—even when I am not directly seeing or hearing them at that moment. If people are using leaf blowers outside or trimming hedges with an electric trimmer, for example, I can often no longer think. And when my daughter screams loudly, my own nervous system can reach its limit very quickly; then I sometimes react more irritably than I would like. At the same time, this intense perception is also a strength. In my work with clients, it can sometimes feel like a kind of superskill: I notice subtle shifts, tensions, and dynamics that other people may miss. This sensitivity also helps me understand my daughter’s sensory overload from the inside. Co-regulation is therefore not a one-way street; my nervous system has limits too.
A Cultural Transition
Our return to Germany was also a major cultural transition. We moved not only from California to Germany, but also from a more urban, creative, globally and internationally oriented environment into a much more village-like culture. It was a culture shock for both of us. Some of our difficulties intensified with this transition. Here, I more often experience a stronger expectation to do things the way they have ‘always been done.’ Departures from the norm can be judged negatively more quickly, and I sometimes feel that this can make someone an outsider or a scapegoat very easily. This is my personal experience, not a blanket statement about Germany—but it is part of our context.
When Compulsory Schooling and the Nervous System Collide
The painful conflict between the demands of the school system and the capacities of my daughter’s nervous system became very clear again one evening before a school day. Before going to sleep, while we were in bed, my daughter spent a very long time crying and screaming, repeating: ‘I can’t go to school tomorrow. I can’t go to school. I can’t. I can’t. I can’t.’ I explained that school attendance is compulsory in Germany—‘It’s mandated’—but a rational explanation could not reach her in that state. She kept repeating that she could not go until she eventually fell asleep from exhaustion. The next morning it began again immediately: “I can’t go. I can’t go. I can’t.” What matters to me is that she did not say, “I won’t go” or “I don’t want to go.” She kept saying, “I can’t.” That captures the core conflict: the system says, “You have to,” while her nervous system says, “I can’t.” The legal requirement does not change her actual capacity in that moment to manage the transition to school. Eventually, she ran away from me and hid under the bed. I was tense, called her name angrily, and probably did not look kind when I found her. Her resistance suddenly turned into desperate, frightened crying. Then I realized that she had wet her pants. When I said, “Oh, you peed your pants,” she answered, “Yes, I was scared of you.” That moment affected me deeply. My own pressure to fulfill the school requirement, and my frustration, had become an additional threat to her in that moment. That morning, talking any more about school did not help. I was looking for a fresh pair of pants and found the jeans we had bought shortly before. ‘Oh, there are your boy jeans.’ In the store, we had laughed about that label and said, ‘Why? You can wear boy jeans too. Jeans don’t have a gender.’ She picked up that thread, put on the jeans, and was eventually able to go to school. Sometimes distraction or an unexpected new focus is exactly the detour through which movement becomes possible again.
Mistakes, Apology, and Repair
This situation is also why I do not want to pretend that I live this approach ideally or perfectly all the time. I sometimes reach my limit too, become louder, raise my voice, or say things that come more from the conditioning of my own childhood than from the way I want to relate to my daughter. Once, in a vulnerable moment, I said to her, ‘Maybe I messed you up with the way I parent you.’ She replied, ‘No Mama, you didn’t mess me up. I was born this way.’ That sentence has stayed with me. By now, she sometimes reminds me of our own principles. When I said in a stressed moment, ‘If you don’t go to school now, then we’re not going to the fair,’ she immediately said, ‘Mama, that’s a punishment. We don’t do that.’ And I was able to say, ‘Yes, you’re right.’ Compulsory schooling still remained. At the same time, on days like that I wished I were allowed to simply keep her home when her nervous system was showing so clearly that she could not do it. When I make a mistake, I try not to justify it. I apologize to her and say clearly, “No, that was wrong. I should not have done that. How can I expect you not to yell if I am yelling myself?” Then I intentionally try to restore connection. This repair—the repair after a rupture in the relationship—is, to me, an essential part of a secure relationship. Children do not need perfect parents. They need adults who take responsibility for their mistakes, apologize, and show them that connection can be restored after a rupture.
The Central Question
The central question remains, for me: Not: “How can I control this child?” But: “What does this child need in order to feel safe enough to regain access to herself, to her own agency, and to her own abilities?” I often think that many of these strategies would benefit not only children with PDA, but all children. Our ideas about parenting are still heavily shaped by behaviorist approaches: we observe behavior, evaluate it, and try to change it through rewards, consequences, or punishment. What if, instead, we asked more often what need, burden, or still-developing capacity might lie behind a behavior? Perhaps such a needs-based perspective would be more healing not only for our children and our relationships with them, but ultimately for us as a society as well. Perhaps a child’s ‘no’ is sometimes not only a ‘no’ to a single demand. Perhaps it is also a ‘no’ to structures that do not work—not only for that child, but perhaps more broadly. Refusing to conform to a system can therefore also be an opportunity: not only to change the child, but to question and further develop the systems themselves. And sometimes I think, very personally and more spiritually: perhaps my daughter is simply an ‘Indigo child.’ Perhaps there is also something evolutionarily valuable in children who resist adaptation so persistently. I would not make a scientific claim from that. But I do wonder whether the increasing visibility of neurodivergent children may also be showing us something about which structures still fit human beings at all—and which ones need to change.