I Stopped Expecting Independence. I Started Offering Accommodation.

When my child had an accident, I used to read it as a step backwards, as a failure, as a sign that we were behind and that I'd missed something or needed to try harder to get them across some invisible line into independence. It took me a long time to understand that the line itself was the problem, and that the thing I was calling independence was actually a stack of demands my child's nervous system couldn't always clear.

So I stopped expecting independence and I started accepting and offering accommodation instead. Strangely, that's when things began to soften.

The toilet is a demand

We don't tend to think of using the toilet as demanding, because for a lot of us it happens almost without thought. When I broke it down though, I could see how much is actually involved. Recognising the cue from the body in the first place, stopping whatever you're doing, getting yourself to the right room, sitting still long enough for it to happen. For a PDA brain, every one of those steps is a demand, and they stack on top of each other quickly. When the body is in a threat response it often can't move through that stack in time, and even interoception, the sense of what's happening inside the body, can become a demand of its own, because it's the body choosing and not the PDAer.

Once I understood that, I stopped treating accidents as failure and started treating them as information. They were telling me something about where my child's nervous system was at, not about how hard they were or weren't trying.

Continence products are okay

This was a big one for me to let go of. Nappies, pull ups, pads, period underwear, whatever the age of the child. I had absorbed the idea somewhere along the way that these things were a sign of falling behind, when really they're accommodations rather than failures. They're the bridge to safety that lets the nervous system settle. A child who is dry, dignified and unshamed is in a far better place than a child who has been pushed to meet a societal milestone that has no interest in what their body actually needs.

Avoiding praise traps

I had to look hard at my own praise, because praise had always felt like the kind thing to do. What I came to see is that "good job, don't you feel better?" can land as a power move rather than encouragement for a PDAer, and praise about toileting in particular can feel humiliating to a child who is already feeling vulnerable about their body. Quiet acknowledgement tends to feel much safer than fanfare, a small and calm presence rather than a celebration that puts a spotlight on something tender.

Any toilet, any way

I let go of the idea that there was a right way to do this. A different bathroom, outside with privacy, standing instead of sitting, with me in the room, all of it became fine. The goal was never the right way. The goal was my child's body having its needs met without trauma attached. Rigid expectations only ever made a vulnerable moment worse, and flexibility was what made the moment possible at all.

One thing at a time

If my child made it to the toilet, that was the win, and I learned to let it be enough. I stopped piling on "wash your hands" and "flush" and "put the seat down" and "don't leave the roll on the floor," because every extra instruction was another demand landing on a body that had already done something hard. The other steps could come later, once the toilet itself felt safe. They didn't all need to be solved in the same moment.

The toilet roll on the floor

An empty loo roll left on the floor used to look like disrespect to me. Now I see it differently. It's equity, a small piece of agency reclaimed after meeting a demand. The same goes for leaving the lid up, using too much paper, not flushing. I don't fight any of it the way I used to, because I understand now that these small things are part of how my child gets to the toilet at all. They're not the problem. They're the release valve that makes the rest possible.

Radical acceptance

Right now, this is what my PDA child needs. Not what I wish was happening, not what the milestones say should be happening, but what is true for them in this moment. What I've noticed is that once they feel safe in the accommodation we're in, things tend to evolve on their own. When I accept the now instead of fighting it, the future has room to change. The pushing was never what moved us forward. It was the safety that did.

I work to accommodate, not graduate

I'm not working towards a finish line anymore. I'm not trying to get my child to graduate out of needing support. I'm working to accommodate them where they are, and trusting that their body will move forward when their nervous system says yes. That shift, from graduation to accommodation, took the pressure out of something that had been so loaded for both of us, and in the space where the pressure used to be, there's room now for my child to simply be safe.

Looking for further support with toileting a PDAer or someone resistant to toileting? I have an on demand class for that! Click here to learn more.

Kristy Forbes - inTune Pathways