Your Caring Is Not the Problem: Supporting a Child Through PDA Burnout

One of the things I've observed throughout my years of working with PDA families, and experienced in my own life as a parent, is just how readily parents are held responsible for their children's distress.

We're told that we're too permissive, too accommodating, too anxious, too involved, or that we've allowed our children to become controlling. There's an extraordinary amount of judgement directed towards families whose children cannot manage the expectations of everyday life.

And often, the people offering these opinions have very little understanding of what those families have already experienced.

What I find particularly difficult is the assumption that parents arrive at unconventional approaches without having tried conventional ones first.

As though we haven't already established boundaries, implemented consequences, followed professional advice, attempted reward systems, encouraged independence and maintained routines. As though we haven't repeatedly tried to make the approaches we've been taught work for our children.

For many of us, those experiences are precisely what brought us to a different understanding of our children's needs.

We didn't simply decide that conventional parenting wasn't for us. We watched our children become increasingly distressed, and we began recognising that something wasn't working.

When our children's distress becomes our responsibility

It's absolutely exhausting, trying to support a child who is struggling while simultaneously having to justify the way we're supporting them.

When a PDA child is experiencing burnout, the accumulation of stress can affect almost every area of their life. Things that were previously manageable may become impossible. Their capacity to tolerate uncertainty, transitions, interaction and everyday expectations may reduce significantly.

For some families, this means school attendance becomes impossible. For others, it means difficulties with eating, bathing, sleeping, leaving the house or participating in family life.

And rather than being met with curiosity about what has happened to the child, families are often met with questions about what the parents are doing wrong.

Are we giving in too much? Have we allowed avoidance to become a habit? Are we reinforcing the behaviour by reducing expectations?

These questions reflect a particular understanding of children's behaviour, one that assumes the primary problem is a child's willingness to cooperate.

But what happens when willingness isn't the issue?

What happens when our child genuinely cannot manage what is being asked of them?

What looks like manipulation may be an attempt to find safety

I've heard parents describe being told that their child has them wrapped around their little finger, or that their child knows exactly what they're doing.

It's such a dismissive way of speaking about children and families.

When a child attempts to negotiate their way around something, provides an explanation that isn't accurate, or finds increasingly creative ways to escape an expectation, these responses are frequently interpreted as deliberate manipulation.

But for a child experiencing overwhelming anxiety, a loss of autonomy or a sense of threat, these strategies may represent attempts to regain safety.

If we understand our child's behaviour primarily as an attempt to control us, our response is likely to involve restoring our own authority.

If we understand it as an attempt to manage distress, we have an opportunity to become curious about what is making the situation so difficult.

We might begin asking different questions. What is happening for our child? What is this experience costing them? What demands have accumulated throughout the day? What might help them feel safer?

These questions don't require us to abandon our responsibilities as parents.

They invite us to understand those responsibilities differently.

Our approaches matter, but blame doesn't help

I think it's important to acknowledge that the way we respond to our children can contribute to their experiences of stress.

Of course it can.

There are things I've learned throughout my own parenting that I wish I'd understood much earlier. There are approaches I once believed were helpful that I now recognise weren't meeting my children's needs.

But we can only parent with the knowledge, support, resources and understanding available to us at the time.

Recognising that something we've done hasn't been helpful is very different from accepting responsibility for creating our child's disability.

We didn't create our children's PDA. And the fact that our children are struggling doesn't automatically mean we're doing something wrong.

I think many parents carry enormous grief about the experiences their children have endured, particularly when those experiences have contributed to burnout.

We look backwards. We wonder what we might have changed, what we should have recognised, and whether things could have been different.

But hindsight gives us access to information we didn't have when we were making those decisions.

We deserve to be able to learn without being crushed by blame.

Learning to trust what we know

Something I return to repeatedly in my work is the importance of recognising what families know through their lived experiences.

Parents observe patterns that professionals and outside observers may never see.

We see what happens after school, after social events, after appointments and after our children have spent hours attempting to manage expectations.

We understand the difference between a child who is participating comfortably and one who is participating at enormous personal cost.

We recognise the small changes in capacity that can tell us when our children are approaching their limits.

And yet, we're frequently encouraged to dismiss this knowledge in favour of approaches that have already proven distressing or ineffective.

I don't believe parental intuition means we're always right. But I do believe our observations deserve to be taken seriously.

Particularly when we're supporting children whose experiences are so often misunderstood.

Sometimes trusting our intuition means doing things that look very different from what other families are doing.

It might mean reducing expectations, allowing more time for recovery, changing how we communicate or accepting that something our child previously managed is no longer accessible to them.

It might mean letting go of the expectation that recovery should look like a return to how things were before.

And it may mean learning to tolerate the discomfort of other people's disapproval.

Supporting recovery without adding more pressure

When our children experience burnout, it's understandable that we want things to improve.

We want them to feel better. We want them to reconnect with the activities and relationships they once enjoyed. We want to see their capacity return.

But there can be an enormous amount of pressure contained within our hopes for recovery, particularly when those hopes become expectations.

Recovery cannot simply be another thing our children are required to achieve.

We can create opportunities for rest, safety, connection and reduced pressure without insisting that our children demonstrate progress according to somebody else's timeline.

And we can begin recognising that the adaptations we're making aren't evidence that we've surrendered our responsibilities.

They're evidence that we're responding to the circumstances in front of us.

Our children don't need us to win a contest of authority with them. They need us to recognise when the expectations surrounding them have become more than they can manage.

And families need understanding, practical support and access to resources that make this possible.

Our caring is not the problem.

For those of us who have spent years questioning ourselves, defending our children and wondering whether we're somehow responsible for their struggles, perhaps it's time to make room for a different understanding.

One that recognises the complexity of our children's experiences, honours what we've learned along the way and allows us to approach both ourselves and our children with greater compassion.

We can continue learning. We can change our approaches. We can recognise mistakes and make repairs.

And we can do all of this without accepting the idea that our children's disability is something we caused.

Understanding the Process of PDA Burnout

For families wanting to explore PDA burnout in greater depth, my on-demand masterclass, Understanding the Process of PDA Burnout, examines the stages and signs of burnout, what contributes to it, and ways to recognise and respond to changing capacity.

The masterclass is available to access at any time.

Explore the on-demand masterclass | $65 AUD