Ep. 60 How Do I Know If I'm Accommodating My PDA, Autistic Child the Right Way?
The Regulated ParentShow Notes
Am I accommodating my PDA, autistic child, or am I giving in? If you swing between the two and can't tell which is right, this episode is for you.
Part 4 of a four-part series on when your PDA, autistic child can't separate from you, and this is the last one.
Most of us are not giving too much. What may be happening is that we're giving from survival, or that survival is keeping us from giving enough. And from inside survival, you can't hear your own read of your own child.
In this episode:
1. The fight my husband and I kept having, and the years I spent looking for an expert to settle it
2. The night I typed "pathological demand avoidance" into Google, and what my body did before my mind caught up
3. The two survival patterns underneath the swing — we give in because we can't be with their distress, and we push because of what we were taught
4. The three nervous system patterns that make your own signal impossible to hear: stuck on ON, pretend calm, and dorsal shutdown
5. Story follows state, and why "just trust your gut" is not useful advice for a parent in our situation
6. What your child is reading in you while you're making the decision
7. How to get to know your survival signature and your own instinct signature, and tell them apart
8. What to do with everything you're told, so other people's frameworks become yours
Read the full written version on the blog. https://www.illuminateu.ca/blog/am-i-accommodating-my-pda-autistic-child-the-right-way
Start the series at Part 1: https://www.illuminateu.ca/blog/when-your-pda-autistic-child-can-t-separate-and-you-just-want-a-break
FREE GUIDES Three free guides for parents of PDA, autistic, ADHD and high-needs kids: https://www.illuminateu.ca/free-guides-podcast
The 3 Shifts guide — the three patterns most parents get pulled into during a meltdown, and how to shift them: https://www.illuminateu.ca/3-shifts-free-guide-podcast
The 7 Truths guide — why you react even when you know better: https://www.illuminateu.ca/7-truths-free-guide-podcast
The Meaning guide — for the grief nobody names, and finding your way back to feeling like yourself again: https://www.illuminateu.ca/meaning-guide-podcast
THE REGULATION REBUILD My signature course for parents who want to do this work properly. It opens again in the spring of 2027, and the waitlist is how you'll hear about it first: https://www.illuminateu.ca/regulation-rebuild-course-priority
I'm Afshan Tafler, a Nervous System Resilience Coach and the parent of a PDA autistic teen with high anxiety and OCD.
More from The Regulated Parent
Your PDA, autistic child can't let you out of the room, not even to go to the bathroom. Here's what's actually happening inside them.
You give and give all day, and then you snap, and then you feel horrible about yourself. Here are the 7 moves that break that cycle.
Your child can't let you out of their sight — and you're exhausted. Here are the 7 things happening in your nervous system that nobody tells you about.
It's the fear so many parents of PDA and autistic kids carry: that today's aggression means something frightening about their child's future. In Part 3 of this series I gently take that fear apart, and offer a completely different way to understand how our kids actually learn.
You don't want to be hit — and yet every option feels wrong. You walk away, they follow. You close the door, they punch it. You stand there, and you're the one getting hurt. There's no good choice, and underneath it all is that trapped, powerless feeling that this will never end.