When "No" Feels Like Survival: My journey with PDA

There are moments that stay with you.

The sudden shutdown.

The fight that comes out of nowhere.

The refusal that makes your heart race faster than theirs.

From the outside, it might look like defiance, stubbornness or manipulation. But from the inside? It feels like survival.

For a long time I have thought it was just anxiety, behaviour or maybe just lack of boundaries. None of those explanations fully captured what we were experiencing.

We were self-critical of our parenting, we had family and friends telling us “try this”, and “just put in stricter boundaries and stop spoiling her”.

Of course, this made us feel like bad parents, that we were failing, that we were the reason for the meltdowns and the tantrums.

But, it wasn’t just behaviour. It wasn’t just anxiety.

It was a nervous system in overdrive.

The first time I noticed this, properly noticed this, my now 5 year old was 2 years old old. We had just moved house, so of course there was anxiety from everyone within our household. I was trying to get her changed out of her pyjamas so I could take her to childcare, due to moving home I needed to drive her about 20 minutes to get there.

She started arching her back and screaming “no!”.

She had never been one to enjoy getting changed (transitions) but this was extreme. She was kicking and physically trying to fight me to avoid me getting her changed. I was trying to change her nappy and everything I took off her she was grabbing it back whilst screaming “MINE!”.

I was also pregnant at the time with our 3rd daughter, so my emotions and hormones were all over the place. I left her on the floor of her bedroom, half in her pyjamas and half nude, and walked into the bathroom to cry. I was thinking “why can’t I do this? Parents do this every day, she just doesn’t want to get changed”.

I had a few minutes then went back into the bedroom, I expected her to have calmed down and be ready to get changed but instead she was crying uncontrollably on the floor, hyperventilating and squirming around. This really surprised me, and in that moment I wondered “is there more to this?”

What followed was me attempting to put her in the car, half changed, to take her to her childminder. But what happened was she became more distressed, kept arching herself out her car seat so I was unable to strap her in safely. It got to the point where I said “ok, we aren’t going, we are staying at home”. And I took her back inside, she immediately started to calm down.

Understanding PDA through the Nervous System

After I recognised that this wasn’t “defiance” or “poor behaviour”, I started to research Pathological Demand Avoidance.

There were multiple situations that had occurred previously which I had naively put down to “toddler behaviour”.

For example;

Not wanting to go to bed. Not just “not wanting to go to bed” - having nightly battles to get her to bed and get her to stay in bed.

Not sitting at the dinner table. She would sit for less than 2 minutes and then be up again, walking around. We kept trying to put her back at the table and she would scream and cry, as if it was torture to sit there.

If she was asked to do anything, there was an immediate response of back arching and “no!”

One of the biggest things that stuck in my mind was when I had to change her nappy. This became one of the biggest meltdowns and it was daily, multiple times a day. She would hold onto the nappy and scream at me “it’s mine!!” as if I was taking something precious away from her. I used to dread nappy-change time.

I learnt that Pathological Demand Avoidance (PDA) is about intense avoidance of perceived demands - not laziness or defiance. It was about the nervous system sensing a threat to autonomy.

Suddenly everything made sense - the more I researched the more it sounded like our life. Even the smallest requests - like going to child minder, washing face, brushing teeth - felt overwhelming. And when that happened, the nervous system responded with fight, flight, freeze or fawn.

It wasn’t until much later (over the past 12 months) that I stumbled across the Polyvagal Theory, according to Dr Stephen Porges. According to him, our autonomic nervous system is constantly scanning for safety. When it senses threat, it reacts in ways that are protective - even if the threat is just a demand that feels controlling.

Once I recognised all of this, we started to ask our daughter things in different ways and change the way that demands are delivered.

Instead of, “it’s time to get ready for bed”, we would ask “would you like to get your pyjamas on first or brush you teeth?” This gave our daughter the sense of autonomy that she needed to keep her nervous system stable.

The Invisible Weight

One of the hardest parts of PDA is how invisible it can be.

Children and adults with PDA are often;

• Bright and capable

• Socially aware

• Masking brilliantly (we hear this ALOT)

And parents? We get judged.

• “You’re too soft”

• “You’re giving in”

• “You’re not consistent enough”

But it isn’t about firmness. It’s about safety. And the strategies that work for PDA are often the opposite of what the world expects.

Shifting Perspective: From Demands to Safety

Everything changed when I asked a different question:

Not: “How do I get compliance?”

But: “How can I reduce the sense of threat?”

This looked like:

• Offering choice and autonomy

• Reducing direct language and demands

• Using humour or novelty to engage

• Repairing after overwhelm without shame

  
  

Neuroscience supports this. Research into neurodiverse stress responses shows that approaches grounded in safety, co-regulation, and autonomy can reduce anxiety and improve engagement - rather than escalating conflict.

My break through moments have always been when I have removed the threat. For example, school - this has been a massive situation in our home. S has not wanted to go to school since about the 3rd week of Reception.

Fortunately, S’s Primary School is fantastic and they have implemented a lot of reasonable adjustments for her.

But one of the things that I implemented at home was removing the threat, the pressure.

I felt pressured too. I had to get to work, I had to drop S’s younger sister at nursery, I was constantly clock watching and my demands were getting louder.

Suddenly, removing them made the mornings calmer. S gets ready for school in her own time, and so far, touch wood, she has only been 15-20 minutes late (if at all). Whereas the morning battles before resulted in S arriving 2-3 hours late, or not at all.

A Gentle Invitation

If this resonates - whether you’re a parent, a partner or navigating PDA yourself - know this

You are NOT alone

You are NOT failing

And this is NOT about being “tougher” or “more consistent

It’s about understanding the nervous system, co-regulating (important) and seeing behaviour through a lens of empathy and biology.

Here, I’ll share more of our journey - stories, strategies and insights from research -and the real-life highs and lows that often go unspoken.

If the information I share, with personal experiences, helps at least one parent and reassure them they are not alone - then this is worth every moment.

Becky :)