Does your child have a PDA profile? PDA in this case stands for Pathological Demand Avoidance. PDA generally co-occurs with ADHD or autism and basically means that your child doesn’t want to do things just because they were told to do them. When told “You have to do this!” Their brain just says “No.” This profile can cause tons of struggles and problems. It often results in teachers, parents, or other voices of authority being in constant conflict with the child. 

Homeschooling can actually be a great option for kids with PDA. However, you will need to adjust your own use of language and expectations. Kids with PDA are sometimes labeled bad kids in settings that don’t understand them. However, given the right opportunities they can be leaders, innovators and problem solvers. How do you get there?

Choosing your Battles

First, the quickest way to fail at this is to ignore your child’s perspective. You need to remember that your child has their own opinions, ideas, and expectations of life. When you ask them to wear clothes they don’t like, or to do chores they hate, those requests are seen as an attack on their personhood. They see you as trying to control them for your own gain. The first thing you have to do is make sure you are not doing that.

Does this mean you can’t ever ask anything of your child? No, that would be crazy. But you need to decide what is worth asking for and what isn’t. For example, I rarely ask my children to wear something they haven’t chosen for themselves, and when I do, I explain why. “Could you please put on something cute for the Christmas card picture? I want to share this picture with family, and I would really like it if you look cute for it.” This explains that I have a problem, and I am asking them to solve my problem for me. I’m not demanding they just go change.

“Could you put on something? Your Grandmother will be here soon, and while she loves you no matter what, she is going to give me a very hard time if you are not wearing clean clothes.” Again, I’m telling the child I have a problem I want help solving. In both of these examples, you will notice I do my best to deflect the blame of why we needed to make a change, so it was not about either me or my child. We are both struggling against the expectations of others.

Chores

Chores can be an exhausting challenge with a PDA child. They may want to say no just because they were asked. Their brain is telling them the expectations are unreasonable or unrealistic. So again, you need to pick your battles.

For a PDA child neither rewards nor consequences may work to get them to do things. So, how do you get them to help around the house? One method is to appeal to their sense of fairness. Pointing out that everyone else has chores and we all have to pull together to have a clean home is worth trying. If you are handing out chore lists to all the children, you may have to list off what chores the adults in the house do too. Even if you know you do the most chores of everyone, your child probably doesn’t. Showing the child your list of things like grocery shopping, cooking dinner, etc. can help them see that their list is very reasonable.

A second way to get your child to agree to do chores is to let them choose the chores they will do. Having power and control over their chores can keep the PDA under control. You may have to give up some control to let your child do chores that are not what you planned on. As the adult, you need to be flexible. Let the child try making dinner or washing windows or whatever they asked to do.

Remember, the goal of having your child do chores is that they are learning life skills and participating in the household. In general, children doing chores doesn’t take much of the workload off of the parents until those kids are in high school or beyond. Also, let them struggle and problem solve instead of jumping in too fast. As long as they aren’t in danger, let them try hard things.

An Education

You were wondering if I forgot what we are really here for aren’t you? To successfully homeschool a child with PDA, you have to first make sure they are not ready for a fight all day, every day. So, figuring out how to not fight about daily things, like what they will wear and what chores they will do, sets the foundation for a healthy relationship that can be built on for working on their education.

It is absolutely going to happen that your child is going to question why they need to know what you are teaching them. You need better answers than “this is what everyone learns in 7th grade.” That isn’t going to work. You may need to work on these answers before you start teaching, so really dig into why we teach certain skills and why they matter.

For example, everyone needs to learn to read so that they won’t be taken advantage of in contracts or other legal situations. My sweet child informed me at age 11 that she wouldn’t need to read such things, “That’s what lawyers are for. They are designated readers for adults.”  That’s not wrong, but it isn’t ideal either. Thank goodness she worked on learning to read anyway, since my reason fell flat.

I have asked my children what they want to do in adulthood and explained their plans will require college and that college classes will be easier if they already know a lot of the material. So, that is why we learn certain things in high school. I do believe in the value of a quality, well-rounded education, and I try to bring that up in non-confrontational ways. But my kids have an easier time seeing the value in preparing for college than the idea of just being well educated.

Invitations

One way to work around PDA is to invite your child to do things with you without the expectation that it is part of the things they are “supposed to do.” Invite your child to help you make dinner. This can mean reading recipes, gathering ingredients, and learning how to do many skills. Invite your child to watch educational shows with you or go to the theater with you. Make a point of saying you are sharing things with them you like, not that this is “for school.”

Yes, you may need to stretch yourself if you want to provide these opportunities, but they are worth it. Consider learning an instrument together or creating a field trip challenge where they decide on ideas for field trips for the whole family.

PDA kids will often excel at being care takers or educators for other kids, especially younger ones.  It is just an accident that while planning fun educational activities for other kids, or doing classes with them, that they will also learn things. If your child doesn’t have younger siblings, you may consider enlisting help from good friends or family who will loan you a child for one day a week. Your child may agree to those music lessons you want to do if they are taking their younger cousin and helping that child learn something they want to learn. Yes, this is the trickiest one to set up if you don’t have younger kids, but it is worth considering.

Giving Up

If you find you are in a constant fight with your child, it is important to take a step back. Remember, you are the adult. You have to hold the line of how to act and set the example. If you need to stop the cycle with a break, take a break. There is nothing wrong with taking a week off of school to reset. Take longer if you need to.

When you come back, talk to your child about what they think are reasonable expectations for you to have of them. Get them to help you make a plan you can both live with. And if you need to lay out consequences, be clear about those too. If you have decided they will need to return to a brick and mortar school if they can’t participate better with you, let them know that. Ask if that is what they want. Remember, empowering your child to make their own choices, will lead to their best education.