PDA and demand avoidance
PDA stands for Persistent Drive for Autonomy. Here is what it looks like, why ordinary strategies backfire, and what helps instead.
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PDA stands for Persistent Drive for Autonomy. Here is what it looks like, why ordinary strategies backfire, and what helps instead.
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In this solo episode of the Neurodivergent Pulse podcast, Laetitia Andrac shares her lived experience as an autistic, ADHD, PDA and twice-exceptional adult. She names the invisible parts of neurodivergent life: burnout from sustained masking, hygiene struggles driven by demand avoidance, and rejection sensitivity that shows up in boardrooms and on award stages. The episode explores what changes when you replace shame with self-understanding and discover that your challenges reflect a world built for neuronormative expectations, not personal failures.
23 July 2026
Pervasive Drive for Autonomy is a nervous system response, not a behaviour problem. In this episode, social worker and educator Sarah Middleton explores why behaviourist frameworks often make things worse for PDA children, and what changes when families and schools shift to curiosity, compassion and genuine autonomy. Discover practical strategies for recognising pressure triggers, creating space for real engagement, and building alignment across family, school and therapy teams.
2 July 2026
Most of what's written about PDA is about children. This piece is for adults. Written by two people who live it, Laetitia (parent, PDAer, and founder of Understanding Zoe) and Caitlin (neuroaffirming mental health social worker and PDAer), it covers what demand avoidance actually feels like from the inside, why wanting to do something and being able to start it aren't the same thing, and why the usual advice to just break it into steps or build a routine often backfires. There are honest accounts of the invisible labour of being a PDA adult and parenting a PDA child, plus the shifts that genuinely help: choice over instruction, invitation over expectation, and lowering the demand without lowering the goal. If you recognise yourself here, you're not broken. You may simply be carrying more demands than the people around you can see.
22 June 2026
PDA parenting requires a fundamentally different approach than traditional strategies. This article explores what actually helps in overwhelming moments: regulating your own nervous system first, dropping demands completely when needed, using indirect language, embracing play, and modifying environments. Learn why visual schedules and reward charts backfire with PDA children, how to recognize when capacity is low, and why real-time support matters more than delayed intervention.
14 April 2026
PDA (Persistent Drive for Autonomy) parenting requires a completely different approach than traditional strategies. This article explores what actually helps in real-life moments: understanding your child's nervous system threat response, regulating yourself first, offering genuine autonomy, using play and indirect communication, and knowing when to drop demands entirely. Learn why what worked yesterday might fail today, how your own nervous system impacts your child's capacity.
7 April 2026
With Sarah Middleton