Did Somebody Say PDA? – Ninja-Mam and Sons

So, some Local Authorities don’t recognise, PDA (Pathological Demand Avoidance). They say it doesn’t exist and won’t entertain it so good luck getting a diagnosis! I say give them ten minutes with Bubba and we could change their minds! It’s very real and it drives us mad!

For those professionals, and families that believe in it, PDA is understood to be part of the autism spectrum and rooted in an anxiety-based need for control. Those presenting with it are driven to avoid everyday demands and expectations and will go to extremes to achieve this.  

Can you imagine the fun times it can lead to with us? Often me and ‘The Wife’ are just left bewildered and speechless at Bubba’s behaviour or reasoning. This morning was a good example.

On a school day, if I’m feeling particularly energetic or ‘up for the fight’ I’ll go through Bubba’s bag and empty out all the ‘stuff that shouldn’t be taken to school’. Last Thursday, second day back, my stash was four toy cars, two soft toys, a plastic sword, three finger skateboards (that he doesn’t even play with!) and two large transformers.

Now, I don’t care what he takes to school, he’s always done this and if they were used as transition items or if he left it in his bag until break time then fine but no, my little prince takes his random bits of tat out in class, faffs and fannys around with them and has arguments with his LSA’s until the inevitable detention is handed out. I’m trying to help. He never see’s it that way though.

So this morning I took out a book about paper airplanes – it’s one where the pages are examples of designs and you tear the page out and make the plane.  Not really going to work in school is it…

Bubba, begrudgingly dragged his eyes away from the TV and shouted, ‘I need that, it’s my reading book’ (there are no words in this book just arrows and diagrams!)

‘Well you can take this instead’ and I stuffed in the schoolbook he’d brought home at the end of last term and left on his desk, unmoving, unopen all through the Summer.

His bag was snatched off me as he fought his way into his coat – Bubba won’t wear a coat, or a waterproof and this morning it was raining, I mean proper raining, so as he jammed his arms into a wind breaker I knew this wouldn’t fit over his blazer.  ‘Bubba it won’t…..’

‘Arghhhh stupid coat won’t go on, I need to take this off, and…’ windbreaker was ripped from his body and thrown across the room as he started to removed his blazer…

‘erm, no, you need to wear that’.

‘No I don’t’ and off he stomped, still wearing the offensive blazer.

Off he trotted to the car chuntering under his breath and ready for a fight as ‘The Wife’ innocently asked him what his first class was.

‘Well I’ll get a detention in all of them today won’t I because I haven’t got a book to read’

Before she had chance to reply he carried on with, ‘We need to have a reading book in every class and I haven’t got a book now because SHE took it out so I’ll get detentions.’

‘Bubba you have a book in your bag, I put it in’.

‘No, that’s a book to go back, that’s due back, I can’t read it’

‘The Wife’ made the mistake of trying to assure him… ‘But you can still read it’.

‘No I can’t, it needs to go back. Look!’ ‘He plunged his hand into his rucksack ‘Oh lets just see when this was due back… LOOK! 7^th! It was due back last week so it needs to go back!’

I sat in the back with Squeak and stayed silent, as what’s the point, really?

‘Well why don’t you use that as your reading book until breaktime and then take it back to the library and cha..’

‘No! I can’t do that, it has to go back.’

‘Yes, take it back and..’

‘It’s not a reading book it’s a book to go back’.

‘But it’s a book…’

‘It’s not a reading book though is it?!’ (it was, it was a reading book!)

As he carried on chuntering and stuffing the offensive book back in his bag  I caught ‘The Wife’s eye in the mirror and saw her desperate desire to say something else. My practical wife needed to follow the logic and reach a conclusion, to prove to Bubba that it’s a book, he can read it (because as sure as Sherlock he hadn’t read it over the Summer!)

I just gave a little shake of the head – No, let it go. You’re never winning this one. It’s the PDA.  Her eyes were pleading for permission to say, ‘It’s just a book’, but luckily we were saved, as we so often are by Squeak launching into his familiar rendition of ‘Sweet Caroline’ at the top of his voice giving Bubba something else to argue with – ‘Shut Up Squeak!’  Happy Monday!

He’s always anxious on a morning so we should know better really and not speak to him at all as whatever we say will inflame him.

There’s certain things we’ve learnt to help us like using ‘I’d really appreciate it if you could…’ or ‘It would be really helpful if….’ when we want him to do something. It sometimes works, not on baths and showers though, they’re still strictly in the ‘achieved through bribery’ zone.  And you can’t predict his reactions and he’s often anxious and I can’t think of a time when he isn’t really. The smallest thing can make him explode.  Like being in the garden. You wouldn’t think so would you but EV-ER-EEEE-TIME!

We have a trampoline and it sits on a woodchip base. To access the bouncy thing you just, wearing shoes, walk across the wood chip, climb up the short ladder and as if by magic, you’re in and bouncing. Simple. I understand the process, Squeak, with his delay that makes him cognitively four years old, can understand this… Bubba.. what do you think?

Bubba refuses to wear shoes in the garden, not even the smelly crocs that he otherwise lives in.  Don’t know why but he’s made this decision. I think it’s because we’ve told him to wear shoes that he won’t do it – that happens a lot with PDA, ask him to do something innocuous and because we’ve asked, it won’t be done.

When he wants to go on the trampoline he’ll become anxious about shoes and instead of slipping his crocs on and running across the woodchip, taking him less than ten seconds, he’ll spend an age very angrily picking his way across the woodchip yelling and shouting. Sometimes he’ll attempt to construct an elaborate walkway using inappropriate toys and garden furniture that he then tries to precariously balance on to travel over the two feet of flippin’ woodchip!

If we dare to point out to him how much easier and quicker it would be in footwear, we’re met with more screaming, shouting and insults.

He’s gotten splinters before, he’s cut his feet before, he’s trodden on hidden stones – it all adds to his tantrum but he will no put shoes on.

There’s no logic to it. In my kind of neuro-typical mind I think, I want to do something, here is the barrier to doing it, here is the solution – shoes. Not Bubba, it has to be his way which sadly is the PDA way.

I think it’s this lack of logic that me and ‘The Wife’ both struggle with. There’s that saying ‘You could argue about anything’ but he truly can and we never, absolutely never win.

I’ve now started to run an inner dialogue in my head whilst having the verbal discussion with him. In my head I can say all the things I could to a neuro-typical child, we can debate, I can reason with him, we can agree… all the things I can’t do with Bubba. With Bubba I tend to say ‘Ok’.  Just that ‘Ok’.  Because anything else won’t be welcomed or met with logic. I let him run with his argument, with his rant until he’s run out of steam and even he can’t argue with himself anymore.

You might not agree, ‘The Wife’ struggles with this as she needs him to learn, she needs to show him the logic but right now, until he’s emotionally more mature and can recognise his PDA and work with it, he won’t learn and my sanity needs saving.

Typically when we got home I checked his timetable and his morning comprises of double PE so he didn’t even need the flippin’ book anyway!!