Ep. 157 - Getting Husband and Parents On Board with Pathological Demand Avoidance

In this episode, I coach Danielle, a mom from North Idaho who is newer to the PDA lens and has already been making progress with her almost nine-year-old son — but is running into resistance from her husband and her parents, who help with caregiving. Her son has existing diagnoses of ADHD, sensory processing disorder, and disorganized attachment, and was adopted from South Korea. Since discovering PDA a few months ago, Danielle says everything clicked in a way that previous frameworks hadn't.

Her question: how do you get the other adults in your child's life on board — and how do you trust yourself — when the people around you see things through a lens of disrespect and shame?

We talk through why PDA is so hard for other adults to believe, especially because of masking and the fact that the child's most intense behaviors tend to happen with the safest person in the home. I walk Danielle through the PLATO framework for making nonviolent communication requests — specifically, how to make a concrete, bounded request of her parents and husband without needing them to believe in PDA at all. We also talk about how to track three observable indicators — connection, nervous system activation, and access to basic needs — so that the approach becomes an experiment with data rather than a philosophical debate.

Danielle also shares a moment where her son described what it feels like in his body when he's activated: "like a big animal trapped in a small cage, and all I can do is fight to get out." And she shares that he has already started using the language of regulation and dysregulation on his own.

Key Takeaways

1. Why the primary caregiver is usually leading the charge [00:02:02] I normalize the pattern Danielle is describing — where the primary caregiver, usually the woman in the home, is leading the charge on PDA because she feels the nervous system cost of demands and boundaries viscerally, while other adults don't have the same day-to-day experience.
2. Why PDA is so hard for other adults to believe [00:08:31] I explain why PDA is especially hard for other adults to get on board with: because of masking, the child may appear fine or even well-attached in settings outside the home, which leads observers to conclude that the parent is a pushover — rather than recognizing that the child is internalizing the threat response and that activation is still accumulating.
3. Using the PLATO framework with grandparents [00:17:04] I walk Danielle through the PLATO framework (Person, Location, Action, Timing, Object) for making a nonviolent communication request to her parents — specifically, asking them not to step in when her son says rude things at the dinner table. I explain that the request doesn't require them to believe in PDA; it only asks whether they're willing to try something for a bounded period of time.
4. Turning a skeptical spouse into an experiment partner [00:34:52] I discuss how to approach Danielle's husband, who has been resistant and told her to stop "putting labels" on their son's behavior. I suggest framing it as a two-week experiment: asking him to view the behavior through the PDA lens and track three observable indicators — connection, nervous system activation, and access to basic needs — so the conversation is grounded in data rather than diagnosis.
5. A child names his own threat response [00:50:26] Danielle shares that her son has already begun using the language of dysregulation and regulation on his own — and that when she asked him what it feels like in his body when he gets upset, he told her: "It feels like I'm a big animal trapped in a small cage, and all I can do is fight to get out."