If you’re trying to homeschool or home educate a child with a PDA profile, you’ve likely discovered a traditional schooling approach is not always conducive to learning. Many parents start out borrowing from school: timetables, structured lessons, rewards charts… Only to find simply getting out of the school environment and approaching everything with gentleness isn’t enough!

While peers diligently complete math worksheets or written paragraphs, the reality is, the formal expectation of schoolwork is anxiety-provoking for children with a PDA neurotype. 

The resistance your child has to traditional homeschool isn’t your fault.

PDA anxiety isn’t rooted in rational worries you can work through together. It’s rooted in ‘demands’ causing a physiological threat response.  This threat response may come out as resistance, refusal, irritation / aggression or tears, when asked to complete set work.

For those children with an internal PDA expression, they may comply with your expectations, but at the cost of their general anxiety levels rising. This can result in seemingly unconnected outbursts, ruminations, or challenges.

It isn’t a parenting issue. It isn’t a discipline issue. And it’s not your child’s fault either!

PDA children are not being difficult on purpose. Being ‘told what to do’ is incredibly difficult for PDA individuals, and unfortunately ‘schooling’ requires a lot of instruction!

Routine can feel like pressure. Reward charts can feel like being managed (and more pressure). Consistency and predictability becomes a source of conflict… And what feels like good parenting or teaching, becomes a loss of autonomy for them and a source of infuriation for you. 

Thankfully, there are other ways for your child to gain an education at home.

What’s most needed to home educate or homeschool a PDA child?

When you homeschool a PDA child, the key is creating a safe and collaborative environment. One in which their threat response is activated as little as possible. PDA learners don’t need changing, but our approach as parents and educators does. 

Instead of asking “how can I make my PDA child learn?”, it’s about asking “How can I make learning feel safe for them?”. 

For a PDAer, this requires a level of felt safety beyond what other children will require. It’s not just about checking for physical safety issues, but about creating emotional safety.

The foundations of emotional safety while home schooling PDAers

Freedom

For your child to thrive, they need to feel free to be themselves, including as they’re educated! If you set up ‘school’ like requirements for their education at home (sitting in silence, putting their hand up to answer, following strict instructions) you’re building in unnecessary anxiety which will reduce their capacity to learn.

Of course, there has to be safety limits. But allowing your child to express themselves as boldly, creatively, and loudly, as they like – while respecting others’ needs too – is part of helping them feel safe.

Allowing them as much freedom as possible in terms of when/where/what they learn, also establishes this sense of safety.

That’s not to say you can’t work out any boundaries, but working together as much as possible is essential to reduce anxiety levels and increase cooperation.

Home educating PDA children is a nuanced experience. It requires being able to adapt and collaborate as a family. 

Emotional consistency

PDA children are extremely sensitive to other people’s emotions. They will suss out when you don’t approve, when you’re feeling down, when you’re aggravated, and when you’re not saying what you mean. Still, they are children and how they interpret this information may not always be accurate. This misunderstanding can increase anxiety and leave them unsure what to expect from you.

Our PDA children do best when they can count on us to be emotionally regulated. Given that we’re only human, when we are struggling, it helps them to understand what is going for us, in an age appropriate.

Repairing relationships after conflict or raised voices is particularly important to PDA children too. It equalizes any power imbalance and reminds your child you respect them as an equal.

Perceived equality

It is often said that autistic individuals don’t understand social hierarchy. In the case of PDA individuals, it’s not that social hierarchy isn’t recognised or understood, it’s that it isn’t always appreciated. PDA individuals do not feel a need to respect someone more simply because they have a certain social standing, status or job role. Respect is developed through mutual respect.

PDAers often don’t want to be lower OR higher than others, instead wanting to be understood as equals. It’s why praise and enthusiasm can also be uncomfortable for PDA individuals. Even if you have more power and more influence in your child’s life, they want to feel equal to you. They want to feel as respected as you. They want to feel they have as much choice as you.

When you help your PDA child perceive equality in your relationship, and the relationships of other family members, you help further build the safety that makes it easier to engage with things.

Remember, it’s often about your child’s perception, not on logic. You may deem your decision making fair based on rationale, experience, or expectations of their age. But it’s that sense of inequality that triggers the threat response, whether you consider it accurate or not.

Novelty &  fun

As demands and expectations trigger anxiety, PDAers typically thrive on novelty. Things that are fun, exciting, surprising and hands-on! Supporting autistic monotropic focus and ADHD hyperfocus (the tendency to focus intensely on one thing) is also key to helping PDA children flourish, which means plenty of things that they’re interested in! It’s not our fault as AuDHDers it’s so hard to focus on things we find dull…

It’s important to also note – not all novelty will be appreciated! Your relationship with your child will help guide what ‘surprises’ they can manage, and where they need more predictability. 

Low demands

Demands are things that ‘need’ to be done, or things which are highly expected to be done. If the words ‘need/must/should’ are used, it’s probably a demand. It’s why things like brushing teeth, using the toilet, even eating/drinking, can be so challenging for some PDA individuals. They’re all demands.

Theoretically, the fewer demands we can give our PDA children, the more chance we have of lowering their anxiety… But again, being attentive to your child is crucial. There may be times when they benefit from a gentle push to face demands they’d previously dropped.

Permission to say NO

If you’re going to homeschool a PDA child, you’re going to need to get OK with hearing NO. You’re going to have to get OK with being disappointed that your genius idea is not well received. That your best laid plans don’t go accordingly. That you might not be able to get out of the house when you wanted, or do the things you’d dreamed you would as a home educator. It’s not easy, but if you can allow it, it will get easier.

Most of us want our children to be able to say no as adults, and to be able to stand up for what makes them uncomfortable. It starts by allowing them to say no where they feel safest to do this. 

Safe relationships & connection

What your child needs most of all is safe relationships and real connection. Relationships in which they can expect it all: freedom, emotional consistency, perceived equality & novelty/fun.

The more people you have onboard to offer your child everything they need to feel safe, the easier home learning / life will become. Unfortunately, this can be one of the hardest things to come by. The truth is many adults aren’t yet ready to offer children the same level of autonomy and respect they’d want for themselves. Most adults are rattled by big emotions, having never been allowed to express them themselves. 

However unconventional it feels, connection is something to prioritise over curriculum or academic milestones.

Why? The more connected and valued your child feels, the more engagement in learning they’re likely to have.

Connection with your child looks like listening, discussing things together, and showing interest in the things which matter to them, even if they are of little interest to you.

Plus, the more time you spend connecting with your child, the more opportunities you’ll have to see and hear just how much they’re learning without all the pressure. And that is a real privilege and a joy!

This post is based on personal understanding and lived experience. It does not speak for every PDA individual and is not a substitute for professional or medical advice. For other recommended reading on PDA, head to the further resources page.