Father's Day wasn't great

Father’s Day was not great this year.

We planned a day around fishing - one of my 9-year-old PDA son Cooper's special interests - followed by a family trip to the movies to see Inside Out 2.

Before all this Cooper had a flag football game scheduled, which is another special interest and usually a boost for him. But when he got back my husband told me Cooper's team lost and he didn't make any big plays, so although he masked through it, his nervous system was very activated.

And indeed, within minutes of arriving at the lake, I could see and sense the agitation in Cooper’s body. He was pacing up and down the shore at a frantic pace, his jaw was tense, his motions were jerky and he kept switching fishing rods.

He also wasn’t catching anything, and I could see the frustration mounting. Then when he cast a line in a chaotic way and it landed in a tree branch I heard the aggression in his scream for help getting it unhooked.

Soon enough we realized that he was in a cognitive loop - unable to control his body well enough to fish successfully, but unable to stop fishing - and we packed up quickly to get him into the car. He had a panic attack the entire way home, with teeth chattering, tears, moaning and writhing.

Once we got home, he needed about 30 minutes of de-escalation from me and my husband (plus a twix and a vanilla oreo delivered by his sweet 5-year-old brother) to support him back into his thinking brain.

The frustration around not winning his football game and not catching fish made sense to me through the PDA lens – the fact that he was neurocepting a loss of autonomy (no choice in winning or having a fish bite his line) and equality (he felt below the other team, the fish and the situation!), which pushed his threat response into fight/flight.

But what confused me was how close he was to his Threshold of Tolerance at the lake and how big his meltdown was. For months we have gone without meltdowns and for the past year most of his fishing trips have been calm – even serene – where even if there was some frustration at not catching a fish (or enough fish) he could manage it and it seemed within the realm of “typical kid frustration” that results from waiting for a bite.

Even though I practice and teach an accommodation and nervous system-based approach to supporting PDA children and teens over the long term, I still had to remind myself to pan out to understand the answer to the question that kept surfacing: Why is he freaking out right now? What is it about TODAY that is so activating?

I then reminded myself of the same thing I remind parents over and over again: Nervous system activation is cumulative over time, whether it is a day, a week, months or even years.

I remembered that although Cooper did brilliantly at his fishing summer camp the week prior (no meltdowns, he traded lures with other kids, he was thoughtful and seemingly regulated), his service dog couldn’t attend with him because there was another child in the program with severe dog allergies.

I suddenly had the same “aha” moment I have had dozens of times: the perception of threat in his nervous system was building over time even if he was having fun at fishing camp and enjoying the activity from the space of his “thinking brain.” Not having his dog with him for the week meant that his nervous system activation cup was filling faster than usual. Losing his football game kept filling it up to his threshold of tolerance, and then not catching fish quickly on Father’s Day was the tipping point after a week of accumulation, rather than the stand-alone cause.

This is a lens shift that is incredibly helpful for parents to understand because it illuminates the “deep why” behind seemingly unpredictable behavior or big responses to stimuli (whether it is the word we say, a bright light, a song on the radio, or a small boundary) that in the past did not produce a meltdown, panic attack, or aggressive response.

When Cooper was in burnout, I remember filling excel spreadsheets with every variable I could think of to track what was going on with him and why he was exploding: how many hours of daylight, screentime, movement, exactly what he ate, what I said, how much he slept the night before, etc. I was trying so hard to discern the causality and locate a logic or pattern from his paradoxical and fluctuating behavior.

Yet, I was looking too closely (hour by hour) and without even realizing it, following the logic of what many therapists, teachings, and by extension parents, are trained in: The ABC Framework for behavior. This is the idea that we can locate an “Antecedent” (what happens right before the behavior), “Behavior” (what we can observe the child or teen doing), and then apply an immediate “Consequence” to modify or extinguish that behavior.

Without even realizing it, I was trying to identify the Antecedent to the observed Behavior so I could get rid of it.

However, with PDA kids, the “Antecedent” could be the two weeks prior to the situation that sets off the big response ("Behavior"), even if the situation is totally unrelated to the activities of the prior weeks. 

This can be hard to wrap our minds around. Especially when we realize that no, PDA doesn’t just “appear” out of nowhere or signify an Autistic “regression,” but rather nervous system stress builds up over time. All the tiny, constant moments of perceiving threat build in the system until the PDA child or teen is past the threshold of what the human body can tolerate for perceiving danger or life threat.

The cumulative logic explains the fluctuating nature of PDA as a nervous system disability and how important it is to pan out and realize that even if your child is “complying” or doing well in the moment (let’s say school, therapy, or even something fun like a sports practice or social situation they like), there are still subconscious perceptions of threat that put “drops in the cup” of the child’s nervous system.

This is why lowering the demand around chores and homework on a Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday may be what allows a PDA child or teen to sleep well on Saturday or not go into panic on Sunday.

This causality is harder to parse and understand, especially when the conventional wisdom around behavior points to a different timeline and logic for cause and effect.

The good news is, we can support our PDA children and teens through accommodations so that they don't reach this tipping point as often.

This week my son’s service dog is back with him at camp, we doubled-down on accommodations, and Cooper is back down below his threshold with a wider window of tolerance for life in general.

That is what I hope for you and yours over time.

I believe in you and your child.