Football has my son on his edge

For the past few weeks, my son has been having 10-30-minute panic attacks during his football practices.

His father – who volunteers as a coach – has been spending four nights a week co-regulating and de-escalating my PDA son intensively. He has communicated with the other coaches about Cooper’s nervous system disability, but as you all know it can be really difficult to understand from the outside looking in.

In the quiet of our bedroom, my husband often shares the discomfort he feels when he has to walk off the field and not tend to other kids on the team, or the fact that others don’t fully understand what is going on and why it is happening so frequently.  

After Cooper misses a tackle or doesn’t perform the drill like he wants to (perceived loss of autonomy or equality results in a nervous system reaction!), his dad often has to gently carry him off the field over his shoulder and bring him to a space on the grass where he can safely writhe, kick, spit and cry. Then, as his nervous system reaction comes down, they look for a woman who often brings her dog to the practices of another team, to help speed Cooper's exit from the panic attack.

They have made friends with this mom, who doesn’t ask questions but knows that Cooper has his own service dog with him at school, but not at practice (because it would be too much on my husband to manage Cooper, coaching, and the dog). 

Once back in his thinking brain, my son will often say he wants to go back to the drill that set him off, which by then has often ended. (This can prompt additional escalation, but typically not enough to trigger another panic attack.) If we look at what's happened through the lens of a trauma response, it explains why Cooper wouldn't have a good sense of the duration and intensity of the attack.

When practice ends, he always wants to play catch with his teammates, and his dad lets him stay awhile to get him this time to re-regulate. Then they drive to Culver’s to get fries (extra crispy, please) and ice cream (with hot caramel), and when he bounds in the door with his football pants still on at about 8:30pm, he looks to me more like a happy teenager than the 8-year-old who just lost it on the football field.

But then when my husband reports what happened at practice, I wonder: Are we doing the right thing?

I pan out and assess the basic needs indicators:

He has been sleeping until 7:00am every morning, and I have had to wake him up for the first time in his life.

He has been eating 4-5 small hamburger patties A DAY that his dad makes for him, after years of only eating processed food, because he's hungrier and knows football players eat protein.

Needless to say – we are confused.

Should we keep allowing him to play football when he is panicking so frequently, yet when it is such a source of pride and interest and when his other basic needs, connection and nervous system indicators outside of practice are positive and even improving in some ways?

If I’m honest, I don’t know.

I found myself texting two nights ago with a friend who is an adult PDAer and had a similar experience with sports as a child.

“Am I doing the right thing,” I asked?

She told me about what went on inside her head and body, and possible deepening of accommodations, which I thought were great suggestions. We will try what we can, but ultimately, as my husband says, “we can’t bend football to our or Cooper’s will.” That is just the reality in certain situations. So we do the best we can.

This means we are still dancing on the edge - even after years of accommodation, learning our child, tracking indicators, and listening to his voice in our decisions. We toggle between accommodation and exposure to nervous system stress and hope that we are making the right choice. 

A large part of parenting a PDA child or teen is decision-making within constraints and using your own child’s data to make the best decisions you can. Assessing the cost-benefit, leaning into the connection and deep knowing you have of your child.

But there is also a lot of uncertainty. Of letting go of control. Of experimenting. Of trial and error and sometimes making mistakes. Of pushing your child too hard when you think they would benefit from fresh air, or of hanging back and not supporting them when they really want to do the thing but need to be co-regulated through it. It can be hard to tell as a parent sometimes, especially post-burnout when you have re-learned a new logic and you have been so traumatized by traditional parenting approaches.  

Another key feature of this approach is that your decisions will necessarily look different than other parents around you. This includes other parents in the PDA space or what someone online would do or tells you you should do as a parent.

This is a reflection that you are tuning into YOUR child or teen’s experience, not that you are doing it wrong.

Many of you would pull your kid out of football. Maybe your child is closer to burnout than mine. Or the basic needs indicators are getting worse. Or your intuition simply tells you to.  And you would be right.

We are sticking with football because my son is obsessed with it and the season is almost over. Cooper is prouder than he has ever been. And my husband, while stressed, is willing and able. 

And so at this particular moment in time, this is right for our family.

You are doing great, too, and I believe in you.

Your knowing. Your child. Your intuition. Your resourcefulness. Your creativity within constraints.