My younger son William
Jan 30, 2025
Over the past six months, my heart has been quietly heavy.
I have been watching my younger son, William (6), struggle more with anxiety, sensory issues, and some intense compulsive behavior that brings him a ton of shame.
Before school each day, he has been waking up screaming for me, jolting me from my attempt at morning meditation.
After school, he has been crying and creating caves out of blankets where he can cocoon himself, suck his thumb, and play Minecraft in his own private world.
Watching him go through this has worried my mama heart and brought up familiar – and traumatic – feelings from when Cooper (my 10-year-old PDA son) went into burnout six years ago.
It has left me feeling confused about the root cause of William's behavior that is familiar to so many of us raising siblings of PDAers:
🧐 Is he internalized PDA?
🧐 Anxious and traumatized from years of being equalized against by his brother?
🧐 His own flavor of neurodivergence?
For a few scary weeks, I was haunted by the possibility that he may be headed toward his own burnout.
In moments like these, life can feel comically and cosmically circular.
After years of growing and evolving as a parent - practicing acceptance and non-reactivity daily - life comes back around and asks:
👉 Did you really learn to let go of what you can’t control?
👉 Did you really learn to be non-reactive?
👉 Did you really accept that your life would look different than expected?
Even though this experience has been jarring, it has not been traumatic.
When I was finally able to take a Sacred Pause, remind myself that this belongs as part of my human experience, and surrender once again to life, I realized everything is actually OK.
As my acute anxiety subsided, I could feel in my bones the truth: Now is not the same as my PDA son’s burnout 6 years ago, because I am not the same.
With this realization – and even without knowing William’s brain-wiring exactly – I decided to do what I coach parents to do: Radically accept what you can’t control in this moment, experiment with the PDA lens, and observe what helps.
Over the last weeks, I have been leaning in hard to some of the accommodations that I had not been using with William because “he’s not PDA.”
Namely, one-on-one undivided attention, sensory intense experiences like rough-housing, and lots of signaling safety and humor through transitions.
I have started to relax into this and even enjoy it.
We've been watching the Junior Bake Off show together in the evenings, when his older PDA brother Cooper is at conditioning practice for football(!).
During this time with just me and his dad, William explodes out of his shell. He spends nearly the whole hour turning his body upside down, climbing on the back of the couch and on my husband’s head, sticking his feet in our faces while we pretend they are stinky, squishing between us, and sprawling on my lap while he presses his cheek against mine.
While the child bakers mix their flour and eggs on TV, he darts between the couch and his blanket cave, interrupting the show constantly with his walkie talkie messages to us on the couch and laughing.
I swear he doesn’t watch one moment of the show in a focused way, but he insists on “watching” every night with us.
This undivided attention – without control or correction of his body or his engagement – is already helping. He is more relaxed and willing to head upstairs to take a bath or start the bedtime routine.
In the mornings, I have been skipping my meditation and taking extra time to sit next to him while he watches his Minecraft videos.
When he resists the transition to get clothes on before school, I use humor and play. I pretend that I can’t find his feet under the blanket and instead put the socks on his hands. I pretend his bottom is his head and that I can’t get his shirt on! This playful approach gets him out of his threat response and back into his thinking brain.
William then comes downstairs for a popsicle transition treat and gets in the car wearing chewelry he picked out.
Meanwhile, behind the scenes we have been having the familiar conversations with the pediatrician and his therapist about evaluations, medications, etc. And while there is something so familiar about all of this, I am different this time around.
I am confident in myself and my intuition, and I know what we will and won’t do to support our sons.
On a deep level, I know that ultimately, everything is going to be more than OK.
I share this very personal story with you to make you feel less alone and to know that NO ONE has it all figured out.
Here are some the key takeaways:
1️⃣ It is OK to not fully understand your child’s brain-writing or neurotype yet, diagnosed or undiagnosed. You have permission to experiment with a new lens to see if it helps your child.
2️⃣ You can always pivot and make new decisions as a parent, as more clarity comes. For a long time with William we had been using some accommodations that his PDA brother had (for example, letting him eat in front of an ipad), while we didn’t lean into others as much (e.g., deliberate signals of nervous system safety and undivided attention). We are now deepening those accommodations and finding it helpful.
3️⃣ I don’t believe there is failure when you are learning to parent a new way. Truly. You are “getting your reps in” (consistently trying a new way), collecting data (how your child responds), and gaining wisdom along the way. If you allow yourself to see this new form of parenting as your own skill bootcamp that will help you navigate and feel confident in whatever comes out of left field – now or in ten years – it will free you from the perfectionism or fear of “doing it wrong” today.
4️⃣ Finally, raising neurodivergent kids is a profoundly meaningful lesson in navigating uncertainty with grace and equanimity. This is a skill that serves not just as a parent, but as a human in our modern world.
I am rooting for each and every one of you.
You aren’t alone and I think you are incredible!
Keep on keeping on.
With much love,
Casey
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