Raising a PDAer: The sun and the soil

This week I'm going to talk about something I'm not particularly good at:

Gardening

In fact, if you had seen our "garden bed" this past summer - which was really just a four-feet-high block of weeds - you would be wondering how I felt I had any authority to discuss gardening ever.

But using gardening as a metaphor for parenting a PDA child or teen can be a very helpful way for parents to see more clearly where and why so many of them get stuck.

So, if you'll indulge me, I'll throw on my gardening gloves for this week's email: 

The Sun and Soil

Here in Michigan, during the winter the ground freezes.

No matter how badly I want to stick seeds into it – and no matter how great those seeds are – I cannot push them into my garden's hard, frozen soil.

And even if I managed to, the seeds would not flourish. If they sprouted at all, they would die quickly.   

When it comes to gardening, the winter season is similar to the excruciating time when your PDA child or teen is:

• Rejecting school
• Refusing therapy
• Gagging on medication
• Responding with “stop talking” to any attempt at communication
• Not leaving their room
• Attacking their siblings
• Not eating (or bathing, or brushing their teeth, sleeping, etc.)

This is a scary time for parents, in part because we want so badly for things to change. 

And so we force metaphorical seeds into the rock-hard dirt. We try stricter parenting approaches, forcing our child into school, or pushing them into therapies that may not be the best fit for this particular moment in time (or at all). And quite often, this makes things worse.

I say this with no judgement of you. I did all the things I've just described. I was terrified, and I wanted to alleviate the pain in my family.

But the ground was frozen and, in a way, so was my son. 

So what can parents do?

Instead of forcing seeds into the ground, they must first thaw the soil. And they do this by becoming the warm sun of radical acceptance.

As they accept their child has a nervous system disability, they see clearly the constraints this brings about for their day-to-day life.

And they also start to see that these constraints are not their fault as parents, nor are they their child or teen's fault. 

And this - like the sunlight of spring - brings about the thaw.  

Of course, this acceptance sounds simple, but is hard in practice.  

It means accepting the following truth: you are always either activating or accommodating your PDA child. And you must make your decisions - about boundaries, expectations, limits, school, screens, siblings, communication, chores, etc. - accordingly.

Accepting this and the process you must go through is gritty work.

It will bring up grief, anger, resentment and resistance. It will not make you feel like a Buddha meditating on a lotus flower.

Instead it may feel like:

• Putting towels on all your furniture, because you're allowing your 7-year-old to not wear pants and underwear in the house.
• Silently leaving preferred foods around the house as offerings, instead of forcing your teen to the table to eat. 
• Saying "OK honey," or “Wow, I get confused about directions sometimes,” when your child is adamant that north is south and east is west. 
• Pulling your tween in a wagon because they don’t want to walk to karate class.
• Grabbing them food and replying in earnest "it sounds like you had a hard day" when your teen comes home from school and calls you a bitch. 
• Being brought to your knees by the constant rock-and-a-hard-place you face as a parent. 

Doing these things consistently is incredibly difficult. It takes immense patience and trust.

But it shows your PDA child or teen that you are trustworthy. It creates for them the sense of safety they need.

And this is what thaws the soil. This parental, unconditional sunshine is what enables their nervous systems to get to the place where they can accept a seed.

And the seeds, in this metaphor, are the parenting approaches, frameworks and tools that we use. 

The ones I teach in my programming are DESIGNED to support the PDA nervous system. Using them is like planting cherry seeds (instead of say, mangos) here in Michigan. The likelihood of success is high.

But even after we plant them, we have to continue to provide our sunshine of acceptance. Each and every day. This is the only way to create a climate where growth can occur. 

And over time, as we create warm and fertile soil, we can try other seeds, too. Collaborative Problem Solving, play-therapy, medication, speech therapy, occupational therapy, Safe and Sound Protocol, and more can be helpful for some PDA children and teens, but only if the conditions are right. If the child feels safe and accepted, and knows on a subconscious level that they won't be forced past their Threshold of Tolerance - and has for long enough that their cumulative nervous system activation has reduced.

I stress this point because so often it's the missing piece for parents who come to my programs after trying other approaches - or applying things like declarative language, lowering demands, etc., - sometimes for years, to no avail. 

But then once they dive into radical acceptance - which our programs and tools support them to do - and begin shining the rays of it on their child or teen, they see glimmers of growth:

• Their teen leaves their room and sits next to them while watching their ipad
• Their child comes to the table voluntarily
• Their tween starts talking about school again with curiosity
• Meltdowns reduce from multiple each day, to just one

And then with time, as they keep shining and supporting their child or teen's nervous system, they see even bigger changes:

• Their teen says "I love you" unsolicited for the first time in a decade
• Their child goes to the playground after months of refusing to leave the house
• They move back into their own bed and sleep through the night
• They gain weight after years of restrictive eating

In other words, the garden flourishes.

Which brings me back to where I started.

I may not be a great gardener, but after years of practice, I am an expert at shining the light of acceptance on my PDA child, and at teaching parents to do the same. 

And I know you can do this.