What to do when your PDA child says something untrue

Parents of children with pathological demand avoidance often find themselves in a familiar bind: their child says something factually incorrect, and every instinct says to gently set the record straight.

Here is what I have learned about why that impulse, however well-meaning, can sometimes work against you, and what skipping the correction can do for trust over time.

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Mama, did you know the moon is actually bigger than the sun?

Over the past few months, as my younger son William comes out of burnout, he has been sharing “facts” while I sit next to him on the couch we brought into his room a year ago.

The first thought that went through my head was: No it’s not.

But instead of gently correcting the factual accuracy of his statement, I paused and said:

Oooh… tell me more.

Now, you may be thinking:

• You missed a teachable moment.
• You can’t encourage factually incorrect statements.
• If you let them not tell the truth they will grow up to be a liar.

All very valid thoughts and fears. Yet, with a PDA child or teen – especially if you are in the stage of transforming your relationship to one of trust – two things are true.

Often our children and teens say things that aren’t true (“You didn’t tell me I needed to bring my trombone to school today!” “Turtles swim way faster than sharks!”) as a way of feeling “above” you so their nervous system can get back to safety.

Correcting them in the moment can feel like a loss of autonomy, shoot them into Survival Brain, and take a drop out of the trust bucket.

You can understand this logic and it can still be super hard to implement as a parent, therapist, or teacher. Yet, it can make an enormous difference.

Let me give you an example. A few years ago I worked with a family whose young PDA son was in speech therapy at school and the sessions were ending in power struggles, avoidance, and not a lot of progress.

The sticking point? The SLP kept correcting the child when he shared that the character Bluey from the television show lived in a valley. The SLP reminded him that no, in fact Bluey lives on the top of a hill.

This would result in dysregulation and disengagement (threat perception).

What changed everything

We experimented with: What if the SLP simply didn’t correct that and got curious instead by saying something like, “What is it like in the valley?” or “I didn’t realize that!”

What happened? The power struggles and avoidance stopped, the PDA child was able to talk about his special interest (BLUEY!) and connect to the SLP again.

Often when we pause and don’t say anything to correct them, a few things can happen:

• They just drop it and move on.
• They ask a question in the space we’ve given them (“Is the moon bigger than the sun, mom?”)
• They realize what they said wasn’t true and they correct themselves later.
• Their nervous system relaxes and even if they don’t admit the incorrect statement in the moment, over the long term there will be less doubling down on incorrect, inaccurate, untrue statements as a form of equalizing.

Will you experiment with NOT correcting your PDA child or teen when they say something untrue and see what shifts in the relationship?

You might be surprised by how little actually falls apart.