When even candy isn't enticing enough 🍭

Last weekend, my younger son William (7) voluntarily attended a birthday party hosted by neighbors.

He stayed the whole 3 hours (!), ate cupcakes and a few bites of chicken tenders, and rotated between running around in a football scrimmage and looking at twigs while sitting on the ground. He had one meltdown, which we figured would prompt him to say he wanted to go home, but he recovered and stayed!

While this might not seem like a huge deal to parents of non-PDA kids, it was a mind-blowing milestone for us. 

William has been in burnout since June of 2025.

He has been home with us 24/7 (we unenrolled him from his private school), on his screen playing Minecraft and other games with dad and asking for food deliveries.

And although now he is solidly in the "recovery" phase - where he is engaging a lot more off screens, getting out of the house - and enjoying being out of his room - it has been inconsistent.

This isn't demand avoidance from not wanting to engage in life.

It’s that his body won’t let him sometimes, even when he wants to engage and participate.

For example, last Halloween, William's nervous system was so overwhemled that he couldn’t even leave his spot in bed under his fuzzy blanket to say 'hi' to his grandparents as they handed out candy.

He couldn’t go downstairs to get a handful of Halloween candy.

Instead, I delivered a few pieces to his bed, because he just… couldn’t.

This is the second time in my life I have provided caregiving for a PDA child in burnout.

And although my team and I have supported more than 3,000 parents of PDAers through the same process, it just hits different when it is your own child.

It can be hard to:

• Stay neutral and objective to track progress
• Trust in a process that takes way longer than we want
• Not fall into despair and self-doubt

The truth is, you can know every bit of the logic of PDA, the “tactics” of accommodation, and cognitively understand what is going on, and still get stuck. 

It can feel impossible to carry on without community and human support and understanding. 

That's why I send out these notes each week. 

They are reminders that this community exists - that we may be spread around the world, but we are here, understanding you, cheering you on, and supporting you every step of the way.