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Helping Your Child With PDA Live a Happier Life
Drawing on the author’s personal experience of parenting a child with PDA, this insightful and informative guide offers strategies and tips for all aspects of daily life, including sensory issues, education and negotiation.
Full of advice and support, this book is not intended to provide information on how to change your children. Rather, it is focused on creating the type of environment that will allow children to be authentically themselves, thereby enabling them to flourish and thrive.
Alice Running is an autistic woman and has two sons with autism (one with PDA also).
Full of advice and support, this book is not intended to provide information on how to change your children. Rather, it is focused on creating the type of environment that will allow children to be authentically themselves, thereby enabling them to flourish and thrive.
Alice Running is an autistic woman and has two sons with autism (one with PDA also).
- GenresNonfictionParenting
124 pages, Paperback
Published January 1, 2021
6 people are currently reading
76 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
December 17, 2023
This book was validating for me, in both affirming my child and my parenting instincts of responding to his needs. I appreciated that this was written by an autistic author. The sensory charts at the beginning were very helpful, along with seeing PDA as primarily an anxiety response. I think if the reader is well versed in PDA, they may not find this book as helpful as I did, however, it's always worthwhile to read an #ownvoices experience. 4.5 stars rounded up.
March 2, 2022
This book is so validating of life with a PDAer while being super autism affirming (which makes sense as the author is also autistic!!). I thoroughly recommend it!!
October 31, 2024
This book would be better titled "Helping Your Child with Autism..." as it covers different struggles common with people on the spectrum. It did not really contain much information on PDA itself. PDA isn't exclusive to people with Autism, and this book completely overlooked that. I'm very disappointed.
March 29, 2022
If your child is (close to) age appropriate communication levels and you suspect PDA, this book is for you. There was a lot to be learned from this book regardless, and if nothing else, it made me feel less alone as a parent. But overall, many of the (very good!) suggestions Alice Running makes in this book are a little bit out of reach for us at this time. That being said, let me give you the take-aways that did resonate with me.
The author talks about taking her two boys out of traditional education and allowing a long (two year!) recuperation period in which their stress levels reduced and needs were minimized. She identified her three non-negotiables and those were the only (and I mean ONLY) demands she put on her boys. I will be evaluating our non-negotiables, too, to see what really needs to be done on those days everyone is stressed out.
From there, patience, patience, patience is key. Kids with PDA need to be able to go at their own steady, calm, pace. Something I had never considered: high praise can actually increase anxiety in certain kids: they know they’ve done well this time, but are worried they might not be able to achieve that level of performance again. So building self confidence incrementally without too much pressure is extremely important.
I will be looking into doing a sensory profile for M before we go back to traditional school, in order to help pinpoint her specific needs that might arise outside a familiar home environment. The author also provides handy list of school adjustments that may be helpful. Finally, we will be creating an emergency response plan that includes hand-out cards for any sort of law enforcement or EMT’s she might come across. Hopefully this is something we’ll never have to use, but it’s much better to have it and not need it than need it and not have it. M is not prone to self-harm or violence…but we haven’t hit the teenage years. Also, there are plenty of examples of law enforcement moving straight to physical restraint even when whoever they were interacting with was doing nothing to cause that sort of response. This isn’t a guarantee against something like this ever happening, but it will be one more tool in our toolbox.
In all, I believe I got a better understanding of what it is going on in a PDA brain and why they may react the way they do. While not all the suggestions work for us right now, there were plenty to make this book worth reading, and I have a strong belief that we will get to a point in M’s communication where some of this book’s cool ideas (talking boards, mindfulness exercises…) will be useful in the future.
The author talks about taking her two boys out of traditional education and allowing a long (two year!) recuperation period in which their stress levels reduced and needs were minimized. She identified her three non-negotiables and those were the only (and I mean ONLY) demands she put on her boys. I will be evaluating our non-negotiables, too, to see what really needs to be done on those days everyone is stressed out.
From there, patience, patience, patience is key. Kids with PDA need to be able to go at their own steady, calm, pace. Something I had never considered: high praise can actually increase anxiety in certain kids: they know they’ve done well this time, but are worried they might not be able to achieve that level of performance again. So building self confidence incrementally without too much pressure is extremely important.
I will be looking into doing a sensory profile for M before we go back to traditional school, in order to help pinpoint her specific needs that might arise outside a familiar home environment. The author also provides handy list of school adjustments that may be helpful. Finally, we will be creating an emergency response plan that includes hand-out cards for any sort of law enforcement or EMT’s she might come across. Hopefully this is something we’ll never have to use, but it’s much better to have it and not need it than need it and not have it. M is not prone to self-harm or violence…but we haven’t hit the teenage years. Also, there are plenty of examples of law enforcement moving straight to physical restraint even when whoever they were interacting with was doing nothing to cause that sort of response. This isn’t a guarantee against something like this ever happening, but it will be one more tool in our toolbox.
In all, I believe I got a better understanding of what it is going on in a PDA brain and why they may react the way they do. While not all the suggestions work for us right now, there were plenty to make this book worth reading, and I have a strong belief that we will get to a point in M’s communication where some of this book’s cool ideas (talking boards, mindfulness exercises…) will be useful in the future.
January 18, 2025
It's so useful hearing other people's perspectives on what works and what doesn't with their neurodivergent children. The author's own struggles with schooling and authorities clearly colour her view on these matters, the book is slightly UK-centric, and I'm familiar with many of the topics she wrote about, but I found it useful to read nonetheless.
December 24, 2022
Fantastic read
July 4, 2023
Easy to read and helpful. Liked the beginning better than the end.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews