Collaborating with kids who experience Pathological Demand Avoidance (PDA) is one way to help them engage with life in a way that feels safe. Tasks that feel demanding feel less so when PDA kids have a chance to contribute in the process.

An easy misunderstanding around collaboration is that offering choices is sufficient. One of our team Keri Schouten (adult PDA person and parent coach) responded to a parent whose PDA child was rejecting choices she offered him in an effort to be collaborative:

"Offering choices and having them rejected is not a failed accomodation, it’s a failed attempt at collaboration. In a sense, you’re trying to trick them in to agreeing to pre-set solutions dictated by you. This failure happens because PDA’ers tend to realize many choices are false, and reject them outright. (A choice between two things we don’t want to do isn’t really a choice.) False choices are typically answered with a flat "no", like "you can’t manipulate me into choosing between these two things." It’s also not an accommodation if the person doesn’t want it, or doesn’t find it helpful.

"I think it’s helpful to totally move away from "choices" with kids who react with "no" and instead look at each task through the following lenses:

—how can I make this easier for them while *also* reflecting their perspective?

("I know you don’t like picking out your own clothes, so I found your most favorite soft tee and leggings and left it on the bed for you")

("I don’t mind helping you get dressed, here, I’ll hold the pants for you and make it super easy")

("Here’s your toothbrush and a cup of water, in case it’s easier to brush while you’re watching on your iPad")

("Washing your own hair is hard, and annoying. I want it to be effortless for you. Maybe… a spa day where we set up the kitchen counter to be super comfy, and we pretend you are the customer and I am your hair washing servant? With cucumbers on your eyes and everything")

—how can I make it fun?

("I hear the toilet calling "I’m so HUNGRY why hasn’t anyone popped in me yet today? Don’t you know toilets deserve to eat, too? Geez people." "Be quiet toilet, no one has any poop to give you right now. And also why are you talking about poop? It’s so stinky" "poop poop poop I’m going to keep saying it until you feed me" "noooooo")

—how can I create routines that focus on slowing down, on connecting, on fun, on process? This can look a lot of different ways. 

(Having conversations about things that are very interesting to the child instead of talking about teeth brushing while teeth brushing, keeping the focus OFF the transition so it happens kind of in the background of the interesting conversation. ) 

(Having conversations during transitions that give information + "look forward" but focus on good memories. "Playground time is in five minutes. Remember yesterday when you started digging and then we found water to dump, and you turned that hole into a stream? I wonder what it looks like now", like we’re focusing our thoughts on what is at the end of the transition rather than the transition itself)

(Having something to look forward to after the caregiving tasks, like for example when my kids were younger, we would brush teeth and then I’d read to them for a super long time before transitioning to listening to our own audiobooks, me with headphones, while lying in bed together. So teeth brushing did not create direct resistance to "bedtime"— sometimes resistance to tasks is about what comes next, not the task itself. This is especially true before school, for example.)

If we want to be successful with transitions and caregiving tasks, we need to find ways to take the spotlight off of those tasks and shift to more of a meandering vibe that makes life easy, effortless, fun, and also centers around "I see and value your point of view". This can feel a bit like jumping through hoops, because we also can’t do or talk about the exact same boring thing every day, but I think it’s also well worth putting energy into that hoop jumping. 

The foundation upon which collaboration rests is connection and support, along with "I want to find a way to make this work for you in a way that also works for me." If we are focusing on control, which looks more like "how do I get you to do what I want you to do", then it’s likely we’re going to end up frustrated. That’s not a meandering approach, that is always going to be direct and demanding, and rooted in behaviorist principles (like "first, then", or offering two choices). On the surface it seems reasonable, but in reality, simple solutions rarely work for long. It’s better to ask "how can I make it easy for you to do what I want you to do, how can I make it fun, interesting, connected?"