Ep. 138 - The 10 Hardest Lessons I Learned in 2025 As A Mom of 2 PDA Kids (Part 2)

January 16, 2026·47 min·4 clips

Casey reveals how a PDA child can burn out even with full accommodation, based on her own parenting experience.

This episode features Casey, host of the At Peace Parents Podcast, sharing personal and professional lessons from 2025 about parenting children with Pathological Demand Avoidance (PDA). Casey, a mother to a PDA child and a coach for hundreds of parents, focuses on the hardest insights she gained over the year. She continues a series by detailing lessons five through ten from her list. Lesson five states that a PDA child can enter burnout even within a fully accommodating, low-demand, and autonomy-first parenting framework. Casey learned this personally with her seven-year-old son, William, despite previously understanding it from coaching thousands of families. She notes this includes families who homeschool or employ alternative parenting methods. The sixth lesson emphasizes that a child's nervous system state fundamentally dictates their capacity and behavior. Casey explains that a regulated nervous system allows for connection and learning, while a dysregulated state leads to defensiveness. She argues that recognizing this state is more critical than any specific parenting strategy or accommodation. A key insight is that a parent's primary role is to help co-regulate their child's nervous system, not just to manage behaviors or reduce demands. Casey describes a shift from focusing on accommodations to prioritizing this coregulation process. She shares that her own journey involved moving from a place of constant anxiety and "white-knuckling" to achieving greater personal regulation. The episode presents the view that a parent's regulated state is the most powerful tool for influencing a child's nervous system. Casey suggests that many conventional parenting approaches fail because they target behavior without addressing underlying physiological states. The tone is personal, educational, and conversational, drawn from Casey's direct experience as a parent and coach. The style blends coaching advice with vulnerable storytelling about her family. This episode is ideal for parents of demand-avoidant children, especially those familiar with PDA concepts seeking deeper, nervous-system-focused strategies. Listeners preferring structured, clinical advice or those new to the topic of PDA might find the content less applicable.

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