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For some children and young people, the demands of every day life provoke extreme anxiety. Even things which other people find straightforward, or things that they really want to do. They want to avoid the anxiety, and so they resist and avoid the demands. This is demand avoidance. Demand avoidance is a behavioural trait, not a disorder.
This means that demand avoidant children often say No. They refuse to do things which everyone else is doing. Whatever you suggest, they want something different. Life with them can be really challenging. Whenever you say, you know that they won’t do it.
There are different reasons why young people might be demand avoidant. Some have a pathological demand avoidant (PDA) profile of autism. Some seem to be born like this, whilst others acquire it later in life after a period of chronic stress. For many, it changes as they grow up and are able to take more control of their lives. Many of these young people are extremely driven when it comes to doing things they find valuable.
Understanding demand avoidance can make all the difference. Parents can adjust the demands of everyday life to help their children flourish, and in the longer term, help them to learn to manage their anxiety so that they can live the life they want to live.
Why is change so hard for demand avoidant children? Understand why and equip yourself with the skills to help them (and you!) manage.
Does your child's behaviour confuse you? Does most of the parenting advice you are given make things worse? Do you feel like you are walking on eggshells? In this course, Dr Naomi Fisher will explain the psychology of demand avoidance. What is it, how does it affect the nervous system - and importantly, what can parents do? You'll end with a clearer idea of what is going wrong and some ideas as to how to help.
What happens when demand avoidance meets adolescence? In this mini-course, Naomi will explain what’s going on in your adolescent’s brain, and how that interacts with demand avoidance. She’ll help you understand what is going on for your child, and give you some practical ideas as to how to help your young person (and yourself) get through these important years. This course is suitable for teenagers with and without a diagnosis.
This mini-course is for teenagers to watch themselves. It explains why sometimes, everything feels like pressure and the more others try to help you, the harder it is to do anything, even things you’d like to do. It helps teens think about how to build a life which works for them. It’s suitable for anyone who experiences demand avoidance, whether or not they have a diagnosis.
Demand avoidant children confound all of our expectations. You ask them to do something, and they react as if you’re shouting. You show them that you’re pleased with them, and they respond by saying they’ll never do that again. The harder you try, the more difficult things become. What’s going on, and how can therapists work effectively with demand avoidant children? In this engaging and illustrated mini-course you’ll gain an understanding of demand avoidance and what it is. You’ll learn some practical ways to engage these children. It is suitable for anyone working therapeutically with children and teenagers, including psychologists, child psychotherapists, occupational therapists, drama therapists, art therapists and speech and language therapists. It might also be of interest to school SENCos although it focuses on the one-to-one.
If you are a parent worrying whether self-directed education will work for your child, because you have been told that they have special needs which can only be met in the school system - think again. Neurodivergent children experience and interact with the world differently to many of their peers. Standard educational systems often fail to adapt to their unique strengths and ways of learning. School, and even the act of learning, can become a source of great anxiety and trauma. Self-directed education offers an alternative to traditional schools that can help neurodivergent children develop at their own pace and thrive.
When I work with families, one of the things they are most worried about is this. ‘What if this never changes?’ This worry starts early.
What a strange thing we do to our young people in this culture and time. We make them spend several years learning things that they often have no interest in, that they have not chosen and that they will in many cases never use again. We tell them that these things are vitally important. Then we sit them in rows and make them write about the things they can remember for an intense few hours. We compare what they have written down with everyone else of the same age, and then we rank them.