At Peace Parents Podcast

Latest Episodes:

Raising Twin Pathologically Demand Avoidant Boys: Socialization, Therapeutic Equalizing, and the Long Game | Ep. 155 Mar 24, 2026

Show notes

In this episode, I coach Pam, a mom raising fraternal twin 10-year-old boys, both PDA and autistic, who present and react quite differently from each other.

We talk through the socialization questions: what gets in the way, what actually helps, and why the issue for many PDA kids is not a lack of social skills but a nervous system that cannot access those skills in the moment.

I introduce the concept of therapeutic equalizing and what it can look like as a daily practice at home. We also spend time on the harder, less tactical piece: what it means to stay in the energy of non-attachment when you have tried everything and your kids still did not go to the Dungeons and Dragons group.

Key Takeaways

Two PDA Boys, Two Different Presentations | 00:03:06 Pam describes how her twin boys, both PDA and autistic, present quite differently in the world. One masks heavily and comes across as capable and attitude-driven. The other shows his struggle more visibly and has been out of school since grade one. I use this as a starting point for the importance of not grouping two PDA kids together even when they share the same diagnosis, and why the expectations and experiments for each may need to start from different places.

Why Socialization Struggles Are Not a Skills Problem | 00:19:34 For many PDA kids, the barrier to socialization is not that they lack the understanding of social norms. It is that their nervous system tips into threat perception in social situations, which blocks access to the skills they do have. I give the example of a child who understands not to call someone stupid but does it anyway when another kid grabs the controller, because the response is automatic, not chosen. What improves this over time is reducing cumulative nervous system activation, not practicing social skills in isolation.

Therapeutic Equalizing as a Daily Practice | 00:27:30 I introduce the concept of therapeutic equalizing: intentionally creating space each day for a PDA child to be dominant, to criticize, correct, and control a trusted adult, while that adult responds with lightness, self-deprecating humor, and full acceptance. For Desmond, who is often in the position of yielding to his more dominant twin, this kind of deliberate one-on-one time may help him offset cumulative activation before it builds. Pam and I discuss what this could look like practically at home, including using strewing and sensory cues rather than direct invitations.

How to Track Real Progress | 00:36:30 When parents feel like things are not moving fast enough, I come back to three indicators worth tracking over longer time horizons: nervous system activation, access to basic needs, and connection with safe people. Academic milestones, connection with friends, and hours at school are longer-horizon indicators that sit on top of these foundations.

The Energy Underneath the Tactics | 00:43:29 Pam names something many experienced parents of PDAers feel: she knows the tools, she has been doing the work for years, and it is still hard. I reflect that what often remains after the tactics are in place is the energetic piece: the grief, the non-attachment, the letting go of what you thought your family's life would look like. PDA kids perceive the energy of a parent trying to control an outcome even when the approach looks accommodating on the surface. The work of releasing that is not a technique. It is an ongoing practice.

Relevant Resources

Tracking Progress — Free class on the indicators Casey discusses for measuring what is actually shifting

Understanding PDA — Free class with deeper context on the nervous system disability framework Casey references

Paradigm Shift Program — Our signature program where therapeutic equalizing and equality accommodations are taught in full

Entrepreneurship And The Strengths Nobody Talks About From A Pathologically Demand Avoidant Adult | Ep. 154 Mar 17, 2026

Show notes

Chris Deutch is a Chicago-based angel investor, founder of Lofty Ventures, and a PDA adult who only recently found the language to make sense of his own childhood. In this conversation, he and Casey trace his path from a kid being carried into school kicking and screaming to a twenty-seven-year career backing entrepreneurs.

They talk about what PDA actually looked like in his childhood, including food rigidity, school refusal, and the moment his father's words changed everything. They also explore the overlap between the PDA neurotype and entrepreneurship: autodidactic learning, passion as a regulator, problem-founder fit, and the drive for autonomy that makes traditional employment so hard.

This episode is for parents who want to hear what growing up PDA can lead to, and for adults who are hearing this language for the first time and wondering if it fits.

Key Takeaways

What PDA Looked Like in Chris's Childhood | 00:03:58 Chris describes being carried into school kicking and screaming, refusing to go most days during his early years, and eventually being moved to a smaller school with more resources. He reflects that he was likely in burnout during that period without having any language for it. He also shares a specific memory of food rigidity: he would not eat a Ritz cracker if it was broken, and mashed potatoes had to look exactly like they did on TV. He was prescribed milkshakes by a doctor because he was so underweight.

The Moment Autonomy Changed Everything | 00:08:18 Chris describes a turning point in his junior year of high school. His father sat with him over a bad report card and told him he was done pushing, and that Chris needed to decide for himself whether getting into a good college was something he wanted. Chris describes this as his first epiphany. The following semester, he got nearly straight A's. He connects this directly to the PDA pattern: once the goal became his own decision rather than an external demand, he was able to access the focus and effort that had previously been unavailable to him.

Passion as a Nervous System Regulator | 00:14:38 Chris and Casey discuss how, for PDA individuals, passion functions differently than it does for most people. Chris describes losing track of time, forgetting to eat, and staying up until 4AM teaching himself computer graphics in college, entirely self-directed. Casey connects this to what she has seen in her own son, who taught himself to code and read through Minecraft because it had a purpose he cared about. Chris describes using this pattern as a litmus test he now shares with others: the things you do where you forget to eat and lose track of time are probably your passions.

PDA Strengths and Entrepreneurship | 00:41:32 Casey and Chris identify several PDA-associated strengths that appear to support entrepreneurial thinking: autodidactic learning, the drive to transform and create rather than follow existing paths, energetic radar for reading people quickly, and a strong orientation toward equality and collective benefit. Chris describes the four criteria he looks for in founders he backs, and explains why the fourth, what he calls problem-founder fit, may overlap with how PDA individuals naturally relate to problems they personally experience and feel compelled to solve.

Advice for Parents of PDAers and Neurodivergent Adults | 01:05:23 Chris offers two closing pieces of advice. For parents, he returns to the curling analogy he introduced earlier in the conversation: help grease the skids and guide the direction, but do not push. Give children the freedom to discover their own passions, and help them understand what passion actually feels like. For adults who recognize themselves in this conversation, he distinguishes between entrepreneurship as a career and an entrepreneurial mindset as a way of operating in any context. He describes the mindset as a skill that will become more valuable as AI continues to reshape the workforce, and encourages listeners to nurture it regardless of whether they ever start a company.

Relevant Resources

What Is PDA — Foundation for understanding the neurotype Chris and Casey discuss throughout

Finding Meaning — Free class relevant for parents and adults exploring PDA strengths and long-term perspective

Understanding PDA — Free class for deeper context on autonomy, equality, and the nervous system disability framework

Addiction And The Long Game With Mom Of A Teen With Pathological Demand Avoidance | Ep. 153 Mar 10, 2026

Show notes

Ivy is a mom celebrating her almost 17-year-old son's GED . The years before this moment included school refusal, police contact, CPS involvement, inpatient treatment, and substance use. Things are calmer now, but the household is still walking on eggshells and Ivy is still trying to figure out what comes next.

In this episode, Casey and Ivy talk through what addiction looks like through a nervous system and PDA lens, why the home Ivy has created is doing more than it feels like it is, and what the timeline for recovery actually looks like for a teen who has spent years in cumulative activation.

This is one of the few episodes that goes into older teen territory, including the hard questions parents in this situation are living with but rarely see addressed.

Key Takeaways

Understanding Addiction Through a Nervous System Lens | 00:16:08 Casey explains how she understands addiction in the context of PDA: as a consistent attempt to get out of a physically uncomfortable state of nervous system activation. She describes the addictive swing between mobilization and immobilization and how substances, risky friendships, and dangerous behavior can all function as attempts to regulate a nervous system that has no other reliable pathway to felt safety. She references the work of Jan Winhall, who uses polyvagal theory to understand addiction through a felt sense lens.

Why the Home Ivy Has Built Is Working | 00:20:39 Ivy describes her son returning home more frequently, self-grounding after hard nights, and spending time in his room in silence rather than staying away. Casey reframes this as evidence that Ivy has created an alternative to the addictive swing: a place where he can actually return to regulation. She names the trade-off clearly. The cost to Ivy is high. The benefit to her son is real, even when it does not feel like progress.

The Timeline for Recovery in Older Teens | 00:34:18 Casey walks through why recovery takes longer for teens who have spent years in cumulative nervous system activation. She describes the process of building a window of tolerance from near zero, and explains why attempting therapy, job applications, or direct conversations before that window is established tends to close it back down. She suggests focusing the next six months to a year on deepening felt safety and waiting for him to initiate, rather than trying to move him forward before his nervous system is ready.

What Useful Support Actually Looks Like at This Stage | 00:36:22 Casey describes what therapeutic connection can look like for a PDA teen who will not engage with formal therapy: a barista who does not judge him, someone who plays the same video game, a person on Reddit who sees him as he is. She makes the case that the modality matters less than the quality of the relationship, and that paradoxically, the only moment of real influence comes when a parent has fully released the goal of changing the child's behavior.

Counting the Wins When Everything Still Feels Hard | 00:40:47 Toward the end of the conversation, Ivy names what is actually happening on this trip: her son is choosing to be with the family, getting in the ocean, teaching himself to fish on the local shore. Casey reflects that from that place of connection, the long-term trajectory can shift. The episode closes with Casey acknowledging how much Ivy has carried and naming the progress that is already there, even when it is hard to see.

Relevant Resources

Burnout — Free class with context for understanding the cumulative nervous system activation Casey describes in this episode

Understanding PDA — Free class with deeper background on the nervous system disability framework and what drives demand avoidance

Paradigm Shift Program — Our signature program where the low-demand approach Ivy is practicing is taught in full

Practical Tips for Bathing, Hair, Nails, and Getting Dressed - Hygiene and Pathological Demand Avoidance Part 3 | Ep. 152 Mar 06, 2026

Show notes

This is part three of my hygiene and PDA series, and it is focused entirely on practical strategies. I cover bathing and showering, hair washing, hair brushing, nail clipping, hand washing, and getting dressed.

I walk through four types of accommodations I use with my own sons and with the families I work with: lowering demands, autonomy, equality, and novelty combined with nervous system safety. For each hygiene category, I give concrete examples of what these look like in real life.

If you are looking for the why behind hygiene resistance, I recommend starting with part one of this series first.

Key Takeaways

Why the Logic Matters Before the Tips | 00:03:35 Casey opens by explaining why understanding the root cause of hygiene resistance matters before applying any practical strategy. If the tips are used as behavioral tools to make a child comply, the child will perceive threat and exert more control. The goal is to lower cumulative nervous system stress over time, not to produce a one-time result. She distinguishes between hygiene resistance that happens in the moment and resistance that has built through months or years of accumulated nervous system activation.

Prioritization and Deconditioning the Shoulds | 00:10:06 Before giving any practical tips, Casey invites parents to question which hygiene needs are genuinely health-related and which are driven by social conditioning or fear of judgment. She shares a personal story from fieldwork in rural Mexico that shifted her own perspective on hygiene standards. She walks through each category, including bathing, hair washing, getting dressed, and nail clipping, and names where there may be more flexibility than parents typically allow themselves.

Lowering Demands as an Accommodation | 00:24:57 Casey defines lowering demands as doing things for a child that they are physically and cognitively capable of doing themselves, when their nervous system cannot currently access those tasks without activation. She gives detailed examples across hygiene categories: running the bath, adjusting the water temperature, bringing clothes to a child rather than expecting them to get their own, using wet wipes or deodorant wipes instead of requiring a full shower, and washing a child's hair or hands for them. She emphasizes that this is not enabling but a temporary nervous system accommodation.

Autonomy as an Accommodation: Where, When, How, What, and If | 00:32:00 Casey breaks autonomy into five dimensions and applies each one to hygiene. Where can a child bathe, wash their hands, or get dressed? When do they do it, and can they choose the timing? How do they do it, and can that look different than expected? What do they use, and can they choose the products? And finally, if, meaning can we accept that sometimes it may not happen at all during a burnout period? She gives concrete examples for each hygiene category and notes that addressing autonomy goes to the root cause of what activates the nervous system.

Equality, Novelty, and Nervous System Safety | 00:48:00 Casey covers more accommodation types. Equality accommodations involve letting the child feel above the parent, whether by letting them take over the parent's bath, having them brush the parent's hair first, or allowing them to wipe their hands on the parent's clothing. Novelty accommodations include remote control boats in the bath, foam soap, bath bombs with surprises inside, iPad access during bathing, colored hair spray, and special-interest themed clothing. She closes with nervous system safety: staying physically near during hygiene routines, using declarative language, and allowing a sibling's presence to co-regulate when that is available.

Relevant Resources

Burnout — Free class with essential context for understanding hygiene resistance as a sign of cumulative nervous system activation

Understanding PDA — Free class with background on autonomy, equality, and the nervous system disability framework Casey builds on throughout

Paradigm Shift Program — Our signature program where lowering demands, autonomy, and equality accommodations are taught in full

Ep. 151 - Teeth Brushing, Dentists and Pathological Demand Avoidance Mar 03, 2026

Show notes

This is the second episode in our three-part series on hygiene and PDA. In this episode we deep dive on helping your PDA child or teen go to the dentist and brush their teeth.

Specifically, we support parents (and therapists) to understand:

Why teeth brushing and going to the dentist are so difficult for PDA children and teens
Practical tips they can use to help a PDA child or teen access teeth brushing
Specific examples of how to use autonomy, equality, lowered demands, novelty, and humor to support a PDA child or teen's teeth brushing
Strategies and example scripts to use when speaking to the dentist or dental hygienist before your child or teen goes to their next appointment.

I hope you find it helpful!

xo,

Casey

PS - New to PDA? You can take our free 6-minute quiz to learn how well your child or teen fits the profile.

Ep. 150 - Hygiene and Pathological Demand Avoidance - Part 1 Feb 27, 2026

Show notes

This is the first of three episodes about hygiene and Pathological Demand Avoidance.

In this episode I focused on how to think about PDA and hygiene struggles, and understanding the root cause of struggles around:

Teeth brushing
Going to the dentist
Showering and bathing
Hair washing
Hand washing
Nail clipping
Hair cutting
Getting dressed

More specifically, in this episode I talk through:

The Deep Why behind hygiene struggles
Sensory vs. Autonomy as a root cause of avoidance
The cumulative nature of PDA and control coalescing around a basic need (in this case hygiene)
Discernment - Asking yourself the right questions about burnout and whether hygiene is the "stickiest" basic need for your child or teen.
Decision-making around boundaries before we worry about accommodations

I hope you find the show helpful. I'll release two more episodes on hygiene soon!

xo,

Casey

PS - New to PDA? You can take our free 6-minute quiz to learn how well your child or teen fits the profile.

Ep. 149 - Mom Can't Get To Her Bedroom Without Causing A Meltdown For 10-Year-Old PDAer Feb 24, 2026

Show notes

In this episode I coach a mom of a 10-year-old PDAer who is in burnout (Pathological Demand Avoidance / Pervasive Drive for Autonomy). The child loves to cook and bake but has a meltdown if family members clean up after her while she’s in the kitchen.

She also melts down if others pass by her bedroom on the way to their own, which her mom has to do if she’s going to clean the kitchen after her daughter leaves.

We talked through if Obsessive Compulsive Disorder was also present, but decided to focus on working through the PDA lens.

We then used our decision making framework to determine how the mother could manage their bedtime routine in a way that would be more pleasant for everyone.

I hope you find the conversations helpful. It's from Parenting PDA Your Way, the show we stream live on our social media on Fridays at 1pm ET.

xo,

Casey

PS - New to PDA? You can take our free 6-minute quiz to learn how well your child or teen fits the profile.

Ep. 148 - Tips for Parenting Your Pathologically Demand Avoidant Teen - Part 2 Feb 20, 2026

Show notes

In this episode I talk with our coach Donna Georgen - parent of PDA 28- and 21-year-olds - about her top tips for parenting PDA teens.

This is the second of two episodes in which Donna and I discussed this topic. In the first episode we covered five of her tips, and in this episode we cover five more.

Here they are:

Reflect on success
Normalize discomfort and fear
Let go of future fears
Pause social media as needed
Breathe -- you're doing great!

I hope you find our conversation helpful!

PS - Want to work with Donna to move your family forward? She offers private coaching that you can learn all about here.

Ep. 147 - Tips for Parenting Your Pathologically Demand Avoidant Teen - Part 1 Feb 17, 2026

Show notes

In this episode I talk with our coach Donna Georgen - parent of PDA 28- and 21-year-olds - about her top tips for parenting PDA teens.

We cover five of her tips in this episode and will release another episode soon with five more.

Here's the first five:

Try to keep autonomy and equality at the forefront
Shift from parent to mentor-friend
Be vulnerable and transparent
Release the pressure to figure it all out
Redefine regression

I hope you find our conversation helpful!

PS - Want to work with Donna to move your family forward? She offers private coaching that you can learn all about here.

Ep. 146 - 10 Misconceptions About Pathological Demand Avoidance Feb 13, 2026

Show notes

In this episode Clinical Psychologist Dr. Alex Klein and I discuss ten common misconceptions about Pathological Demand Avoidance or Pervasive Drive for Autonomy.

Here are five from Dr. Klein:

The parent of a PDAer is doing something wrong, especially if they've lowered demands.
If a PDA child did something yesterday, they can do it again today.
Accommodations won’t prepare PDA kids for the real world.
Progress made by a PDA child is measured by what we see on the surface.
Behaviorism (behavioral parenting) will be enough.

And here are five from me, in strong collaboration with my PDA 11- and 7-year-olds: