{"id":22757,"date":"2025-07-27T01:37:48","date_gmt":"2025-07-27T01:37:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/happyinthehills.com\/zentriathlete\/?p=22757"},"modified":"2026-02-21T00:22:06","modified_gmt":"2026-02-21T00:22:06","slug":"prp001","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/happyinthehills.com\/zentriathlete\/2025\/07\/27\/prp001\/","title":{"rendered":"PDA relevant post"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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Sharing from the Trenches: A Reflection on Parenting PDA Kids<\/h2>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t
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I want to offer a perspective that might resonate with some of you. Maybe an analogy will help.<\/p>

I compete in Ironman triathlons. That means swimming 1.2 miles, biking 112 miles, and running a full marathon\u201426.2 miles\u2014all within 17 hours. People often look at me and ask, \u201cWhy would anyone do that?\u201d They project their own values and assumptions onto something they don\u2019t understand.<\/p>

Sound familiar?<\/p>

That\u2019s how it often feels parenting our PDA kids. From the outside, people don\u2019t see the depth of effort, the emotional endurance, or the inner work it takes. They just see something that doesn\u2019t fit their expectations.<\/p>

I\u2019ve had to let go of those external judgments. They\u2019re not my burden. My focus is on supporting my kids\u2014two PDAers and four neurodivergent children in total, all with ASD and ADHD in different ways. That\u2019s where my energy goes: helping them build coping skills, not conforming to systems that don\u2019t serve them.<\/p>

It hasn\u2019t been easy. As a dad, I had to confront my own stuff\u2014my ego, my expectations, my need for control. I\u2019m still working on it. But doing that inner work has helped me show up more calmly and intentionally when my kids are dysregulated.<\/p>

One mindset that\u2019s helped me is premeditatio malorum<\/strong><\/a>\u2014a Stoic practice of imagining worst-case scenarios so I\u2019m not caught off guard. It\u2019s like mental training. When the hard moments come (and they do), I\u2019m not flailing\u2014I\u2019ve rehearsed. I\u2019m not a clown at a ballet.<\/p>

So what does this look like in practice?<\/p>

Let\u2019s say there\u2019s a conflict between your preference and your PDAer\u2019s need for autonomy. That\u2019s tough. But instead of forcing compliance, I try to offer acceptable alternatives<\/strong>: noise-canceling headphones, shared playlists, or a \u201cleveling\u201d option where both sides give a little. It\u2019s not about control\u2014it\u2019s about collaboration.<\/p>

My wife and I don\u2019t always agree on the how<\/em>, but we\u2019re aligned on the why<\/em>:<\/p>

\u201cUnrealistic expectations are just future resentments.\u201d<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>

That one took me a while to swallow. But it\u2019s true. When I let go of the fantasy of how things should<\/em> be, I can meet my kids where they are<\/em>.<\/p>

And here\u2019s the thing: it\u2019s not about finding an easy button. It\u2019s about building a library of coping strategies<\/strong>\u2014for them and for us. That takes time, practice, and yes, sometimes tears. But the relationship I have with my now 19-year-old PDA son\u2014after some really hard chapters, including him moving out\u2014is real. It\u2019s not perfect, but it\u2019s authentic. And when he needed a safe place to land, he came home.<\/p>

Because at the end of the day, that\u2019s what our PDAers want: autonomy, connection, and the freedom to own their choices<\/strong>.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sharing from the Trenches: A Reflection on Parenting PDA Kids I want to offer a perspective that might resonate with some of you. Maybe an analogy will help. I compete in Ironman triathlons. That means swimming 1.2 miles, biking 112 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":20513,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"nf_dc_page":"","_eb_attr":"","pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","rs_blank_template":"","rs_page_bg_color":"","slide_template_v7":"","wprm-recipe-roundup-name":"","wprm-recipe-roundup-description":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[440,660,816],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-22757","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-zentriathlete-neurodiversity","category-zt-pda","category-nd-fl"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/happyinthehills.com\/zentriathlete\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22757","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/happyinthehills.com\/zentriathlete\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/happyinthehills.com\/zentriathlete\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/happyinthehills.com\/zentriathlete\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/happyinthehills.com\/zentriathlete\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22757"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/happyinthehills.com\/zentriathlete\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22757\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24114,"href":"https:\/\/happyinthehills.com\/zentriathlete\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22757\/revisions\/24114"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/happyinthehills.com\/zentriathlete\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20513"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/happyinthehills.com\/zentriathlete\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22757"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/happyinthehills.com\/zentriathlete\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22757"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/happyinthehills.com\/zentriathlete\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22757"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}