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Daily life in a PDA family
732 Plays19 days ago
In this episode we’re chatting to Jennifer Chilton, neurodiverse informed coach and parent of a PDAer, about the ups and downs of daily life in a PDA family - and how when we adapt our approach and expectations, life can become infinitely more manageable.
For information and guidance about your circumstances, you can get in touch with our support service through our website.
Guest links:
Website: www.neurodistinct-coaching.co.uk
Instagram: @Jen_neurodistinct
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Transcript
Introduction to PDA Life Podcast
00:00:02
Speaker
Welcome to PDA Life, the podcast brought to you by the PDA Society, where we'll be exploring the highs and lows of pathological demand avoidance. I'm Rachel. And I'm Sarah, and we're your hosts.
00:00:14
Speaker
As the UK's only PDA charity, we're bringing together PDAers, carers, clinicians and researchers to answer the questions which matter to you most. Hello and welcome to today's podcast. My name is Rachel and I'm the host for this episode.
Meet Jennifer Chilton
00:00:29
Speaker
Today I'm joined by Jennifer Chilton, who is mum to two wonderful girls, one with a PDA profile, dyslexia,
00:00:36
Speaker
dyscalculia, OCD and sensory processing disorder. She had a busy career in tech and changed transformation, but more recently realised that this didn't work for her family life anymore.
00:00:49
Speaker
She has recently pivoted to focus on a career and lifestyle that provides flexibility and allows her to support the uncertainty of the day-to-day that she now lives in.
00:01:00
Speaker
She's now qualified as a neurodiverse informed coach and helps other parents who are going through the same struggles. So welcome to our podcast, Jennifer. Hello, thank you for having me. No problem at all. So let's just sort of roll back a few years, I think, to
Emotional Turmoil and Work as an Escape
00:01:15
Speaker
start off with. And, you know, before you understood PDA differently, what was family life like day to day for you?
00:01:22
Speaker
It's difficult to even find a word describe it. And even now, when I look back, I just find it so incredibly emotional. we were surviving, functioning, um existing. i was running away from the situation. I didn't know how to handle it.
00:01:39
Speaker
I'd always been very, or seen myself as a very capable person, you know, kind of managing life relatively well, I guess. And then it felt like that kind of turned on its head in an instant.
00:01:52
Speaker
And I just didn't know what was happening and probably felt quite frightened actually, but then he didn't know how to manage that.
00:02:03
Speaker
So i threw myself into work. So it was just a huge mess, if I'm honest. And I couldn't see beyond that moment, I think is a nice way to describe it, because it so it was so difficult.
00:02:18
Speaker
I felt like I was in the trenches and you're just dealing with that that absolute moment in time so you can't see beyond yeah I think that kind of may hopefully gives it a good summation yeah definitely and I think as you say it is it's that when you parent a PDA child you're so involved with what's happening for them here and now isn't it it's trying to see the bigger picture and actually why the all these behaviors happening is really hard because you're too busy firefighting in that moment aren't you Yeah, absolutely. And you I found that I didn't have the bandwidth to you know, even try and figure a stuff out. You know, I was working as well. So you get the end of the day and I probably got a window of time just to kind of really spell it out. I'd wake up and and instantly there was dysregulation.
00:03:02
Speaker
I'd sometimes be woken up with a dysregulation, which was particularly um uncomfortable way to wake up. yeah And then, you know, we i would get some quiet time at maybe 10pm. So I wasn't eating until half 10.
00:03:15
Speaker
Right. And then I wasn't recalibrating. And then if I'd missed a bit of work in the morning, i would then be working until 12 o'clock at night. Oh, gosh. Yeah. And then maybe trying to do some reading ah but about what was happening. um But, you know, I look back on it and i I genuinely don't know how we... How you did it. How how I'm still here, actually, you know. It just doesn't it doesn't seem...
00:03:38
Speaker
something that anybody should really be able to manage. Juggle everything, isn't it? It's a lot,
Misinterpreting Child Behaviors
00:03:44
Speaker
isn't it? So at the time then, what did you believe was causing your daughter's behaviours and how did that shape the way that you responded?
00:03:53
Speaker
Oh gosh, do you know what? It was, um she was our first child. So I honestly thought it's a terrible twos. Because they were. they were what I tend to find with PDA, and this might be true for lots of neurodiversities, is that behaviours can be quite similar to atypical children, but they're just, what would you call it, um times five, times ten.
00:04:18
Speaker
Yeah. You know, so whilst a child of two, three might have an outburst as regularly, they were probably able to come around in five, ten minutes. So we were finding it was...
00:04:30
Speaker
not only was the outburst much bigger and much stronger, like to to a a level that was quite distressing, it would continue for 45 minutes to an hour. And I was just flabbergasted actually, I didn't really understand, but i just assumed it was the terrible two, you know, do they call it, the terrible twos. But then also thinking, is this, you know, I kind of, I remember one day driving the car and the car journeys were particularly awful,
00:04:58
Speaker
and she just didn't like being in the car, and maybe it was a lack of control or autonomy, right, being being kind of yeah in the car seat. And she would drop something and and all hell would break loose and I'd be trying to pick it up as I'm driving, you know. i remember thinking, I'm surprised there's not loads of like cars on the side of the road and women just like at the wheel having crashed a car. Because I remember, fit because i I always consider myself quite a good driver, but I was thinking, how are people not crashing their cars? Because I genuinely thought everybody had this and this this experience in their cars with their children.
00:05:32
Speaker
And I look back at it in on and I think, no, that really wasn't normal. So, um but, you know, you do, don't Because that's all you know. Yeah. Yeah. I think particularly when it's your first born. I mean, I, my PDA is my second born. So therefore I could see that there was a difference. But I have lots of friends whose PDA are their first born. And it's like, well, that this is all that we've known. We didn't realize that it was, you know, it was different. And this is not how all children behave.
00:05:58
Speaker
until we sort of, you know, they they sort of started going to social groups and things like that, you know? Yeah. And I think particularly since, or certainly for my little girl, she's very sociable.
00:06:10
Speaker
So actually that wasn't quite so clear because she is very dynamic, very sociable, very gregarious. So she pulled the wool over all of our eyes because it was so invisible other than this, this these enormous emotions and inability to regulate. So it's it's fascinating, really. But I think because she was very articulate and able to express herself, that, that you know, that that that was like, look at her, she's very sociable, you know?
00:06:37
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. So what then was the turning point for you?
COVID-19: A Turning Point
00:06:41
Speaker
What was what was that, you know, can you remember us a particular moment in time where you thought, hang on, Right. think Things are ah different. Things need to change. Do you know, um I had got to a point, and again, this makes me feel really emotional, where I was so sure that I was going to end up really ill.
00:06:59
Speaker
Right. And i tried to carve out time for recovery or for me to, but it just wasn't happening because I'm, for whatever reason, in the position where I'm also the earner.
00:07:10
Speaker
m and I was of the mindset, well, I don't have a choice. I have to bring in the money to pay the mortgage. Yeah. But then ah gradually I was getting more and more unwell, and it wasn't obviously unwell.
00:07:21
Speaker
It was that kind of, and this is a crazy story, I walked up the stairs and my foot just broke in half. Right. Okay. And I think my body was just breaking down, and mentally I was breaking down, because I wasn't really in in in my own head.
00:07:35
Speaker
Yeah. So maybe I didn't, I mean, I still to this day don't really know how you break your foot walking up the stairs. My bone density is fine, everything else. But I think it's because maybe the stress was really affecting my body. Yeah.
00:07:47
Speaker
And I knew, you know, stress over a long period of time can have really detrimental effects. So I had in my head, this needs to change, but I don't know how. yeah you know, this has to change. I can't carry on like this. None of us can carry on like this. And COVID gave me that opportunity.
00:08:04
Speaker
Right. Okay. Yeah. The lockdown, yeah. Yeah, so initially I was terrified of it for different reasons than other people. So I think a large part of the, you know, kind of country were terrified of COVID. That didn't scare me at all.
00:08:15
Speaker
I mean, to be honest with you, you know, I felt that that was nothing compared to what I was dealing with at home. yeah It's funny, isn't it? all relative. So I was like, OK, COVID, whatever. But the moment that I realised that i had to be at home with my family...
00:08:29
Speaker
was terrifying because I'd in my mind i was going to take three months off to recover but actually what was happening was I was going to have to be in the house with the people yeah and this sounds horrible I'm so sorry it's not meant to come this way that were I was trying to get away with because I didn't know how to manage i was I was running away and i I'll admit that now I was using work as my escape and actually that was pulled out but then what i then but what I then did after having i spent two days kind of going How am I going to survive this? yeah
00:09:01
Speaker
Going, right, this is your opportunity. Take all of that energy that you put into work, mastering work and and and everything else into getting across this. This has to be your focus.
00:09:13
Speaker
This can't be everything that goes on. let's Let's spend some time because I think I never thought that I had the option to stop work. And actually with COVID, there were no expenses going out.
00:09:24
Speaker
I was able to pause the mortgage. I was able to get a loan out. And the thing that I was scared of most, I now had to face. Yes. Yeah. You were forced into it, weren't you? Yeah, I was really forced into it. And whilst that terrified me, for and i really remember the first 48 hours, because I i think I had a mini and a mini kind of meltdown. I i sat in the room for 48 hours upstairs, because I thought, I genuinely don't know how I'm going to manage this. Like, yeah I can't cope.
00:09:51
Speaker
And then I just pulled myself together and said, get out there and sort it out. you know, that this is what you've got to do. um so it So it was really interesting. So it gave me the time and the space to observe the family. Right. Because I was running to big meetings all the time and dealing with a really big job.
00:10:08
Speaker
And then what I really noticed in that space that I had was how all of our nervous systems were so fraught and how me and my her father, my partner,
00:10:20
Speaker
So we were quite frightened.
Balancing Control and Autonomy
00:10:22
Speaker
we were kind of treading our eggshells because we were we were scared of the outbursts. So then, and intentionally, we were we were giving in maybe a bit too much.
00:10:31
Speaker
We lacked consistency. We were often being pulled into the drama and rescue mode. And then we would blow it when we had nothing left. And I think that in many ways, that gave my daughter too much control and that made her feel frightened because...
00:10:50
Speaker
This is what the difficult thing, right, with a PDA-er. It's a really da delicate balance of giving them control but showing them that you know what's going on you're in control, you understand them, yeah and you're consistent.
00:11:04
Speaker
But knowing when to ebb and and knowing when to kind of... So I now know, and this is the beauty of having had given myself the time to really look into this, is I know when to push her, like this morning.
00:11:18
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. and and and put boundaries in place and go, this is this needs to be about me. And about it's about all of us though, ultimately. But then also knowing when to go pull right back, but not seeing it as a failure, even though we've been doing really well for two months on a certain thing. Gee what, we're just going to pull right back for two weeks. That doesn't mean everything else doesn't matter.
00:11:38
Speaker
Yeah, exactly. And that ebb and flow is wonderful because you'll find your growth two steps back. and forward four steps back but gradually you are making steps forward I mean making progress it feels like quite slow progress sometimes but you are and it's looking at it over years rather than months or days yeah it's very easy isn't it it's very easy to get sucked in just to focus on what's happening now and i know sometimes that is a coping strategy just focus on the now stop thinking about long term but actually sometimes you do need to pull yourself out of the here and now and have a look at the the whole family dynamics don't you
00:12:12
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. And I think it was like loads of techniques that realised in terms of I had so many things in my head that I wanted to work on, but I was confused in the family. So I ma drew up a list and just picked one for six months, which was really effective.
00:12:26
Speaker
And it's like, let's just work on this for six months. Yeah. We'll have them flow. Let's not try and deal with all of them at once. What's the one most important thing for me? And it might seem really basic, but... and then you've got kind of you know maybe um your parents suggesting you know i had this a lot right why aren't your children clearing up after yourselves yes it's really not priority at the moment actually thanks very much my priority is that she's eating um you know that type of thing so it's it's just kind of making sure that you just stick to that because what i was doing is i was flying between different things yeah because i was forgetting what my priority was so really taking the time to Step right back and look at the bigger picture have that consistency.
00:13:09
Speaker
Also alignment with your partner, because I was finding that my partner didn't really know what my focus was and I hadn't really talked to him because we were always firefighting. Yeah. um So just going, right, this is the one thing that we're going to stick to. So COVID was really, really wonderful in terms of allowing me to practice those mechanisms and the connection that came from COVID with her.
00:13:33
Speaker
was mind-blowing because the trust that that I gained with her because she then understood that... I say i was one in control, but...
00:13:49
Speaker
it's not the right word to use. so I wasn't um controlling her. Yeah. I wasn't um doing that kind of, what you call it? Authoritarian. Authoritarian parenting. But she knew I had gentle control against of her environment.
00:14:05
Speaker
Yeah. Knew I felt assured. She knew I knew what I was doing. Yes. Yeah. Yes. It was like her safety net then, if you like. Yeah. And then that trust really, really brought her central nervous system down and that connection.
00:14:19
Speaker
And then she was able to just kind of sit in herself a lot more. So the transformation that year was nominal. And I think back to it and go, I faced my worst fear. And because of that, I was able to then get around it and not, you know, and a lot of us don't. And I, and I, I didn't feel like I had that option to do it, but I did. We all have options. It's just thinking outside of your limited mindset of, but I'm the breadwinner, therefore I can't do this. Well, yes, i can.
00:14:47
Speaker
yeah what do I need to do to achieve that you know yeah oh definitely I know it's quite big decisions but I think that I made the decision that I can't carry on like this for the rest of my life and so that was um a really big thing for me just kind of really really looking at how I was behaving during COVID and then more recently I've then because that was probably more strategic during that time and kind of really understanding the methodology around it and narrowing how I needed to parent differently it's only more recently that I've really really worked on me and understanding my emotions and understanding my entrenched beliefs and how it's preventing me from being able to see other ways forward yes so I think that that set the foundation for me during COVID to allow me to then move on to this next phase which has been really lovely And then how did, so how did your mindset change then, um influence that you your child's reactions and behaviours? Could you see, there were there tangible things that you could see when you started to change how your mindset changed?
00:15:58
Speaker
Yeah, because it's funny because I think our PDAs, they are so astute and so sensitive and So I think once she knew that I kind of got it and I understood, then her behaviour just changed.
00:16:20
Speaker
Right, okay. Because I've got so much more sway with her now because she knows I deeply get her. Yes, yeah. and I can read her levels. I know when she's bubbling. I know when she's kind of... And I must say, i know I find it easier than a father...
00:16:38
Speaker
And she knows that I find it easier than a father. But what I've tried to explain to her is maybe as a mother, because i gave birth to her and, you know, she developed inside of me. I've just got a more natural way of knowing where she's up to. Because that's another thing, right? Actually, it puts a lot of pressure on the on the relationship with your partner. Because whilst I was coming up to speed with it, not quickly, I must say, but I was getting there.
00:17:01
Speaker
He was so far behind me. And I don't think that's in common. So I was trying to train him as well yeah it. its but he still does tend to forget or lag or or not see that what was the lead up to that situation? What's happening in this moment?
00:17:16
Speaker
yeah And I immediately then have more compassion, because he'll just see that one behaviour. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. So you've you've got that deeper understanding, haven't you? Yeah. So then I have to then scaffold him and point out, just have ah just have a just have a moment to think about what happened earlier this morning, and then what's happened over the week. And you not think I might be playing into this? And then he's like, oh, and then he's brilliant. Yeah. but I have to kind of remind him of of that. It doesn't come naturally. So there's all of that, too. But she's um very aware of that. And I'm trying to build.
00:17:49
Speaker
She probably doesn't trust him as much to understand her. But I'm trying to rather than jumping into the drama and rescuing her when they may fall out. I'm now with my learnings from my coaching.
00:18:03
Speaker
really helping those two to establish their own relationship. Yeah. Because I don't want to be rescuing them all the time. Yeah, because I need those two. They love each other enormously and he's an amazing father, but I can't keep on jumping in to rescue them. No.
00:18:18
Speaker
I need her to figure out her relationship with him separately. Yeah, definitely. So was there anything then about your sort of previous parenting beliefs or habits that you found difficult to let go of?
00:18:30
Speaker
Was there anything that you really struggled with so when you sort of changed your parenting approach?
Challenges with Traditional Holidays
00:18:35
Speaker
Do you know the biggest ones that I really struggled with, and I still do, is birthdays and Christmases.
00:18:41
Speaker
m Yeah. Really, really emotionally gets me. Birthdays less, Christmas maybe more. And I think it's because it's so wildly different to what I had as a child.
00:18:57
Speaker
And also I know that I've got some triggers and this is what's so lovely about the coaching is I'm starting to understand myself more and what, what, what are my needs and why is, why am I feeling so emotional around Christmas? And it goes back to when I was younger, we had such a big family, but our Christmas has suddenly ended because my dad passed away when I was 16.
00:19:17
Speaker
And I've always had this like childlike manner to want to recreate that. Yeah. And, and, and, and not being able to have that. um So that there's definitely something there in terms of my trauma and my trigger.
00:19:32
Speaker
yeah So, but which is understandable, but then layered on top of that, you've got Christmas day, which could just be a Wednesday for us. Yeah. I mean, it's honestly so normal and, you know, it just makes, takes my breath away sometimes because I'm like, Oh, is this really christmas day i know i know it's hard isn't it because as you say we've got all those you know memories if we've had a happy happy christmases when we were with children and that's what we want to give to our children but there are so many demands associated with things like christmas aren't there and then until we actually step back and look at it and the same for birthdays and you think actually there's no wonder that a lot of pda children can't just can't cope with christmas mind mine can't
00:20:14
Speaker
he's he's just he's usually had a meltdown on Christmas Eve if not then Christmas morning and then he's his anxiety is sky high all day until everything is done and then you can literally see him go oh okay it's all right now it's all right well it's even like um you know and it's these entrenched beliefs isn't it because I've defined Christmas as surprise having surprises equal those are fun and great and then the fact that she wanted to not only know what I was getting her and define it, but she also wanted to wrap all the presents.
00:20:50
Speaker
And when that initially happened, I was like, no, but you need the surprise for Christmas to be great, surely. And I really had to rewrite that story in my head. And it took a few years for me to be okay with literally letting her she has to wrap everything and put it under the tree at the beginning of December and get it all ready. So so the so the I think the difficulty with it is is that for us it's a month yes of anticipation. yeah And then you get that month of trying to manage the emotions around it and so on and so forth. And then you get to Christmas Day and actually all the presents are opened, not engaged at all because it's too much, completely ignores them all, yeah goes onto the iPads, ignores all of us for most the day.
00:21:32
Speaker
yes And then it's the end of Christmas. Yes. I know. I know. It's hard, isn't it? It is really hard. And that, out and that is a big, it's a big mindset shift because of what we innately want to do, but then we know that they can't, they can't cope. So for parents listening then who, who do feel exhausted because nothing seems to work, what would you want them to understand about PDA and control?
Adapting Parenting Styles
00:21:58
Speaker
It really is letting go of that authoritarian parenting. Um, I hadn't realised how entrenched in that I was. I just thought that was good parenting because that's what my parents did with me.
00:22:09
Speaker
um You tell your child what to do and they listen. and And actually, it's I've got a really interesting situation because my other child is atypical and I can very much parent like that with her. But what i found is that...
00:22:22
Speaker
my new style of parenting benefits her wonderfully too because it's just really respectful right and I feel like I'm a much better mother but also to be careful not to be permissive so my it's interesting isn't I went from authoritarian to completely permissive because I'll stay frightened and that is in many ways um better than authoritarian but also not always that helpful Because that they get scared through that lack of somebody actually yes um being the owner of the house and and there and their universe and their energy around it. Because whilst they want control, they don't realise as children they do need somebody to be in control.
00:23:03
Speaker
But it's what you are controlling. i think that's the key. So don't control the things that don't matter. And it's that's a really big reframe. So it's things like going back to Christmas. Our daughter used to get the Christmas tree out and all of the tinsel out about five times a year because we don't have a loft.
00:23:20
Speaker
initially I was kind of like you can't get the Christmas stuff out like that's bad luck or whatever else you know and and and just it was just a bit strange you don't get the stuff out but she got it out during the summer every single moment she could she loved it and it's kind of let go of those things so what I say to myself and my partner quite a lot of the time is just pause when you're about to go what are you doing or why are you doing that go is that important yeah because then what I find is when I do say When I do need to exert my control, she's more likely to listen because she really sees that it's important rather than over the things that don't really matter. It's more about my entrenched beliefs. So if it's getting that real balance and it's not as easy one would think. So it's taken me many years to carve all of this out. you've got to do Not only do you have to learn the strategies that you don't have the bandwidth for, but it's rewiring your brain.
00:24:14
Speaker
It's understanding you. It's understanding how you were parented, how that's made you, what your triggers are. yeah And all of that has to come together. And that's why it's so tricky because there's a lot of,
00:24:27
Speaker
work on yourself as well as working on the environment. It's enormous. It's absolutely enormous. Yeah, yeah, definitely. So looking back now then, what what do you think your child needed most from your from you during those difficult years? what were What was she screaming out for? Was it that connection? Was it that trust you've talked about or was it something else?
00:24:50
Speaker
Yeah, was absolutely that. I needed to be present, absolutely present, and then learning how to be the best mum I could be, which... that's you know as I say that's taken I look back and it's been eight years but actually it shouldn't have taken that long but it's because I was running away from it but also didn't realize that not only was it a strategy thing it was working on myself so it's the two things combined because I'm I made such great progress with with all of the strategies and again it took too long to learn all of them because you just haven't got the bandwidth you're picking up these books at night right and you're kind of how do I consciously parent yeah and you read them and they're
00:25:27
Speaker
You're so exhausted. It's just, ah you know, it's, it's on a flat page. It's got no context. Like how do you apply that in reality? And i think that's what I found the hardest. You're reading all these things, but how, what does that mean in day to day?
Importance of Self-Reflection
00:25:40
Speaker
and I think that that's what I, that's what I needed to give my daughter, what she needed was the support to, from and I didn't know where to go to get that support, the support to learn about the strategies easily.
00:25:56
Speaker
you know but then also the support to understand myself yeah and I've had to do that on my own which is why it's taken so long but it's been so effective Doing it on your own is hard, isn't it? Because you don't know where those parameters are. You don't know if you're doing the right thing. You're just going with actually, well, what I'm doing at the moment is not right. So therefore I need to change. And it's that journey of discovery.
00:26:19
Speaker
and It's hard when you're doing it on your own, isn't it? Well, also having done the coaching, what really jumped out at me is that you can't access all of the transformation on your own. It's not the way the brain is wired. I came across a wonderful... um bit of reading recently I can't exactly remember it but it was saying that the way humans work we don't challenge ourselves in the same way in isolation because we can't access our different thought mechanisms that are so entrenched without the support of somebody else doing reflective inquiry.
00:26:52
Speaker
Yeah. So when somebody else speaks something back to you, not in a judgmental way, but goes, oh, is this, you know, it's wonderful because it really opens up your mind to other possibilities. And you don't always see, like, oh, is that how I'm perceiving it? Or yeah is that what I'm doing? Because that that progress just simply can't be made on your own, which is why,
00:27:14
Speaker
I would have only got so far had I not done the coaching. Through the coaching, i was almost coached. yeah Yeah, yeah. Which was like really fascinating to kind of them to see my thought patterns.
00:27:28
Speaker
Yeah, it was fantastic. It was really good. And actually, it released a lot of the trauma, interestingly. allowed me to release a lot of the emotions. So I think I was probably the most emotional person on the course. I was letting a lot go. i was kind of so it's so emotional, but it it helped me understand my own emotions and my own needs. Like what did what was i Where was this emotion coming from? What did I need? Did I need connection? Did I need clarity in that moment? So once you identify that, you then go, oh, right, this is what I need to do. That's why. guess it gave you those moments for self-reflection as well, which as a parent, you just don't do, do you? You just don't have that. particularly a parent of a pda child you don't have the capacity or the bandwidth to do the self-reflection but actually in doing that self-reflection you can then understand an awful lot more of what's going on can't you and it's and it's only a tiny little bit of time as well it's really fascinating um i went to therapy many many years ago but you can get really good at just carving out an hour and going what's happened because what i found in the moment of all of it i had so much stuff running through my head i didn't know what to do
00:28:31
Speaker
Yeah. And getting that clarity of, right, this is all going on, but let's just focus on this bit was really was really helpful yeah to then drown out all the other noise that we could deal with later almost, you
Reassurance and Building Connection
00:28:41
Speaker
know. yeah yeah definitely okay so i like my last question to you today then is what would you say to the version of yourself that was before lockdown before the you had to to um confront what was going on at home and change what would you say to you to that version of yourself um the you know if the if you if a parent thought that they were failing what would you say to them
00:29:10
Speaker
Well, oh gosh, you're I mean, you're simply not. You're being the best parent you know at that time, right? And I've been through a lot from quite a young age that a lot of people consider you know losing my father at a very young age, but I must say this is probably one of the most difficult things I've done.
00:29:28
Speaker
And i this put it in perspective for me. So my partner's also been an army officer and fought in Afghanistan, and he said this was harder than that. yeah And it's because he didn't really know what to do You're not given directive. You haven't got a community of people around you, you know, a team helping you through it. So I think that you are doing your best. But what i wish somebody had given me the confidence to is go stop running away from it I just thought it would go away. Stop running away from it. You can do this. Face your biggest fear.
00:30:01
Speaker
Because actually when you do that, you're carving out the rest of your life. Because otherwise it was just going to be carry on. It wasn't going to go anywhere, was it? And actually the reality is when they turn into teenagers, they they need that scaffolding bit almost before then.
00:30:17
Speaker
So then they can manage those teenage years. So it's um it's hugely challenging. But once you get that connection and once they trust you, the progress is enormous um because they only respond to people they trust.
00:30:31
Speaker
Yeah. the very savvy. They're very intuitive. yeah And it's kind of like, it's just taking the time out to build that good relationship and making it your only focus if you can. You've got, you know, for a period of time, I would say six months, you know, whatever, just take a period of time out and just really make it like your job.
00:30:50
Speaker
Focus on those connections, building that trust, isn't it? And it's, yeah yeah, the difference is quite incredible. Oh, that's amazing. Thanks ever so much, Jennifer, for sharing your journey. Cause I know there's an awful lot of parents of PDA children out there that are isolated, that don't have any connections, don't recognise that other people are going through exactly the same thing as them. So I'm hoping, you know, really hopeful that you sharing your story will help other people connect and recognise that there are things that we can do.
00:31:19
Speaker
that we can work on and um places that we can reach out for support. So um thank you very much for that. Really do appreciate Absolutely. and And honestly, thank you so much, because I just wanted to share this because our transformation has been phenomenal.
00:31:32
Speaker
And I just want to kind of go, you know, we can do this. yeah It's very, very difficult, but it it it is achievable, however hard it feels. We can get there. It's never going to be perfect, but we can make progress. And, you know, I i definitely am here now. I feel like I just want to help. which is's yeah Exactly. Yeah. No, that's brilliant. lovely so Thank you so much. And thank you very much to our listeners for listening in and see you next time.
00:32:01
Speaker
Thank you.