Recognize and Release Hidden Levers of Control, Including Praise

Most parents of PDA'ers eventually come to realize we can’t “make” our children do anything at all, because our children prove it to us, over and over again, in small and large ways that pushing creates pushback, not learning.  When autonomy is always the core of the problem, recognizing threats to autonomy and the ways we grasp at control needs to be part of the solution. 

Levers of Control: blame, shame, judgment, praise, questioning, ordering, advice, lecturing, disagreeing, teasing, sarcasm, etc etc: they all need to go.

The first step to supporting everyone’s autonomy and reducing the (hidden but intense) demands that the judgment of others places on us, is to give up all the levers, not just the ones we're comfortable releasing. 

Levers are embedded in our language and the way we talk to each other, regardless of age or status.  Human cultures are inherently hierarchical, and our language tends to unconsciously reflect and enforce that hierarchy.  The truth is that all adults equalize through language, not just those who are autonomy sensitive.  If we want autonomy sensitive children to learn to communicate without using levers against us to try to seek internal balance, if we want to decrease their equalizing, then it helps to be conscious of the ways we push against autonomy with language as a matter of course, and instead think about how to center more on autonomy.

Maybe your kid just wants to be on video games all day, and the amount of time they spend on screens makes you deeply uncomfortable. You make an effort to be flexible and allow more screen time, because experts in PDA, autistic adults, all tell you the same thing: that relaxing expectations around screens can be regulating and helpful to a child who is in burnout. But at the same time, you feel uneasy, like every time you see your child playing fortnite or watching gamers on youtube, you worry about the long term impact and what it means for your child's future. And so you hang onto the judgment that screens are "bad", you give your child the message that even though you're allowing it, you also disapprove. The child's awareness of your disapproval is like a constant nagging demand, knowing that they're not living up to your expectations, knowing that you are disappointed in what you see.

Disappointment is a lever of control, and a demand in itself: one that is pervasive and constant. It's worth considering if it might be possible to let go of your judgments, both positive and negative, and instead focus on support, connection, and acceptance.

Praise tends to be the last lever to go, the most seemingly innocuous thing, the hardest to “see” through an autonomy focused lens.   Praise is a lever that we use to push children in the direction we want them to go. Most people see praise as a positive thing, and don't understand why PDA'ers so often react to it as if they've just been insulted. For PDA'ers, a "good job" can be the death knell of whatever behavior you're praising, because praise says "I am in a position where I can judge you as good or bad, and you need me to tell you which is which." From a PDA perspective, this is offensive and deserving of pushback. Praise risks the "well, I'm never doing that again" internal response.

Praise can be replaced with shared excitement and joy, being happy for someone, or noticing and genuinely admiring specific details of their work.  Praise can be replaced with gratitude, so instead of “good job” we might say “thanks, that was helpful to me and I appreciate it.” Praise places us above others, whereas thanks exists on a level playing field, and acknowledges and appreciates the impact on us. Thanks also innately recognizes autonomy, and sends the message "I acknowledge this was a choice, and the choice you made helped me. I appreciate you." The more we grasp at the illusion of control, both positive and negative, the more the autonomy aware person in our life will be forced to prove to themselves that they choose for themselves, and the more they are likely to back that belief up with a little (or a lot of) concrete action or internalized resistance. 

Once we start to see all our interactions through an “autonomy focused lens”, removing autonomy stripping levers and adding in proactive autonomy supports has the potential to reduce or even eliminate challenging behaviors.  When we feel autonomous, we have no need to prove anything at all and become more free to consider what it is we really want to do.  It allows us to focus on the positive instead of on defense.  For those of us who are particularly autonomy centered and aware, there is no space for “wanting” if it feels like all the space is filled with pushing back against what someone else wants for us. This is especially true for children and teens, who are already existing in a constant state of “hierarchical one down” from adults, especially when that lens is an unconscious one.  If we aren’t conscious of our own impact on others’ autonomy and honoring everyone’s autonomy, including our own, it’s like we are setting ourselves up to fail when working with autonomy sensitive kids, even when we believe we are shifting our focus to “going low demands.”