PDA & Fatherhood

 

 

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“I’m not wired for this.”

— A dad from the group

Most of us have said some version of it. Raising a child with a Pathological Demand Avoidance profile turns the parenting playbook we were handed upside down, and fathers often have the most to unlearn, with the least support while doing it.

 

 

THE SHIFT NO ONE WARNED US ABOUT

What we were handed, and why it doesn’t work here

Be the authority. Hold the line. Use consequences. Stay calm. Earn respect by being strong and in control. It’s the script most of us absorbed from our fathers, our culture, or both. For most kids it mostly works. With a PDA kid, every piece of it can backfire.

 

Authority

Triggers a threat response. Things escalate immediately.

 

Holding the line

The line is a demand. And the demand is the problem.

 

Logical consequences

They assume compliance as a starting point. A PDA kid can’t get there under pressure.

 

Staying calm

You’re co-regulating a chronically dysregulated nervous system. Calm alone isn’t the intervention.

 

 

WHY IT’S STEEPER FOR FATHERS

The things that made us good at everything else work against us here

 

The cultural script runs deep

Men absorb the message that control means competent parenting. Admitting the old approach doesn’t work can feel like admitting failure.

 

We’re parenting against our own fathers

For many of us the only model we have was authoritarian. Unlearning it while parenting in real time is hard.

 

Partners often get there first

When your co-parent is further along, it can feel like you’re always catching up, or always being corrected.

 

Our strengths backfire

Problem-solving, holding firm, consistency: the things that succeed at work and elsewhere actively escalate things at home.

 

The gendered double standard

When a mom breaks down during her child’s meltdown, people offer support. When a dad is dysregulated in the same moment, he gets judged, and left on his own.

 

“It required me to let go of a lot more than I ever thought I would as a parent.”

— A dad from the group

 

 

WHAT THE DADS IN THE GROUP KEEP TELLING US

Where it lands hardest

Eight patterns from a year of monthly conversations, each one raised by more than one father.

 

01 A world that assumes regulation

Nearly every program, public school first among them, quietly requires a child who is independent and well-regulated. Our kids start outside that line.

 

02 Judged, not supported

The same overwhelmed moment earns a mother sympathy and a father suspicion. Many dads end up carrying it alone.

 

03 No off-ramp

You need to breathe and let the day go when you get home. Instead you often walk into a crisis that asks you to push past your own needs and regulate the whole family.

 

04 Instincts at war

When a meltdown turns physical toward a partner or sibling, a father is wired to protect everyone at once, and there is no clean response.

 

05 The medication question

We think constantly about whether medication could help our kids regulate, and nearly every option comes with a hard tradeoff.

 

06 Othered by our own communities

When our kids can’t access the programs everyone else can, communities tend to push us out rather than make room.

 

07 The constant educator

We’re always explaining PDA and our real home lives, made harder because our kids often mask at school and in public.

 

08 Regulation required, none offered

School demands self-regulation from our kids, with little or no help at school to regulate or co-regulate.

 

 

WHAT WE’RE LEARNING INSTEAD

Not permissiveness. A different kind of leadership.

 

Collaborative, not directive

Invite rather than instruct. “I wonder if…” instead of “You need to…”

 

Presence over problem-solving

Sometimes the job is to be with them in the chaos, not to fix it.

 

Co-regulation before expectations

A dysregulated nervous system can’t meet demands. Regulation comes first, always.

 

Connection as the strategy

The relationship is the whole intervention, not a prerequisite to compliance.

 

 

“It feels like Sisyphus, where the stone keeps rolling uphill no matter how much I push it.”

— A dad from the group

The stone does eventually stop rolling. Not because you got stronger at pushing it, but because you stopped treating it like something you have to push. When the shift happens, your kid starts trusting you instead of bracing against you. Your own dysregulation drops because you’re not in a constant battle. The relationship becomes the thing.

 

 

WHO IT’S FOR

Every male caregiver of a PDA person is welcome

Fathers, stepdads, grandfathers, uncles, and male-identifying caregivers of a PDA child, teen or adult. Whether you’ve known about PDA for years or just found the word last week, there’s a seat for you.

Each month we talk about what’s actually happening at home: the hard nights, the small wins, and what we’re trying differently. You’re welcome to talk, or just to listen.

 

 

YOUR HOST

PJ “Starling” Letourneau

PJ sits on the Board of Directors of PDA North America. He recognized PDA in himself five years ago, after burning out in his first years as a father, and came to see it as a generational pattern: his father’s, his own, and maybe his son’s. He leads a men’s group in Vancouver and writes Unprogrammable on Substack.

“I don’t always get this right. But the relationship I have with my son is the one I always wanted with my own dad.”

 

 

You don’t have to figure this out alone.

Join us on the 2nd Tuesday of the month at 7pm Central (5pm Pacific). Register through PDA North America.

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