At Peace Parents Podcast

In this episode I spoke with a mom of a 4-year-old PDAer (Pathological Demand Avoidant) and a 10-month-old baby living in an apartment in Scotland.
She had just learned about PDA one month ago and had already made huge and brave changes in her home and parenting to support he son.
We discussed:
- How to start making a parenting paradigm shift if you are new to PDA.
- The importance of an experimental mindset as you are trying out new ways of supporting and accommodating your PDA child.
- How to pick your priorities for boundaries in the home. In this case we focused on safety around the baby, bedtime, and bathing once a week.
- How nervous system activation is cumulative over time (months and years) for PDA children and teens, which means we don't have to be perfect with accommodations, just consistent.
This episode is from the show we stream live on Fridays on our social media, "Parenting PDA Your Way." I hope you enjoy it as much as I did!
With love,
Casey

Sorcha Rice is an occupational therapist and the clinical manager of Neurodiversity Ireland, who I met at their 1st conference last year. She identifies as AuDHD and PDA and spoke with me about how she understands and experiences PDA, what her childhood and teen years were like before she was diagnosed, going through burnout and recovery, how she manages her nervous system now, and some of the practices she incorporates to support her PDA occupational therapy clients.
It was wonderful to connect with Sorcha and hear her insights and so much of her story!
I hope you enjoy it too.
Xoxo,
Casey
PS - You can find more about Sorcha on instagram at both @ot_sorcharice and @neurodiversityireland
And in our conversation she also recommended a resource for other OTs - Kim Barthel.

In this episode I speak with a mom of a six-year-old PDAer who wouldn't eat or drink and was extremely dysregulated during a holiday because of a loose tooth.
We discussed:
1 - how internal demands and losses of autonomy like losing a tooth matter as much as external demands.
2 - the importance of understanding PDA as a fluctuating nervous system disability.
3 - creative ideas for deepening accommodations the next time there is a loose tooth.
I hope you find the episode helpful. It's from the show we stream live on our social media on Fridays, Parenting PDA Your Way.
xo,
Casey

Here's part 2 of my episode on the 10 hardest lessons I learned in 2025. They include:
6 - Your PDA child can go into burnout even if you're fully accommodating them.
7 - Burnout can feel like you are making no progress, especially with an internalizer.
8 - Screens can be a wonderful thing.
9 - Your kids will surprise you.
10 - Spirituality sustained me.
xoxo,
Casey

Happy New Year! I'm kicking off 2026 by sharing the 10 hardest lessons I learned parenting my PDAers (often the hard way) in 2025.
The first five are in this episode:
1 - There are some things in life you can't outsource
2 - The key to sanity is accepting constraints and finding agency within them
3 - Doubt about PDA is the antidote to dogma
4 - The importance of trusting yourself in the face of judgement
5 - Burnout with trauma is different than burnout without trauma
xo,
Casey