Today, I want to share a story about a parenting day from over five years ago that I am still ashamed of. 

I have since learned so much about supporting my now-diagnosed neurodivergent sons.  I share this day to reflect on how far we have come and how far we still need to go and to remind myself that everyone is in different stages of their educational journey.  I wish I could say that the practices responsible for this day are outdated, but sadly, they are still in use today to “help” neurodivergent children.

It was a hot summer day, and I was getting my three and four-year-old sons ready to walk to the neighborhood park a couple of blocks away.  At this point, neither had been diagnosed with anything, although speech difficulties and school struggles made me sure that a diagnosis would come. 

As I tried to lather up my younger son with sunblock, he made it clear that he was not OK with that.  He hated the feeling of sunblock on his skin (which I now understand to be a sensory sensitivity).  I gave him a choice- sunblock or a hat.  He was not interested in either, but after some battling, he eventually let me put the hat on him. 

Throughout our time on the playground, he removed the hat, and I kept insisting that he wear it.  This was a matter of skin health, after all! (sarcasm) By the time we were ready to walk home, he had had it with this hat – and understandably, me.  

What I haven’t shared yet is that I was in my 13th-ish year of elementary music teaching.  I had previously worked in a school that housed the district’s segregated “Autism program,” even working as a paraprofessional in the multiple disabilities classes during the summer.  I had often observed how “behaviors” were handled.  I thought I knew what to do.  

At this point in the year, we were in our third child care center placement.  Everyone had opinions about my son’s “behaviors.”  I was feeling the heartache of seeing him struggle, and seeing people not “get” him.  I was feeling the weight of preparing him for preschool at the public school that fall. 

The models I had seen dictated that I needed to “hold the boundary.”  My son had made a choice to wear the hat, right?  I had to hold him to it. 

Now comes the part that turns my stomach.  

I made him wear that hat.  He took it off repeatedly as we walked home.  I continued to put it back on his head, stating that he “chose the hat.”  I even used the fake prosody of voice I had heard modeled at schools where I had worked and said in a sing-song way, “We’re wearing the hat, hat stays on head.”  Did this help him wear the hat?  No!  Feeling this lack of bodily autonomy, he became upset, throwing the hat and crying.  So I held the hat on his head and eventually picked him up, still holding that freaking hat on his head. 

If you are reading this and not horrified, I get that. I ignored the uneasy feeling gnawing away at me that this did not feel right, that this was not helping him. 

But I had to be consistent, right?  

Boy, was I wrong. 

“See a child differently, and you’ll see a different child.” – Dr. Stuart Shanker

Let’s break down this experience for my son and me through the neuro-affirming, trauma-informed lenses I have gained from amazing works by Dr. Mona Delahooke, Dr. Lori Desautels, Dr. Stuart Shanker, Dr. Ross Greene, Amanda Diekman, Dr. Naomi Fisher, my experiences from completing the Applied Educational Neuroscience Certificate Program at Butler University, the book studies I have participated in at the Alliance Against Seclusion & Restraint, and the autistic adults I have learned from online.  

I’ll start with why I thought I had to hold my ground with my child.  The traditional behavioral techniques I had witnessed others use with children I worked with are predicated on the belief that children are little evil masterminds intent on manipulating adults.  After all, everything they do is motivated by wanting to get something or get out of something.  While my tone and wording are sarcastic, this really is the belief.  

I trusted these supposed experts.  

In the hat scenario, I believed that if I did not make him stick with his “choice,” he would walk all over me for the rest of his life and never become a contributing member of society.  

Amanda Diekman’s book “Low Demand Parenting” was a massive help in shifting my perspective from feeling like I was “giving in” to my son to “accommodating his unique needs.”

I have also had to come to terms with what is actually important.  Is skin health important?  Yes, but would an hour at the park do enough damage to my son’s skin that it was worth the damage I did to our relationship?  Heck no. 

I now understand that his aversion to sunblock was based on his sensory sensitivities.  He cannot tolerate the feeling of greasy sunblock on his skin.  I accommodate this need by giving him SPF shirts to wear for swimming and was able to find a different sunblock he can tolerate on his face. 

So why did I offer the “choice” of a hat rather than just nixing the sunblock? 

I thought I needed to make sure that he knew that I was the one in charge. I had also bought into the notion that giving children choices helps them to feel a sense of control.  Yes, of course, all humans crave autonomy, but is giving him two options that I have decided are choices really a choice?  My kids have always seen right through this!  I forget where I learned the term that this is “disguised manipulation,” but it is such an accurate description. 

I tried to offer choices as I thought I should, but when I gave the choices A or B, they would always pick C (or D, E, or F!).

Reflecting on this, I can now recognize that the ability to find a creative solution to a problem and be collaborative in the process is an enormous strength of theirs!

But then I saw this as a threat to my authority.  “C” was not an option.  Who was the one really being “rigid”?  (Hint: it was me!) 

How could I teach my children to be flexible if I wasn’t modeling flexibility? 

I can now also look back and recognize that my child fits the characteristics of the PDA profile of autism.  (I just opened up my copy of Ruth Fidler’s and Diane Gould’s book “Navigating PDA in America.)  It stands for Pathological Demand Avoidance (aka Persistent Drive for Autonomy).

The pressure I was putting on my son to wear the darn hat activated his stress response.  When demands are placed on him (explicit, like me telling him to wear the hat, or implicit, like the expectation to attend school), his nervous system is activated into fight-or-flight mode.  

I wish I had just held the stupid hat for him on the walk home.  Then I wouldn’t even be telling you about this now. 

It’s hot as anything in NJ right now, so I’m going to imagine that it is a cold winter day, and we are going to the park.  Rather than even tell him to get his coat, I might just put my coat on next to him.  If he didn’t start to put his on, I could use declarative language to say, “Brrr! It’s cold out.  I’m going to put my coat on.”  He might start to put his on.  If he doesn’t, I might pick it up and bring it to him, possibly saying, “Here’s your coat.”  If he says or indicates no with his body language, I would probably put it in the car (or even better, keep a spare in the car because he might feel a loss of autonomy if he sees me bring it when he had indicated that he didn’t want it). 

After all, I know that he does not have the life experience or prefrontal cortex development to predict that he will be cold if he gets to the park without his coat.  This is an accommodation.  I’m preparing to help meet his needs at the park. 

What I wouldn’t do now is leave the coat at home in a huff and make passive-aggressive statements that he “should really put his coat on.”  Or threats that “he’s going to be awfully cold at the park if he doesn’t wear his coat.”  If this sounds familiar, please do not take offense.  I have been there!  Let’s explore those uncomfortable feelings and imagine I said these things.  Then, to really “teach him a lesson,” I might make sure that he has the “natural consequence” of getting to the park and being cold.  I could even double down and lay in with an I-told-you-so, “See, you should have put on your coat when Mommy said! I guess we have to go home.”  Ouch.  

Which one is accommodating my child’s unique needs?  

What would he be learning in each of those scenarios? 

If I did the latter, the next time we went to the park, he would not remember how helpful my passive-aggressive statements were or thank me for teaching him a valuable life lesson.  My son would double down and never wear a coat again, or he might not even want to go to the park. 

But what about teaching my son?  How will he survive life with people just throwing coats in the car for him? 

The accommodation scenario is still teaching him.  It’s teaching him that it’s OK to change his mind.  It’s teaching him that I have his back (even when it’s cold out!).  It’s teaching him that I love him no matter what.  

We could still have the conversation next cold park day when I might say, “Oh, I remember when we were at the park last time, and it was cold, so we got your coat out of the car.”  He might even suggest putting it in the car, just in case.  He gets to maintain his autonomy and collaborate on solving a problem.  

I am working to prioritize my son’s nervous system needs over my need for control, over the societal pressures and myths that say I’m a bad mother for not making him wear a coat when it’s cold because he could catch a cold.  I know that children have brown fat that keeps them warmer than adults.  And when I show him that I trust him and his body, he is learning to trust himself, too.  If he’s cold, he’ll put on a coat.

And if he’s hot, he’ll take off his hat.

This is a journey. We need to do our best, give ourselves grace, and when we know better, do better.

“Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better.” – Maya Angelou

Note: Interoceptive differences (the ability to interpret the cues from one’s body) may mean that some individuals may not be able to recognize when their body gets cold.  The same can apply to eating, drinking, and toileting.  This would need to be considered when seeing if a child is able to feel when their body is cold. 

Thank you to all of the authors and contributors mentioned above and the many more who share so much of their time and experience online so I and others can learn!

Thank you to Amy Kriewalt and Guy Stephens for your help editing and inspiration!