Can we eat in a place that isn’t even here?

Over time we have realised that my son cannot stand any demand or command being given. I’m almost certain he has a PDA (Pathological Demand Avoidance) profile because his default response to any request is an immediate “no.” The more we push, the more resistant he becomes. And it’s not that he doesn’t want to do what you have said, it’s that it invokes a fight or flight response in him and his default reaction is to fight you, not literally fight you (although sometimes this does happen) but fight against your authority and demands.

Over time before I even read about PDA, before I even knew what it was, I started to speak to my son and communicate with him in a very different way. It started out by asking him to do things by making him think he had thought of the idea. So instead of directly asking him to do something I would suggest something in a round about way. More of a thinking out loud type of communication. As though I was talking to myself and he was just in the room. And more often than not this worked. He would be listening to what I was saying and then make out like he had thought of the idea. And it turns out that this is a form of communication called “Declarative Language”. This type of language invites a child to share in an experience and it helps kids take note of what may be important and to observe what’s going on around them. Compared to “Imperative Language” which is giving commands or asking direct questions. So, as an example if I wanted my son to decide what to have for tea the difference would be like this….

Imperative language – I would ask – “Do you want pasta for tea?”

Declarative Language – I would say out loud more to myself than anyone else – “I’m really hungry. I might have pasta for tea, I wonder if we have any pasta, I’ll have to check, I love pasta in a sauce.” – and then I would hope that my son would say oooooo I’ll have pasta for my tea.

And I have done this without even knowing these were strategies that other people used. And it’s much more difficult than you think. Sometimes I forget, and things come out without me even realising and I beat myself up about it, but then other times I do it well and I am really pleased with myself because it enables my son to do what he wants to do without getting triggered. I use it for days out, I use it for food choices, I use it for transitions in the house like getting changed into pyjamas, I will say something like…

“I think I am going to get changed into my pyjamas and its warm today, so I am going to put my summer pyjamas on”

And more often than not my son will then race to beat me putting my pyjamas on. So, if you ever call round my house at 6.30pm at night and I am in my pyjamas that is why.

The other children in our family haven’t quite caught on to this and there is no issue with that at all. They all do very well with my son, and they understand how to make things better which is good. But when we were on holiday in London recently trying to decide where to eat one of them would suggest a place “Can we go to Pizza Express?”. And immediately that got my sons back up. And he would refuse to go. And although he has issues with food this isn’t the issue here. The issue is because it has been suggested using imperative language, his default is to fight against it and say no. And rather than cause a massive scene we would just pick somewhere else to eat. But then wherever we would pick next my son would then say, “well actually I wanted to go to Pizza Express”. And so on and so on. Then one day my husband had a bright idea, or so he thought. We walked to Leicester Square where there is every single type of food establishment you could ever think of. We sat down on the grassed area, and he said right all decide what you want, you can all have something different if you want, we will get it, then have a picnic on the grassed area. All the kids were flummoxed by this, even I was. One of them picked McDonalds (of course) then my son pipes up…

Son: “Well I want Five Guys.”
Husband: “Perfect, there is one just there.”
Son: “No I don’t want Five Guys.”
Me: “I don’t know what I want. There are too many choices.” (I said this to make my son realise I was in the same boat as him, I really didn’t know what to do here and I wanted him to know he wasn’t alone).
Son: “I want to eat somewhere here, I don’t know where, but I know there isn’t one of them here. So can we eat in a place that isn’t even here?”

He had come up with the impossible eatery….one that wasn’t even there when everything was there. And that was my son. And what actually happened was in the end we all ate at McDonald’s, including my son. He got his favourite – a hamburger happy meal but customised it so it didn’t have the ketchup, the onions, the mustard, the gherkin or the beef patty. Yes you read that right, he had a hamburger happy meal without the hamburger, it was literally a burger bun and chips. That is my son.

This form of communication worked the other day going for a day out. I had resigned myself to not doing much with my son over the summer holidays but I was starting to get stir crazy so I racked my brains for a low key place that I knew he would enjoy and which wouldn’t be overwhelming. There is a small local Owl Centre which is tiny but good and I knew this was the place. They did a flying display every day at 2.30 so if I timed it right we could have a look at the owls, and meerkats, and guinea pigs and also catch the flying display.  I mentioned in passing about the local Owl Centre, and my son ignored it. I thought it hadn’t worked this time so we would just stay in the house but then after a while (I’m sure he was still processing what I said) he said…

“I want to go see the owls.”

And I was so pleased he did because he really enjoyed himself and all throughout it, he kept saying,

“This is so good, I am having lots of learning moments today.”

And aren’t we all….this journey has been filled with countless learning moments—not just for my son, but for all of us. We’ve had to rethink how we communicate, let go of judgments, and adapt to a new way of living as a family. Every day brings new learning moments.