PDA and social situations have always been a complicated mix for my son. We live in a small town population approximately 22,000. There is only one secondary school here, so all the children end up going to the same place. That means you know everyone: the children in your year, the years above, the years below. Unless people move away, the likelihood is that every single time you leave the house, you will see someone you know.

Some people you just say hello to. Some people stop for a chat. Sometimes I don’t mind it. Sometimes I absolutely hate it. But that’s small-town life.

Now my son hates it and I touched upon it here.

For a long time, I thought he hated going into town because of the whole experience of it…the noise, the crowds, the unpredictability, just being out in public. But actually, I’m now leaning more towards the fact that it’s because we always see people we know… and then we have to talk to them.

For around a year after that, we barely went into town at all. Slowly though, that has started to open back up, and recently my son has been asking to go more often.

A few weeks ago, the four of us went me, my husband, my son and my stepdaughter. We wandered around the handful of shops we have here, and I already knew how it would go. I know a lot of people and people like to stop and chat, but my husband somehow knows even more. Going anywhere with him means accepting that at some point, you will be stopped.

My son managed the first conversation fine. Then we saw someone else and I could see him starting to unravel a little. By the third person who stopped us, he leaned over and whispered:

“I need to go NOW.”

I take warnings like that very seriously from my son. I know when he means it. I know when he has reached his limit.

So I apologised, crossed the road with him, and we sat on a bench waiting for my husband.

And then, of course, someone else appeared. My son sighed and whispered:

“For God’s sake — why do we always see people we know?”

And honestly? I felt his pain.

He didn’t want a social outing. He just wanted to look in the shops. That was it. Nothing more.

Finding a Way Through PDA and Social Situations

We avoided town again for a while after that, until the most recent school holidays. He wanted to meet his Grandma in Costa, so we went. But the second we parked up and got out of the car, someone shouted hello to me.

Cue the eye roll.

“For God’s sake…”

This time though, I turned it into a game.

“Let’s count how many people say hello to me.”

My son loves numbers and counting, so every time someone stopped to speak, he added them to his mental tally. In the end, it was only three people, but that tiny strategy completely changed the experience for him.

And afterwards I wondered why I hadn’t thought of it before.

By now, I should know that if I can connect something to numbers, patterns, or make it feel like we’re both in on the same joke, it helps him regulate. That’s often how PDA and social situations become manageable not by avoiding them entirely, but by finding a way to make them feel less like a demand and more like something we’re doing together. Especially if I lean into the idea that I secretly hate saying hello to people too… which, to be fair, sometimes I do.

So if you ever see me in town with my son, please don’t take this the wrong way but just say hello and keep walking. That way we can add you to our mental list and roll our eyes together afterwards about having to say hello to yet another person.