In Toy Story 5, there’s a part where Jessie says, “That’s not playing, that’s just a game!”, referring to a game that she was greatly enjoying involving jumping around and stomping her feet on buttons as they lit up. When this is met with confusion by another toy, she demonstrates: what she means by “playing” … Read more
I wrote a couple of weeks ago about silly-dysregulation for the first time on here. It’s the winter school holidays here in Australia, and it turns out that same silly-dysregulation was kind of the theme of the break. The pattern would be heralded by a grating new stim of hoarse shrieking and then escalate into … Read more
We ran an errand today, and my kids, 7 and 6, had a lovely cheerful moment on the way there. “Summer, you have so many ideas because you have a DHD brain,” my son Apollo enthused, somewhat out of nowhere, with his iteration of the vocabulary we’ve been explaining and discussing over and over … Read more
I wrote recently about preemptive co-regulation with my child — when I stepped in to help regulate escalating emotions and energy back down before a meltdown had even started. Here’s another example. I’m gonna be slightly technical here and say that this was an example of me defusing silly-dysregulation. I have loads of writing on … Read more
My kid woke up disgruntled. There wasn’t really any discernible reason for it. I’m not identifying which kid because honestly, I swear they take turns doing this. I had stayed up late the night before, and I knew I was on “wake up” duty in the morning. (Rev. Dr. Mr. TOPT and I usually swap … Read more
Your child might recognize the inherent power imbalance in society—that adults are treated as superior to and better than kids—and find that to be unjust, and not have a diagnosis of PDA. Please hear what I’m saying. I’m not trying to make the gate smaller or the opening narrower or let fewer people in. I’m … Read more
You’ve probably heard someone say “behavior is communication” before. Have you ever used your own behavior as a clue to listen to yourself? When you’re struggling to make sense of your own feelings, needs, or wants, your own behavior might give you messages that you can interpret more easily than your body sensations or your … Read more
I was on my way to pick up my kids from school that day when I had an unusual impulse that I really wanted to just like, hang out with them, outside of the patterns of our normal everyday life. I thought maybe going to McDonald’s and going inside and sitting down at the restaurant … Read more
I told my kid that they could have an ice cream alongside their lunch. While lunch was cooking, they said something rude to me. My impulsive reaction was to want to tell them that they could no longer have ice cream alongside their lunch. (Deep breath.) That reaction is wholly, exclusively, punitive. That reaction is … Read more
Sometimes when my kids are playing, one of them plays too rough or in a different way than the other one wanted them to. Sometimes they will appeal to me for intervention: “I said stop and he’s not stopping!” More often, lately, though, the dynamics have been shifting. In their younger years, I would jump … Read more