Boundaries: A Guide for Parents of PDAers

Boundaries are one of the single most perplexing concepts when supporting a PDAer, especially a child or teen. The issue of boundaries with PDAers comes up in romantic/nesting partnerships, co-parenting relationships, friendships, and work relationships as well.

In this post, I am going to focus on supporting parents of PDAers.

Definition of Boundaries:

• Boundary setting is about what you will and won't do with, or what you will or won't allow to be done to:

  • Your body

  • Your time

  • Your property

  • Your attention

  • Your money

  • Someone dependent on you, such as a child or pet

    
    

• Boundaries are not about forcing another person to do something.

  
  

• Boundaries can be about preventing another person from doing something, if such prevention is in your power.

  • Example: You can put your body between an agitated older sibling and a vulnerable younger one to prevent older child from harming younger one. But you cannot stop someone from saying swear words.

    
    

• What boundaries you need to hold will be dependent on your specific situation and societal position. For instance, Black and brown families face racialized scrutiny from law enforcement and child protective services, which may lead to the decision to hold different boundaries than white PDA families. A single parent may need to hold different boundaries for their sanity than a parent who has live-in back up.

  
  

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We hold boundaries with a PDAer for real, concrete reasons that help you or someone else meet a deep, true and urgent need such as:

• Emotional safety 

  • (i.e. I know it will further trigger my child, but if I don't leave the room while they are insulting me, I go into a trauma response from a past abusive relationship. Therefore, I will leave the room briefly to regulate myself, do a mindfulness exercise, call a friend, ground, etc.

  • You can take the need to hold this boundary as a gentle invitation to get support for your trauma as you have capacity. EFT Tapping, EMDR, Somatic Experiencing, and Brain Spotting are all body-based trauma release practices you may find helpful.

    
    

• Physical safety 

  • (i.e. I understand my kid is getting aggressive because they are in an autonomic fight response, but I am unwilling to get my face punched, especially now that they are old enough to really hurt me. I will hold a pillow up to my face, curl into a protective ball, leave the room, or call in another regulating person even if it means further escalating my child. OR I understand my child needs to release their threat response, but this is not a safe place to do so, and I will use all my attention and skills to keep them holding in the threat response until we are in a safe place.)

  • You can take the need to hold this boundary as an invitation to keep creating safety to allow your child's safe circle to widen so that the aggression decreases. We're talking meds, mitigating and removing threats to their nervous system and many other accomodations.

    
    

• Sanity 

  • (i.e. I understand it's an arrow to my child's safe circle for me to leave the house. However, I am completely tapped out and need a break, or I am going to spiral. I will use tools in The Accommodations Menu to mitigate this arrow for my kid, but I am going to take an evening away, even if this use of my time temporarily shrinks their safe circle when I get back.)

  • You can take the need to hold this boundary as an invitation to sketch your own safe circle and see what's inside it. What feels good, safe, nourishing, and regulating to you? Then you might articulate a design challenge. How might you access what you need in ways that minimize nervous system cost to your child?

• Budget 

  • (i.e. My child is self-medicating with purchases in Roblox to get dopamine hits. We are on a tight budget, and I am honestly worried we are running out of money. I want to accommodate him, but I also need to prioritize groceries and healthcare. I need to limit purchases and allow him emotional autonomy to process the limit.)

  • You can take the need to hold this boundary as an invitation to find affordable/free sources of dopamine for your child, and work on medication to support their brain chemistry.

Here's the hard part: Frequently holding difficult boundaries will shrink a PDAer's safe circle. That is why we minimize them.

If you find yourself needing or wanting to frequently hold boundaries that put your PDAer into threat response, The PDA Safe Circle Approach is to lift our gaze from the presenting problem and zoom out to the big picture:

• What Design Challenge can you articulate? This will help you get creative about how to meet your own needs and your child's needs.

• What arrows (stressors) can we mitigate or remove to increase your capacity and your child's capacity? Draw Demand Diagrams.

• What Accommodations can we put in place that will help increase your child's nervous system capacity? Check out The Accommodations Menu

Here's the great news! As the safe circle widens, holding boundaries will become

• a) less needed

• b) less stressful when it is needed.

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Bad reasons to hold a boundary with a PDA child or teen

• In order to teach the child that they can't always get what they want

  
  

• Because good parents hold consistent boundaries and you'll feel like a bad parent if you don't

  
  

• Out of fear of what others will think (unless there is real risk to your child, such as worries about child protective services or law enforcement - these risks are heightened for Black and brown families)

  
  

• Worrying about a slippery slope of permissiveness

  
  

• Because their behavior is disrespectful (often comes up during equalizing)

  • Respect is a legitimate need, but with PDA kids and teens it will serve the family system better to relax expectations around respect. Instead, simply model what respectful behavior means to you, trusting that as their safe circle widens your child will engage with you more and more respectfully. See disrespectful behavior as expressions of their threat response.

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How to hold a boundary with a PDA child or teen:

• Sketch your child's safe circle to get a clear sense of their capacity and the nervous system cost to the child of holding the boundary. You get to decide what is worth it.

  
  

• Articulate a Design Challenge to see if you can meet your needs without taxing your child.

  
  

If you decide to hold the boundary:

• Don't bring it up verbally unless/until necessary.

  
  

• Give the real reason, but use as few words as possible

  
  

• Provide relevant information your child may not have about the situation IF they have room in their safe circle, and only while they are regulated

  
  

• Allow emotional autonomy for the PDAer to process the boundary in their own way

  
  

• Support the part of you that is upset about your PDAer being upset by sending compassion

  
  

If you're afraid to hold a boundary but you want to hold it:

• Give Yourself a H.U.G! This exercise will help you depolarize with your fear so you can respond well and take precautions while in thriving brain.

  
  

Here are examples of wise caution you can take before holding boundaries:

• If you are afraid of your child's emotional response to the boundary, this is an invitation for you to get to know and send compassion to the part of you that is upset by their upset. Check out Allow emotional autonomy, as well as Differentiating from Emotional Pain for support.

  
  

• If you are afraid of aggressive equalizing, especially in older kids or teens:

  • Make a safety plan: Where you will go, who you will call for back up (a friend? neighbor? family member?), how will you regulate and discharge your own threat response safely afterwards. DontCallThePolice.com has a list of organizations that may be helpful if you need outside support. Calling law enforcement on a PDAer risks extreme trauma, escalation, and state legal intervention.

  • Remove precious/valuable breakable objects

  • Look into medication supports and all the supports in Element 4: Create Safety

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Bottom line

• Your needs matter.

• Your child's needs matter.

• The needs of other kiddos or family members matter.

• You are seen and loved and forgiven for not being able to meet everyone's needs perfectly. It simply may not be possible given the logistical and physiological constraints involved.

• This is hard, and you are not alone.

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