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I learned a new acronym the other day: A "PDA" kid.
Wut?
After reeling myself back in, and recognizing that it probably didn't refer to a "Personal Digital Assistant" child ("PDA" being an acronym from my past), I looked its modernization up. Here's what Google AI had to say about children with something that's (just this past few minutes ago, apparently) been dubbed "Pathological Demand Avoidance."
Can you believe it?? Apparently there are children in this world who don't--at first glance--want to do what their parents tell them they must. And--apparently--those of us who don't "get it" lack the empathic, positive disposition necessary to help our loved ones out here.
Wow. Who'd'a thunk it?
(Flashback to about 1957 or so, and my own impatience with getting my own way. Sitting in the kitchen, screaming and banging my leg up and down. Here came Granny. "STOP FIDGETING," she shouted. And slapped me upside the head.)
Somehow, it worked. And somehow, along the way, I came to understand that there were societal norms I was expected to conform to and comply with, all the way from toilet training to behaving myself at school and in the wider world. I also came to understand that those who truly loved me--including the aforementioned Granny--were determined to enforce those standards, not for their own sakes, but for mine.
I'm grateful.
And I feel nothing but sorrow and pity for the kids whose parents' discomfort with reality has doomed their own children to a life of "demand avoidance," whether it stems from avoiding the undeniable scientific demand that a particular child was born "male" or "female," to the pretense that--however they would wish it to be otherwise--those kids can bend reality to their will.
We cannot support such a thing.
Like it or not, reality is what it is. And the sooner we--and the parents of such kids are taught (or just reminded) of such a thing--the better.
Discussion (31)
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Demand Avoidance sounds a lot like sass.
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I feel sorry for kids whose parents can’t or won't parent them. So sad.
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I have a daughter who works at a day-care. She has seen parents who go by the gentle-parenting philosophy who are afraid of their kids. Some expect the day-care to do all the potty training and keep their children in diapers when they are at home.
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My carefully researched and studied, tried and true process for promoting compliance was to grab their nearest leg, hoist them upside down, and apply stimulation to their posterior. Remarkably quick results. And, no, we never saw that child services person and cannot help determine their whereabouts.
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With proper training, PDA children can become HDC children (happily demand compliant).
As my mom said, "If you don't stop that now, I"m going to apply the board of education to the seat of knowledge."
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