PDA tips

[Moosmummie]

Hi all you lovely Mums I am here to pick your brains. I have recently been moved to a class at school (i work in an SEN school) with a exceptionally bright child with PDA. She is very anxious about appearing to fail and so won't try to write etc and her academic abilities are not progressing. It is also impossible to get her to do things she doesn't want to do without hours of negotiation which is exhausting for me and her. I am very very fond of this child and would like to do my absolute best for her - does anyone have any tips for me on how to improve our relationship? We are good friends as long as I am under her control lol

Hello, I have several very able, extremely demand avoidant (my county doesn't dx PDA) pupils in my current class and have taught quite a few others over the years. PM me if you like!

We do quite well with 'PDA' BTW and I am starting (after many years) to get my head round a bank of strategies that seem quite successful. I have moved one pupil from zero contact with a class group and needing 2:1 most of the time due to the violent outbursts that followed almost any introduction of demand to full time integration into a class of 6 an only one incidence of violence in the past 18 days.

So, I am not just going to say she is unteachable!

You may have seen this, but we find this mindmap very useful for ds, it's aimed at teachers so should be workable in the classroom.

If you haven't already found it, the PDA resource website has loads of links that may help you.

"We are good friends as long as I am under her control"

This sums up my relationship with ds. The book The Explosive Child is helping him to learn to negotiate without losing the plot, this might help you as well.

Thanks for that LeChien- I like it and will give it to some of the other teachers at my school.