A gentle guide for parents of demand-avoidant children, and a free tool to help you read the moment. Lowering demands helps a child in burnout recover, but what happens when the world shrinks to the screen? A compassionate guide to holding versus st...

Practical, neuro-affirming de-escalation strategies for school teams. Read the early signs and ease the demand load, before behaviour escalates. There's usually one child you carry home with you. The one who "kicks off over nothing." The one where t...

You've probably been told to praise more. To use reward charts. To say "Good job!" when things go well. But if your child has a demand-avoidant profile (sometimes called PDA), you may have noticed something puzzling. The praise you give sometimes ma...

There is a question that sits at the heart of almost every behaviour support conversation I have with school professionals, and it is one of the most important distinctions in neuroaffirming practice: Is this student choosing not to comply, or are t...

Emotionally Based School Avoidance (EBSA) is one of the most misunderstood presentations in school settings. It is frequently mislabelled, frequently mismanaged, and frequently made significantly worse by well-intentioned responses that treat the sy...

Most behaviour management systems in schools are built around consequences, reward charts, points systems, loss of privileges, and time-outs. For many students, these systems work adequately well. They provide clear structure, predictable feedback, ...

If your child holds it together all day at school and then completely falls apart the moment they walk through the door, you are not imagining it. And you are absolutely not doing something wrong. This pattern has a name. It's called after-school re...

One of the most common things parents tell me is: "It comes completely out of nowhere. One minute they're fine, the next it's all-out crisis." I hear you. It absolutely feels that way. But here's what years of behavioural practice and neuroscience c...

If you've ever watched your autistic child melt down in the supermarket, or seen your ADHD teenager shut down completely the moment you ask them to do homework, or wondered why your PDA child seems to refuse absolutely everything on some days a...

Parenting a child or teenager with big emotions can feel overwhelming. Many parents describe moments when a small situation suddenly escalates — a simple “no” can lead to tears, shouting, or a shutdown, and everyone ends up feeling exhausted. In tho...