Interview between Speaker 1 (Meg) and Speaker 2 (Amanda Diekman)
Episode 60: Lowering Adult Demands to Increase Autistic Joy
[Introductory note]
Hey, it’s Meg. I know that if you are a professional and you’re here, it’s because you want to work in a way that has a positive impact on the self-identity and well-being of your autistic clients. And at Learn, Play, Thrive, we really want to support you on that journey because the way we do our work impacts kids, families, communities. It really matters. And it is so hard to swim against the current on your own. That’s why we’ve put together another huge continuing education summit, and this one is for occupational therapists, that will give you the tools and confidence to go deeper into your work with a neurodiversity-affirming lens. I want you to leave this summit just buzzing with confidence and enthusiasm for your work, and connected to a community of like-minded therapists. We have a truly engaging and brilliant panel of neurodiverse professionals teaching on everything from disability justice, to AAC, interoception, regulation, supporting kids who learn language through echolalia or delayed scripting, and even strengths-based approaches to literacy. Yes, that includes what we should be doing instead of drilling letter formation and rewriting lines with our autistic clients. So, head over now to learnplaythrive.com/summit and be a part of this huge culture change in the therapy world. The OT summit takes place in January of 2023; it’s registered for AOTA CEU’s. All of the talks will be recorded and on demand. Then, go tell your friends after you’ve registered, because we’re giving $500 to the therapist who refers the most people because we want to make a huge impact on the OT field with this event. That’s learnplaythrive.com/summit.
[Introductory music]
Welcome to the Two Sides of the Spectrum Podcast. A place where we explore research, amplify autistic voices, and change the way we think about autism in life, and in our professional therapy practices. I’m Meg Proctor from learnplaythrive.com.
Meg:
Before we get started, a quick note on language. On this podcast, you’ll hear me and many of my guests use identity-affirming language. That means we say ‘autistic person’ rather than ‘person with autism’. What we’re hearing from the majority of autistic adults is that autism is a part of their identity that they don’t need to be separated from. Autism is not a disease, it’s a different way of thinking and learning. Join me in embracing the word ‘autistic’ to help reduce the stigma.
Welcome to Episode 60 with Amanda Diekman, also known as Low Demand Amanda. In her parent coaching work, Amanda teaches caregivers how to establish safety for their kids by reducing demands and listening more deeply to what the child needs. In this episode, Amanda and I deconstruct traditional parent coaching questions and rebuild them to help us truly connect with a family’s culture and a parent or caregiver’s capacity in their daily life. This is helpful for every family who we support. But this is especially helpful working with parents who may be autistic or PDA, especially if they’re high masking. I’ll tell you a little bit more about Amanda. The way she puts it, her mission is to lead weary parents into the joy and ease of the low demand life. She is an ordained pastor, a parent coach, a late diagnosed autistic adult, and mom of three neurodivergent children. I will tell you she is absolutely full of wisdom and insight for how we can tie together a lot of the threads of what we’ve been exploring here on the podcast for how we can put safety and connection first for our autistic clients in their classrooms and within their families. Here is the interview with Amanda.
Hey, Amanda, welcome to the podcast.
Amanda:
Thank you. I’m so glad to be here.
Meg:
I’m really excited to have you here. I’ve enjoyed starting to follow your work online and learn from and about what you’re doing. I want to start with your own story and your family story. How did you wind up here as Low Demand Amanda? Which, by the way, Amanda, I love the repetition of the syllables in that. It’s great.
Amanda:
I know. I love saying it, Low Demand Amanda. I just walk around the house smiling. I started my journey as High Demand Amanda; as perfectionist Amanda, Type A Amanda. And I was doing that since my earliest days as a little, little child in order to feel in control of what felt like a very overwhelming world. And when I got my diagnosis of being autistic at 37, I realized, oh, I have 37 years of coping mechanisms that were really serving me at the time to keep the world at bay, and that now I’m ready to grow out of. And so, as I’ve settled into the low demand approach, which came out of relationship with my children, this is the parenting style that they need and deserve. And I became the parent that could give them that. But it also turns out, it has been so healing and wonderful for me to discover I can be easy, and I can be flexible, that some of my best parenting have come out of these very deeply connected and relational moments and not the scripted and controlled, confident, old Amanda moments. So, I think you’re really getting a post diagnosis ‘Here’s who I am. Hello world, I am autistic’ Amanda, and sharing that with the world through this platform, on Instagram, and other places. And also, really trying to give permission to parents that have been told for so long that there’s one right way to be a parent and discovering that there’s actually so many.
Meg:
Yeah, I will say that your content resonated with me just as a parent. When I started watching it, I was like, “Oh, I needed to hear that today.” And I love your story about how your own healing and finding ease and acceptance in your life is intertwined with becoming a parent who is more aligned with your children’s needs. So, you describe your role on your Instagram as ‘Parent coach for the low demand life: Dropping demands to meet our kids with radical acceptance’. Let’s talk about the low demand life. What does that mean?
Amanda:
Okay. So, the low demand life is a way of looking at the world that’s with a lens of recognizing what’s too hard. That so many of us have lost touch with our own boundary around ‘hard’ and ‘too hard’. And that’s the language I use with my kids: Is this hard? Is this too hard? Because when things are hard, we’re brave or courageous. We show up. We use all our tools; we ask for help. We know what to do when things are hard. The problem is we don’t know what to do when things are too hard. Except we push through, we compromise ourselves, we do whatever it takes. And discovering that it is actually okay to honor that some things are too hard, and that we do the best we can; we show up as our best when we can. And when we can’t, we let those things go. When we can’t, we discover that there’s another way. We get creative, we get flexible. And finding that boundary in our own low demand lives has been the most empowering and exciting part of being alive. Because it turns out that being creative is so much better than pushing through.
Meg:
This is so very aligned with what we intend to be doing as therapists. So, we are hopefully trained to find the ‘just right’ challenge for a child, meaning building from their emerging skills. But we often lose sight of this because of developmental milestones, which are pretty ironical, to be frank, when you take the developmental milestone that the child quote-unquote ‘should be meeting’ and we write a goal around that. And it’s too hard. It’s not emerging. It’s not relevant. It is not tied into their own goals and interests. It is too hard, it becomes a power struggle, we resort to behaviorism to try and make them do it because our job is to make them meet goals. It’s not. But when we have this in our minds, we can be that high demand therapist, and that’s not helping anyone. So, I love the way you describe, “Is this hard?” or, “Is this too hard?” I think therapists need to hear this. And I think it’s also helpful for us because we’re coaching parents too, and teachers, when we work with children, students. It’s a really simple, really approachable concept. I think, too, sometimes the strategies we give to parents are too hard.
Amanda:
Amen. I just want to agree with that wholeheartedly. I’ve felt that so many times from absolutely incredible therapists, but who are offering me strategies that don’t meet me where I am. I’ve been super overwhelmed, undiagnosed autistic parent of three small, neurodivergent humans who are crossing my boundaries, and overstimulating my system all day long. And to be told that there’s another thing we need to do can push me over the edge, especially when it’s so hard just to show up and to be vulnerable with a provider. I’ve never had anybody asked me, “Hey, is that too hard for you? Because I can make it a little bit simpler,” or, “I can back that off.” That would have been so life giving for me so many times to be asked that question,
Meg:
Never. And you’ve had OT in your home for your kids, right? You’ve never — have you been asked a coaching question like, “How does this strategy feel for you?” or, “Can you imagine using this in your daily routines?”
Amanda:
I have been asked some of those questions. I think what’s hard is recognizing that parents are also feeling very vulnerable in being seen, and their parenting is on display for their therapist. And so, there’s a lot wrapped up in wanting that person to think that you’re doing a good job. And I hear this over and over again from parents who show up at my practice looking for coaching, is they also want me to tell them that they’re doing a good job. And so, just to begin to dismantle this idea that following the professional’s advice is the best thing, that really aligning with your what you can do with your own capacity is the best thing that you can do. And even if that best thing is nothing this week, that is so much better than taking on this list of ‘shoulds’. And then, feeling bad about it. And in both situations, you do nothing. But in one situation, the expectations aren’t aligned with your abilities. And that’s a high demand, high stress recipe for shame. And in the other example, both people know, okay, I’m not going to do anything with sensory this week for my kid. I’m not going to work on fine motor. I’m not, it’s too hard for me. And then, both people know, hey, nothing’s happening at home. And that’s where, that’s where we’re at. And that’s the recipe for trusting connection that can build into something more.
Meg:
This is so important, Amanda. And I really appreciate that you tied it back to parents’ experience of shame, because we know we don’t learn and grow. And when we’re experiencing shame, it’s not a useful feeling. And I don’t think I could understand this if I didn’t have children. If I hadn’t parented two young kids through a pandemic, I think. Really, really seeing, having at least a year of saying, “Yes, some sort of visual schedule and sustained regular routine would help my three-year-old right now, and I cannot do it.” And I didn’t do it, ever. And that’s really different than being the eager therapist in a family’s home. And often, we’re eager to show that we know something, right? Like, that’s probably my least favorite dynamic that we bring to the table is, “Oh, okay, I have ideas! I know things. Let me give you a laundry list.” Really, it’s very disconnected from the experience of the family on the other side of that, who doesn’t need you to show up being a know-it-all. They need you to show up, and learn about them, and meet them where they’re at.
I want to ask you just one more in depth question about this. Because it sounds like we’re pushing up against some of the limits of the coaching model. So, a lot of therapists aren’t trained well in coaching. But if we are, we are asking those open-ended questions that we just talked about like, “Is this something you can imagine trying? Of everything we’ve practiced today, what can you imagine doing this week?” And making levelling statements like, “Wow, I can see how many things you’ve tried. You really understand how she thinks.” And, “She’s so lucky to have you supporting her. That was a great idea.” So, I want to talk about where these may fall short, because when I asked you about those open-ended ‘Can you imagine doing this’ question, you described the fear of the parents of being seen as not good enough to support their kid. That there’s this, yes, I can imagine doing the things that we tried today, every day. And it sounds like we need to embed more understanding and permission into that — “A lot of families find doing it this way to be really hard and really impractical. And I’m not in your home, so I don’t know. But I just wanted to check with you, does this feel too hard? Because if so, we can change.” Is that different?
Amanda:
Very different. Yes. And then, in this way, I’m also speaking from an autistic parents’ perspective, which we know that undiagnosed autistic parents are also in the population you’re going to be serving. And so, keeping that in mind, what if this person is neurodivergent as well? And the way that masking often operates is that we are trying to read what the right answer is so much more than we’re trying to communicate our own truth. And so, giving that permission upfront, “Many families feel like this is too hard,” that helps ground it in there are a range of right options here and you get to take a minute and really think about what’s true for you. And that is so different than a leading question like, “Can you think of anything that would be working from our session today?” kind of indicates that something about our session should be working. And you should probably be able to do at least one of these things at home, right?
And that right answer is going to swallow up the intuition that is trying to come forward for some autistic parents. I can only speak for myself really. For me, that would swallow me up. And especially if you’re working with — and we haven’t talked about this too much — but if you’re working with a profile of autism that’s demand avoidant, then this interaction is also going to be a high demand interaction, because it’s probably face-to-face, it’s intensive. And that there’s a certain time limit, and it’s going to happen at the end of this session. And there’s got to be a takeaway for everybody to feel good about it. And so, it’s also going to be triggering a reaction in the person’s body that’s probably high anxiety. And so, it’s also hard to think creatively, adaptively. You know, it’s hard to think when you’re in shame, but it’s also hard to think when you’re in anxiety. And so, just appreciating that the parent on the other end needs a lot of permission if they’re going to be able to say, “No, I can’t do it.” It can’t be just an option on the table, it has to be well-supported as an option.
Meg:
That’s really helpful. You know, I’ve interviewed a number of PDA autistic adults who are parents of PDA-ers, many of whom came to realize they were autistic during their child’s diagnosis process. And you’re, you’re nodding. We actually have talked a lot on the podcast about supporting PDA kids. So, the Pathological Demand Avoidance — or redubbed Pervasive Drive for Autonomy — kids whose need for autonomy is very, very strong, and their stress response to demands, internal or external, is very, very high. We’ve talked a lot about supporting those kids. We actually haven’t gone there yet thinking about autistic parents who might also be PDA-ers. And that’s really helpful. It’s just a good idea in general, right. Like, our neurotypicals who are people pleasers are gonna hear the answer that we’re hoping, that they’ll give us. And I like the way you phrased it, ‘Lose connection with their intuition’, as well. And that’s not what we want. I love this little side street that we went down around how we talk to parents. I want to circle back to the low demand life. Can you give us some examples from your own life about how you lower the demands for your kids, and how they respond?
Amanda:
Absolutely. My kids are 6, 8, and 10. And they all are currently identifying as boys. So, we have a very rambunctious, high-energy dynamic here in our home. And we’ve essentially made our whole house one big sensory gym. So, one of the kinds of low demand approaches that we’ve made is that we have various spaces in our home where you can retreat and various spaces where you can engage. And depending on how you are and how your body is doing, you can access those spaces, which takes the demands out of saying, “I need a break,” verbally. It’s indicated by where your body is moving and the kinds of things you’re choosing in that space. We found that verbal demands are really hard for our kids to meet. And so, we do as many things non-verbally as possible. We do, along that same path, if we’re making a family decision, we’ll do, “Jump if you want chocolate ice cream.” And that meets their sensory needs to jump. It communicates what they need without words. And it gets us all laughing, which helps get out of decision making, can be a really high anxiety time for our family dynamic. So, it also helps loosen things up. So, there’s all kinds of little, daily, structural ways that we dropped demands.
Big picture, though, we’ve dropped a lot of the so-called ‘good parent’ rules about what you’re supposed to do to be a good parent, and found other ways to be a good family together. So, we don’t eat shared meals, we eat individual meals. We have done that while still remaining aligned with our deep ‘Why’, the thing that really matters, which is family connection. And our family connection time is usually wrestling. We have whole family wrestling matches that we set up for, and then we have all these rules around. So, people might say, “Oh, you know, they’re not learning how to follow directions,” they totally are. They’re just learning how to follow directions through wrestling, which is a passionate interest of my children’s. Unlike learning to follow directions around eating rules, which is a place where we have misophonia in the mix. We’ve got a lot of challenges with eating together that would override and the system. So, they wouldn’t be in a learning posture anyway, if we were all trying to, you know, listen to each other eat around one table.
So, that’s one way that by dropping the demand like ‘Good families eat dinner together at the table’, that’s what we’re told. And, “If you’re a good parent, you may have a table, and you have a mealtime, and you serve a hot meal.” We don’t do that. But we have found a ton of ways to still remain aligned with our deep ‘Why’, and to bring our expectations right to the level that our kids can manage. And through that, oh, my gosh. It’s just amazing when you step off the path and realize, oh, wait. I can be a good parent, and still — I can be a good parent and let them eat in their rooms. And I can be a good parent and not have screentime boundaries. And I can be a good parent and let my kid learn in their own ways, not in the institutional school system. And I can be a good parent and not have any punishments or rewards in my family dynamic. It’s just amazing what else is possible. So, those are just a few of the low demand ways that we show up in the world. And they’re all off the beaten path. But man, there’s like a whole wide world off the beaten path.
Meg:
That’s lovely. I’m really glad that you use some examples from mealtime because we had a couple of episodes recently where our guests were talking about feeding therapists. Generally, what we’re trained to do, myself included, is impose these feeding norms on our clients. And that is family meals, serving bowls that you pass around, modeling, the way you talk about the food they’re eating, describe the sensory properties. There’s a lot of pressure on families to do meals this one way in order to be supporting their child properly. And both of our guests were like, “Can you let go of that, please?” Like, we need much broader acceptance that families intuition is good. They know how to support their kids; there’s a lot of ways to do food. And I appreciate that you took us deeper kind of to the ‘Why’. There’s this cultural focus on dinner time, not because dinner time, but because families, kids need a moment with their caregivers, with their family, to feel connected, to feel like they have somebody’s full presence and attention. There’s nothing magical about that being dinner. And in fact, for your family dinner is the worst time, it sounds like, for that. And it’s more important for your kids to feel safe enough to eat, and to find that connection elsewhere. So, I really appreciate you making this idea much more concrete for us about how that applies to meal time.
Amanda:
Yes, safety is so important. That is in addition to what’s hard, and what’s too hard. Do you feel safe? Or what will make you feel safe? Is a central question that I bring to my kids. And first, they have to know what safety feels like in their bodies. We can’t start with safety when they haven’t experienced it. So, that was what we had to do around feeding and eating and meal times, is make it feel safe again. And then, once it finally felt safe, then we could begin to ask, okay, what could make it feel more safe? And what could you do if you feel safe, if you feel even more safe, then what? And we’ve just, now, after years now of dismantling all of these structures, we’ve just now seen my oldest begin to be willing to try new foods. And I think it has everything to do with the fact that he now feels safe and empowered, that he knows where he can go to taste those foods, to explore them, and it does not happen best with a whole bunch of eyeballs on him and a bunch of other smells barraging him and sounds. He does his best exploration by himself in his room. And that had to be a really, really, really safe choice until he could say, “Yes, I’d like to try a piece of chicken.”
Meg:
I’m writing these phrases down. Is this harder? Is this too hard? Oh, it’s feeling safe now, what could make it even more safe? I love the shift. And I want to say, everything you’re saying is really aligned with — a lot of our listeners really like Ross Greene too, that kids do well when they can. And that’s what you’re saying. And what do they need to be able to do quote-unquote ‘well’, they need to feel safe. And what does safety look like for this child? Let’s take the time to learn about that instead of imposing our sort of cultural norms, often our neurotypical cultural norms, let’s learn about what safety looks like for this child.
Amanda:
Yeah. If you’re familiar with Ross Greene’s work, he’s got these three plans. There’s Plan A that’s adult-driven, there’s Plan B that’s collaborative problem solving, and then, there’s Plan C, which is dropping and really aligning with the child’s expectations. And I really consider my whole expertise to be plan C. And I think that there’s so much more that can be done with Ross Greene’s ideas around Plan C, and that’s what low demand really grows out of, is that this can be just as robust. It’s not like a last chance. Like, if you can’t do anything else, okay, fine, then drop it. No, dropping it can be the start of something really beautiful. And something that’s even better than a Plan B, collaborative problem solving. Like, what if creating proactive safety is actually the key to unlocking the whole picture. And that then you can do a sprinkling of collaborative problem solving on top of it, with this whole vibrant life of proactive safety.
Meg:
I love that. I’ll tell you, when I first really dived into your account, it was maybe a month ago, and I was looking at your account. It was really resonating. And then, I was trying to get my own children who are 3 and 5 to go to this party that’s an hour away. There’s this whole thing — I live in western North Carolina, and some of my friends who are native from here, their family makes Brunswick stew in a big pot in the yard once a year. So, I had this demand on myself, I can get my kids in the short window of time between nap and bed to go to this thing. I can do it. If I work hard enough, I can do it. And I had this demand on my kids, you’re going to do it. And they didn’t want to go. They were like, “No, we haven’t been home in a week, we really just want to play with our toys here.” And I didn’t want to go either, because it was going to be too hard.
And I think only because I had just looked at your Instagram account that I texted my friend and said, “We can’t make it. Like, we just can’t make it.” And I said we’re not going to go. And we had the loveliest afternoon. After an hour, they said, “We want to go to that wonderful playground where we haven’t been.” And we went. And, you know, we played tag for an hour, everybody was smiling. And I thought it would have been a constant power struggle if we had gone to this thing. And instead, it was a very nice afternoon. And the barrier between me and a nice afternoon was all of these demands and expectations. Yeah, you’re giving me like, sign language applause and and excited hands.
Amanda:
Spirit fingers.
Meg:
Thank you, spirit fingers. What I thought from that is we can be the ones giving the families who we work with that permission to let go of things as well, right?
Amanda:
I think so. And to bring it back, the therapists who are listening, you are whole people too. And where in your own practice, where in your life, are the demands that are being asked of you too much? And what would it look like for you to speak up to a colleague or to a family that’s asking something and saying, “I really want to help you and I’m with you in this. And that’s too much for me. So, let’s figure out a way to drop the demands here so that it’s doable for me.” Like, it’s not just a one-way street. Like, in your example, you know, it was too hard to get your kids there, but it was too hard for you too. And the permission-giving of modeling, hey, I can be the one to go first and say this is too much. That might give that other family more permission than anything else to say later on down the road, you know, “I think it’s too much for me, too.” And wait, maybe we can let go of this whole goal. Maybe this doesn’t matter right now. Maybe we just want to build trust and just play, or maybe fine motor skills are really not on par with like, basic needs that are getting met. And maybe we can just stop working on handwriting, or whatever it is. And having the courage to do that, both personally, in your own relationships, like I’ve found that I now have a low demand marriage, which is not something that I could say before. I have developed low demand relationships with my friends. It’s just, it’s really radical to offer people the chance to say, “It’s too much,” or, “I don’t feel safe,” or, “I want to feel more safe before we go away on a week, girls weekend,” you know, “I don’t trust you enough yet for that. But I’d really like to go out for coffee.” And how can we find these places where we can be really brave and name our, our edges, and then pull back to what feels just right.
Meg:
I love that. This is really deeply linked to knowing and holding boundaries, it sounds like. And I imagine you get this critique of like, “Oh, you’re just letting your kids rule your life and letting them make all the choices,” and what I’m actually hearing you say is, I am learning to tune in to, name, and hold my own boundaries about what feels like too much, which none of us have seen modelled. I mean, that’s only a slight overstatement, right. But when you say the therapist having a boundary with a family, that might be the one example they have of an adult, especially an adult woman, naming and holding a boundary kindly, and firmly, and clearly. And you’re looking for respecting, naming, and holding your kids’ boundaries of what’s too hard. That’s really different than like, losing the power struggle, because there is no power struggle.
Amanda:
Absolutely. Yeah, the whole idea that low demand is permissive parenting, or that’s kind of the ‘easy way out’, is completely false. I can tell you from being deep in it, this is hard work. And being honest with yourself is the hardest work of all. So, to the degree that low demand parenting is really contingent on your self-knowledge. It’s like a personal growth program. That is a, you know, on the level of a boot camp. I often say that my parenting is like extreme sports parenting. Like, some people are out for a walk, and I’m like free climbing a mountain. And I think that low demand is all about knowing that edge between ‘too much’ and ‘just right’ or ‘a lot too much’. And we can call that a boundary. And we can call that safety. But to me, the safety doesn’t come from the edges, it comes from the center. Safety is that warm glow that draws us together, or draws us toward ourselves. And it’s from that place of trust, and connection, and safety, that we get the courage to move outward. And to play with those edges of what something that used to be too much might become within the sphere of doable, because of the growth of trust, and safety, and connection in the middle. So, I would even shift — like, there’s this narrative that kids need boundaries to feel safe. But I think kids need safety to know their boundaries. I think it’s completely false. And that by owning our central role as being the connectors, the trustors, and the safety givers, that we don’t even have to worry about where the edges are, because we’ll face those when they come and we’ll create a plan for what to do. It shifts everything to being a together movement into the world, rather than a threat that we somehow have to minimize.
Meg:
I love that. Can you clarify, Amanda, is this approach only useful for PDA kids? Or can it be useful for anybody?
Amanda:
Well, I guess I’ll say I have three kids, and only one of them is PDA, and they are all flourishing under this parenting style. I really believe that all kids need trust and safety, and deserve to be seen and held. And that PDA-ers are the ones who are going to make it really, really uncomfortable for the world around them when that is threatened. They’re like the canaries in our children’s coal mine. They’re the ones saying, “There’s a problem here. Adults are controlling our lives. They’re not trusting us, and that we’re going to die if this goes on.” That’s what the PDA-ers are saying. But I think that they’re speaking for children everywhere. And that’s their unique gift. It’s our unique gift, is that we stand at the forefront and we have loud voices. And we speak up when our autonomy is threatened. But autonomy is a basic human need. And somehow, we’ve recast it in this negative light as though it’s kind of in contrast to being a good human. But no, showing up as a good human is showing up with our needs for autonomy and freedom right in the mix. And for some of us, those are basic needs, and we can’t survive without them.
Meg:
I love this. I love this so much. I think this is a very rich place to be learning and growing from, parenting from, and coaching parents from. And, you know, we’ve talked about this on the podcast before. Our generation, the people raising us, generally didn’t know about the importance of being in your body, feeling and accepting your feelings, learning about yourself, that amount of acceptance, and awareness, and authenticity. They didn’t really know the importance of that on the whole until the last few years. So, our generation of parents is trying to do this differently. And it’s exciting to see people take it a step further and say, it’s not just that your feelings are okay. It’s that your desire for autonomy, safety, and control is okay. And it’s not just that it’s okay. It’s that it’s important, and it matters. And what does it look like for us to see that, and hear that, and care about that. That’s a really nice place that you’re bringing us. How do families who you support generally respond to this approach?
Amanda:
A lot of families arrive here because they’ve tried everything else, and nothing worked. And part of the reason I want to raise my voice and share openly about how beautiful this life looks, is that I think it can be way more than a last resort. The families that find me feel like they have been walking in deep darkness all by themselves. And there is nothing but shame and ridicule, and judgement cast their way. And they feel like they’re terrible parents, and it’s very possible they have bad kids, and that everything is broken and beyond repair. To a family, they all have a version of that narrative. And we need to own up to that as a culture, because this is the way we’re making families feel that don’t fit into mainstream parenting. And so, the good thing about low demand is that it’s a really big tent. So, yeah, those families find their way. But I think it’s so exciting. I’m working with a family that has really young kids. And they’re really looking to create a family culture proactively, and like before everything falls apart. And that’s really exciting. I love working with families around creating what I call ‘house rules’. But it’s like the total opposite of rules. Typically, rules are like ‘We don’t hurt each other’, and, you know, ‘Use respectful voices’, and ‘Keep your elbows off the table’. And our house rules are all around respect, and respect for the children. Like, ‘All your feelings matter here’, and no one in my — our family is ‘We can eat anything, anytime, anywhere’.
They’re all permission-giving, expansive kind of rules; they’re family culture rules. And I think it’s really exciting to think about shifting from a place of trust and connection, that we can create these expansive ways of living together, and that work for everyone in the family. So, another thing that families that come to me experience is that they’ve changed a lot of the rules for maybe their one neurodivergent kid, and their other kids are getting really jealous. And it’s starting to threaten the family dynamic. And we’re creating a strategy that can work for the whole family that can bring things into alignment. Because this isn’t just an accommodation for a kid that desperately needs it. It’s an accommodation for a family to create a culture where that kid can be a part of a family culture that works for them, and not just get this very siloed parenting strategy that works for them. So, that is another way that I can help a family grow, is by aligning all their parenting strategies for all their kids rather than like, “Okay, we do this for this one. And for this one, we do this.” And no, we can create a culture that works for everybody.
Meg:
I love that. And that’s something I can really imagine therapists supporting families to do, shifting this idea of house rules. You know, we talk a lot in more behaviorally-oriented approaches on clarifying expectations. You need to write a story, or write down a set of rules and expectations to clarify the expectations, and then reinforce it when they do it well, right. This is the behavioral approach. And you’re saying, can we write our house rules as permission-giving so the child knows that, and how, and when they will be able to access the things that help them feel safe and accepted. And starting there instead. It’s a lovely shift. Can you give an example of how a child’s might respond to this, maybe thinking of a case, a family who you’ve supported, but of course, changing the details. What does it look like going from high demand to low demand for a family?
Amanda:
Typically, let’s say a parent is looking to change a bedtime. And in the past, it’s been a strict bedtime, and maybe the house rule is ‘Lights out at eight’. And that isn’t working. It’s fallen apart. The kid, you can’t actually force a child to fall asleep. And the child isn’t falling asleep, and the family culture is getting wrapped up in anxiety and pressure. And so, typically, then rewards and consequences would come in. If you stay up late, maybe there are traditional rewards and consequences like sticker charts, or taking away screen time. Or maybe they’re the more gentle parenting approach of like, I’m going to ignore you when you come out of your room six times, or natural consequences of like, “Sure, you can stay up late, but you’re going to be really tired tomorrow.” So, low demand is going to step away from all of those things. And instead, look at what does this child need to feel safe in order to fall asleep? How can we drop the parts of the bedtime routine that are too hard for them, that are causing them — because nervous system activation is cumulative — so, if the bath is actually really hard, then they’re going to get really wound up by that. And maybe then brushing teeth is extra hard. And then, saying goodbye to mom and dad is the hardest of all. And so, by the time they get to that part, there’s no safety, there’s no trust and connection. And the whole family dynamic is around stress and anxiety, which is not conducive to sleep.
So, we’re gonna back up and look at the whole routine. But really, I like to look at tiny demands, like not just the big things like take a bath. But exactly what temperature is the bath water, do they have to be in there while the water is running, who else is in the bath with them, what does it smell like, what does it feel like, what is the towel like? And going through all those little bitty — and for therapists, that’s so aligned, I think, that’s a place that you can really support families in this approach, is helping them suss out these really tiny demands, and then how to proactively drop them. Let’s say that towels are a problem all the way across the board. Well, that would be a perfect place for a therapist to step in and help figure out how else can we get this kid dry if they can’t stand a towel on their body. And that family can realize that, oh, wow. If we take out this one demand of toweling off, then it may change everything about the bedtime routine so that we don’t need all those sticker charts and the tiredness the next day. We don’t need any of that. We need to drop the demand so that they can arrive at falling asleep with safety and trust. It’s an entirely different lens. But it seems very aligned with what OT’s could be best at doing and offering to families, if you’re aligned on the approach.
Meg:
Yeah, that’s true. There are a lot of OT’s who have a lot of training and sensory processing, and it can go in two directions. You know, we’re hearing from autistic folks that we really should not be using systematic desensitization for sensory sensitivities, that it’s just torturous. And you’re nodding. And folks have generally been really receptive to that. But instead of accommodating and changing what we’re doing, I think the layer that you’re adding on to it, though, is not just looking at the sensory experience of these important daily activities for self-regulation, right. That’s the lens we often put on it, which is important. But you’re saying, can we name that foundational to feeling regulated is safety and trust. Because we skip that.
Amanda:
Yes. Right. If this grown up, who I trust, is saying that an essential part of my day is taking a bath. And then, when I get out, I’m all wet and I’m not allowed to walk down the hallway or the carpet will get wet. So, I have to dry off my body and the act of drying is torturous. Then instead of teaching that child that they can stand to be tortured by the towel, which is kind of what this systematic desensitization would say, let’s get creative and figure out some other way. Can we use three hair dryers and dry you off in a in a heat storm? Can we have a certain fuzzy blanket that, well, who’s to say that that can’t be a towel? It’s absorbent. Or maybe — I mean, call me crazy — but maybe bath time doesn’t have to be an essential part of the evening routine at all. And then, we don’t have to be wet and get dry, we could just stay dry. And that’s where, you know, low demand gets to give so much permission, is that we’re not solving for something that we artificially created in the first place. Like, we get to say, let’s let it go. And giving the child the experience of being seen, and met, and heard. And then, for the family culture to shift around that, that builds so much connection.
I can speak from my own experience. My child was in really severe autistic burnout when we started this experience, and there was a lot of broken trust because of the high demand approach that we’ve taken before. And daily, by listening, and dropping, and responding, we were able to come out of that burnout with so much richer of a connection, and so much health for my little guy. And I believe that if we’d kept on our path that our relationship would be so, so much worse than it is right now. I mean, it’s beautiful right now. And the therapists that are helping support families in these crisis moments, you can paint a picture for them that they can go from where they are to something really rich and beautiful by letting things go.
Meg:
Amanda, if you have one sort of final message or takeaway you want to leave therapists who are listening with, what would that be?
Amanda:
I would love for therapists to shift from thinking about pushing to creating an environment where children are able to stretch themselves, for PDA, or just specifically any kid who needs autonomy and freedom. That creating an environment where they get to be the one to take the step is a crucial part of building up their self-worth. And I’ve been in so many therapist relationships where the therapist is always the one pushing, and I would really love to see the therapist step back and let the child be the one to stretch themselves.
Meg:
I just want to let that takeaway sit in the air for a second. That’s a huge shift. I love the message and what you’re teaching. We need it so much, and our families who we support need it as well. Thank you so much for the work you’re doing. Before we sign off, tell us what you’re working on now and all the places that we can find you online.
Amanda:
Absolutely. I have a book coming out that I’m really excited to share with the world. It’ll be out in July of 2023, called ‘Low Demand Parenting’, and it will celebrate my 40th birthday. So, I’m excited about that. You can also find me on Instagram at @lowdemandamanda, and on Facebook with the same name. I have a membership community that has just gotten started. That’s really the best place to find me. And the big project I’m working on is creating community for parents, all of those who felt so lost and alone and abandoned, really, by the world. And we’re finding each other and finding connection. And it’s amazing how healing it is for the parents to find another parent who truly gets it. So, that’s where my best work is going right now, is into both my clients that I work with one-on-one in coaching and in this community, which you can find us through my Instagram account. I can connect you up to my membership community.
Meg:
I will link to all of your resources in the show notes as well. And I’m excited about your book and your 40th birthday. Thanks, Amanda.
Amanda:
Thank you.
[Ending music]
Thanks for listening to the Two Sides of the Spectrum podcast. Visit learnplaythrive.com/podcast for show notes, a transcript of the episode, and more. And if you learned something today, please share the episode with a friend or post it on your social media pages. Join me next time, where we will keep diving deep into autism.
