PDA Irish Style

Who is making things worse? A comment on a fb support group got me thinking. The person asked what about when the pda parent does everything wrong and makes everything worse. She commented that nobody writes that article. I have always tried to write practical, real suggestions that might help because that was what I couldn't find when I was struggling. It doesn't help to know how hard things can be, I thought, because I'm living it. But the comment got me thinking. I remembered a time when I felt like everyone else was making progress, except me. Parenting pda is counter intuitive. Things you feel you should do usually have the opposite effect to the one you want. It is extremely difficult to explain this. You look like a parent who never says no. You never say no not because you don't care or because your child is spoilt, but because that is often what it takes to enable your child to function. I am making school optional today because

Technology We as parents get a lot of advice about how negative technology can be, about how much time is too much, about the damage it can do. We read very little about the wonders of technology and how it can enhance our lives. I had a youngster who had difficulty transitioning. There were control challenges I didn't understand. Coming off any technology including tv was often difficult. I removed the tech, and changed to a low tech house. No wifi, no tv, no problem right? Except the problems were transferred to other things. It became difficult to stop whatever game we were playing. Sometimes it was difficult to get my son to come inside from outside play. And in addition, he had lost access to some very useful educational tools, like www.brainpop.com Age 8 he got a tablet. He loved it. I started to think about using technology rather than removing it. I installed a timer control to limit his usage. It worked for a while. He got a laptop, I i