The Family Experience of PDA. By Eliza Fricker

The Family Experience of PDA

By Eliza Fricker.

Having read this book, I think the first thing to mention how easy it is to read. It’s lay out and illustrations contribute to providing an education of PDA and provides plenty of practical real life examples around how the strategies can be implemented. The balance between the written word and illustrations making reading the book enjoyable and not too heavy to read.

It clearly explains why someone with PDA struggle so much with demands but also how this is fluid, and the ability to manage demand varies from minute to minute or day to day. It provides the tools to learn when someone can manage some demand and when to leave alone. 

A favourite section for me is around Tolerance levels. Here the author uses an example of cleaning your teeth. It clearly demonstrates how you can change the level of demand your asking by changing the wording. They use the example: High Demand  “Clean your teeth please”

 Medium Demand “Your toothbrush is loads”

 Low Demand:  “ I will leave your toothbrush ready”  

If you would like to learn more about PDA, I recommend this book. 

This is a great resource to use with children. It contains 20 separate books based on different Emotions and Behaviours. Each book has very child friendly layout and has a clear message. Professionally I have used these books to open up conversations around areas they find challenging. Sometimes children struggle to talk about an emotion and these books allow you to plant the seed and you can then build upon it. Another lovely aspect of the books is that the end of the story there are suggested activities that you can then do with the young person you are supporting.