Understanding demand avoidance

One of my children was recently diagnosed with autism and ADHD with a demand avoidant profile. This has made me think and learn more about demand avoidance and so I thought I’d share some of my key insights and learning.

Key learning points:

• Demand avoidance is often misunderstood as a parenting issue due to lack of boundaries or as an attachment difficulty. Neither are true.

• Demand avoidant children are highly anxious.

• Demand avoidance is not a behaviour problem – it is anxiety driven.

• Demand avoidant traits can be at odds with typical autistic traits. For example, demand avoidant children are often more comfortable with role play and pretend play, in fact they can have an overactive imagination. Demand avoidant children tend to crave novelty rather than routine.

• Demand avoidance does not necessarily look like defiance (e.g. a child screaming no and throwing something), in fact it is often more subtle than that. For example, my son will often put his head down on his desk at school and hide in his hands.

• Rewards and consequences don’t work for demand avoidant children, in fact they can make things worse as they increase the anxiety.

Key strategies:

• Use the child’s interests to motivate them to engage. For example if the adult wants them to do maths then it needs to be related to their interest e.g. maths with Minecraft characters and blocks.

• Allow the child to have control within boundaries. For example they may need eat their tea but can you allow them to choose where, does it matter if they eat sitting on the stairs or on the sofa. They may need to get dressed for school but can they decide what order they want to do things that morning.

• Remember that anxiety is at the root. In school or at out of school groups, allow the child to observe for as long as they need to before joining in. They may need to walk around the edge of what is happening and have time to process and take it all in for a long time before they are ready to engage.

• Use a playful low demand approach. If you'd like to learn more about low demand approaches for demand avoidant children then I recommend Dr Naomi Fisher's courses and resources.

• Avoid confrontation and direct demands, for example rather than say it’s tidy up time now put the game back where it belongs, try saying something like, where would be a good place to put that game so that we can go and have fun doing our next activity?

• Challenges work for some children e.g. let’s both try and put the blocks back in the container as fast as we can and see who can get the most in.

• Allow lots of chill time. Remember spoon theory; these children use up so many spoons with anxiety that they need lots of down time to recharge.

• Sensory strategies that involve proprioception and deep tactile input are calming. See my YouTube Channel for ideas.

• When the child’s anxiety is particularly high, ensure there are no demands and when they are calmer then you can increase the demands slightly (although always in an indirect way). For example, my son is capable of getting himself dressed but his anxiety is highest first thing in the morning before school so we get him dressed if needed. If we go swimming and he is happy then he will get himself dressed.

• If a child does something in a moment of high anxiety e.g. kicks something, don’t ask them in that moment why they did it as they won’t know – they are highly anxious and their behaviour is a reaction to their overwhelm, trying to engage them in reflection at this point will make things worse.

• You will need lots of tools in your toolbox as what works one day won’t necessarily work the next. You need to be flexible and think on your feet!

• It can be challenging supporting a demand avoidant child – make sure you look after yourself and allow little moments in the week for time to recharge if possible. Demand avoidant children can be good at sensing your stress and overwhelm so it's important you do all you can to breathe and stay calm.

I hope this has been helpful.

Hanna