It’s not discipline- it’s just cruelty

Out of the children who cannot attend school in the UK, 92% are neurodivergent and 85% of these are autistic (Mullally and Connolly). Out of these autistic students many will be PDAers (PDA known as a persistent desire for authenticity, or persistent drive for autonomy) and most have likely been missed. From a young age their need for their own agenda will be seen as defiance, wilfulness and needing control ‘they are so difficult’ ‘they always have to have things their own way’, ‘they always have to be right’.

I believe that so many school environments are unfortunately completely toxic for autistic children but PDAers especially, their more sensitive and vulnerable nervous systems experiencing near constant threat responses in these environments. They literally end up purely surviving by masking and holding everything inside or in constant clashes, unable to connect and express their authenticity. Arbitrary rules, harsh, cruel responses to minor infractions, and in worst cases physical restraint, do not make safe environments for any child, let alone a child with a different way of being in and experiencing the world. Schools should be a safe place, they should be a happy place.

I am often shocked at the levels of understanding in schools about what it truly means to be autistic and more so that there is so little knowledge around PDA. There are schools that say they understand PDA and know how to support a PDAers needs and yet what I hear is quite the contrary, with stressed teachers shouting at pupils whom they know are PDAers, staff using sarcasm and other forms of indirect aggression, staff demanding compliance and restraining pupils whose distress is misinterpreted as defiance. Staff are often not aware of fluctuating skills and functioning of neurodivergent children and young people and their different sensory needs. They often have a very poor understanding of masking and functional freeze - where a student will look fine on the outside, does their work, complies and seems to engage but is numb and disconnected inside. These things are fundamentally important things to understand.

Without a lived experience and truly neuro affirming understanding of PDA, an externalised expression of distress (when their autonomy has been taken) will be seen as the person being oppositional. Some students may even end up diagnosed with Oppositional Defiance Disorder and especially if a person is Black or Brown they are more likely to receive a diagnosis of a ODD or another conduct disorder; this is something that The Black Spectrum Scholar discusses, ‘I urge content creators to approach their work responsibly, recognising that ODD is disproportionately diagnosed in Black and Brown communities. Careless representation reinforces harmful stereotypes and further stigmatise those with ODD. Misattributing intentions to children with this diagnosis leads to further stigmatisation and discrimination. The distinction between PDA and ODD does not reflect behavioural differences, but how diagnostic criteria are applied across racial lines, particularly given that most PDA research is conducted on white, Western individuals’ (Black Spectrum scholar).

PDAers can be in a near constant state of hypervigilance, regularly experiencing fight, flight, freeze, fawn. This is often because an environment where they spend prolonged periods of time, the systems and the people within them are inadvertently (or maybe knowingly) taking their autonomy and not respecting their need for equity and agency. The reactions of PDAers in school environments, much like canaries in coal mines, are the early warning signal that an environment is toxic and in fact deadly. There can be a huge cost for the PDAer because just as canaries succumbed to the carbon monoxide in a mine by initially stopping singing and eventually dying, a PDAer will succumb to the impact of environments that do not meet their needs and for some this leads to very serious consequences including burnout and mental health crises. 

How parents and pupils took on 'cruel', 'authoritarian' schools - and won