PDAsupportlancs

05/06/2026

A little resource worth knowing about for PDA families 🎮🥚

Roblox often gets a bad rap - and yes, online safety and boundaries hugely matter.

But for many PDA children and young people, gaming offers connection, autonomy, shared language and low-pressure interaction.

I’ve just come across Mindful Egg on Roblox, and it feels very worth sharing.

It’s a gentle pet-simulation game where small acts of self-care, journaling, stretching and breathing exercises, help your virtual pet thrive.

For PDA children, that matters.

Direct prompts to “calm down” or “use a strategy” can feel impossible in the moment.

But when regulation is offered through play, choice, curiosity and caring for a pet, it may land very differently.

It isn’t about “fixing” a child through a game.

It’s about tiny, low-demand routes into emotional awareness, self-care and co-regulation- in a space many young people already understand.

🥚 Mindful Egg on Roblox:
https://www.roblox.com/games/92340071719899/Mindful-Egg

Sometimes the best resources don’t look like resources.

Sometimes they looks like gaming.

#

Welcome to Mindful Egg, a quiet space designed for you to slow down and reconnect with yourself. In this gentle world, your egg grows alongside your habits. Small acts of care such as journaling, breathing, stretching, and resting help it thrive, while imbalance causes it to fade. There is no rush a...

23/05/2026

Inspired by a conversation with my husband this morning:

“Are you excited for panels?”

“Local Authority panels? Definitely not.
Our new solar panels? Definitely yes.” ☀️

One creates energy.

The other drains it.

For many SEND families, LA panels are one of the most opaque parts of the system. 🧩

Families often do not know:

Who is on the panel?
What roles do they hold?
What training have they had?
What criteria do they use?
How are decisions actually made?

Yet these decisions can shape a child’s education, support, placement, safety and future.

Too often, they are made by people who have never met the child.

As SEND parents, we pour so much energy into the process. ⚡

Evidence.
Reports.
Emails.
Meetings.
Waiting.
Hoping.
Praying.

But too often, that energy is not converted into accessible education or meaningful support.

It becomes:

Delay.
Disappointment.
Appeal.
Complaint.
Crisis.
Trauma.

Solar panels absorb light and turn it into usable energy. ☀️➡️⚡

LA panels could do the same.

They could take evidence, professional advice, parental knowledge and lived reality, and convert it into timely, appropriate support.

They could create capacity instead of crisis.

They could reduce future costs by meeting need earlier.

But when panels are opaque, subjective or poorly explained, the cost does not disappear.

It is simply shifted downstream. ⬇️

Onto children.
Onto families.
Onto schools.
Onto health services.
Onto tribunals.
Onto already stretched systems.

Good panels should not drain families of the energy they have left.

They should turn input into action.

Because when systems process information properly, they do not just make decisions.

They generate sustainable futures

16/05/2026

Good news! 🎉

As part of our feedback on the Lancashire and South Cumbria Integrated Care Partnership PDA Position Statement, we raised concerns, on behalf of our group and Lancashire Parent Carer Forum, about the use of jigsaw piece imagery in the ICP logo 🧩

We were very grateful to receive an email this week confirming:

“We have listened to your views, and we have removed the logo from the website with immediate effect.”

This is a really positive example of feedback being heard 👂 and acted on quickly ⚡️

Our concerns, and the response received, are shared in the attached images 📎

We will update you on progress with the PDA Position Statement in due course.

14/05/2026

Many children with a PDA profile don’t thrive in school.
They survive. 💔

And because many initially survive by masking, appeasing, avoiding, negotiating, controlling or shutting down, the system often doesn’t see the cost until they are already in burnout.

A child can be bright.
Funny.
Articulate.
Capable.
Kind.
Full of potential. ✨

And still be burning through every ounce of energy just to get through the day.

For many PDA children, school is not simply “difficult”.

It can feel threatening. 🧠⚡

Demands.
Noise.
Uncertainty.
Transitions.
Social pressure.
Being watched.
Getting things wrong.
Having no real sense of control.
Trying desperately to look “fine”.

What looks like refusal is panic.
What looks like defiance is fear.
What looks like avoidance is self-protection.
What looks like control is a child trying to feel safe. 🛟

And survival mode has a limit.

Then it shows:
Attendance drops.
Sleep changes.
Eating changes.
Meltdowns increase.
Shutdowns deepen.
The child withdraws.
Everyday tasks become impossible.
The body says what the child couldn’t.
Burnout arrives. 🕯️

And too often, only then does support become “needs-based”.

But if we only recognise need after harm is visible, then “needs-based” becomes a polite way of saying “harm-led”.

Parents are then pushed into impossible choices.

Keep pushing school and watch their child deteriorate.
Keep them home and risk judgement, fines or escalation.
Ask for help and be told the child is “fine in school”.
Request assessment for an EHCP and be told attainment is too high.
Consider “elective” home education when it was never truly a free choice.
Try to hold education, therapy, family life and survival together alone.

But what parent would freely choose for their child to live in survival mode?

And what parent can safeguard education alone when the education system itself has become inaccessible? 💭

This is not about “letting children get away with things”.

It is not pandering.

It is understanding that children learn best when they feel safe and seen 🌱

It is helping children understand their bodies, brains and stress responses, so they can grow with self-knowledge rather than shame.

So they become adults who recognise overwhelm early.
Who can advocate for themselves.
Who do not have to break before asking for help.

That is resilience. 💪

Not forcing a child to endure until they rupture.

These children need adults to reduce threat, build trust, offer flexibility, protect dignity, and create realistic routes back to safety. 🤝

Support should not depend on a child breaking visibly in the building.

Reasonable adjustments, low-arousal approaches, emotional safety, predictable systems, reduced shame and genuine belonging are not rewards.

They are prevention. 🧩

A child should not have to ride wave after wave of “wait and see” until the harm of waiting becomes the evidence needed to get help.

They should feel safe enough, supported enough and understood enough to thrive.

Because a child can appear capable and still be breaking.

And professionals need to notice before the burnout. ❤️‍🩹

13/05/2026

In support of PDA awareness day today, PDAsupportlancs, caught up with Suzan Issa , adult AuDHD with PDA profile and founder of the The Wild Ways. Watch the recording below. This is part one where we find out more about Suzan and the wild ways. A number of questions were submitted by our members and a separate recording of the answers is to follow.

13/05/2026

It's PDA awareness day! And we have been sharing some useful resources from our much loved advocates. We are also raising money for our support group, please donate or buy some tickets if you are able

12/05/2026

This page is rich with helpful resources. Like this!

12/05/2026

In celebration of PDA awareness week, we will be sharing some videos from our much loved advocates. Here is one Nicola Reekie from the PDA space has shared.
https://youtu.be/oTuqR_NBHUY?si=EglacbRCaXAe_DZ

The video is a conversation between two Dads of PDA kids. It focuses on our journeys, experiences, and the supports we would have liked during our journeys t...

11/05/2026

https://youtu.be/c_ML6espD0M?si=_mpuxDyuq0_1AoOA thanks for sharing Nicola Reekie in support of PDA awareness week

Webinar title: Internalised PDA - the quieter, but equally impactful presentation of PDA that's hard for people to spot.I’m an adult PDAer author, illustrato...