PDA and ME Workbook – Item 792

PDA and Me – Understanding Demand Avoidance

After creating our Making Sense of PDA leaflet, I thought it would be really useful to have a workbook to go alongside it, so I set about creating PDA and Me!

PDA and Me is a pupil-friendly workbook designed to help children and young people understand demand avoidance and explore how it can affect them in everyday life.

The workbook gently explores what demands are, why something can feel difficult even when you really want to do it, how pressure can build, why deadlines can be tricky, and what can make demands feel harder. It also looks at choice and control, finding different ways to reach the same goal, recognising when things are becoming too much, and helping other people understand your experience.

Each page includes clear, accessible information followed by a simple activity. The activities are varied, with opportunities to draw, colour, use symbols, complete speech bubbles, create, reflect and write when they want to. Pupils are encouraged to take part in ways that feel comfortable for them, rather than being expected to complete every activity in the same way.

The workbook has been designed with a neuroaffirming, non-judgemental approach. It recognises that a pupil may want to do something but still find it difficult when it feels like a demand. It isn’t about making pupils comply or changing who they are. Instead, it encourages greater understanding of their own experiences and what they need.

The final pages bring everything together with a personalised PDA Toolkit, opportunities to reflect on what they have discovered about themselves, and a reminder that PDA is only one part of who they are.

Perfect for:

• ELSA sessions
• 1:1 pastoral support
• Small groups
• School wellbeing work
• Supporting conversations about PDA
• Use at home with a trusted adult

The workbook is presented in black and white to keep the pages simple and reduce visual overwhelm. For some pupils, lots of colour, patterns and busy illustrations can make a page feel harder to process, so we have kept the design clear and uncluttered. The line drawings also give pupils the opportunity to add their own colour and personalise the workbook in a way that feels right for them.

Printing in black and white also makes the workbook more economical to print, which means it can be used, revisited and personalised without the worry of using lots of colour ink.

A practical, accessible resource for ELSAs, teachers and other adults supporting pupils who experience demand avoidance.