Why Won't They Just Listen? A Parent's Guide to Demand Avoidance
Tue, Apr 06
|Cathedral Of The Rockies
(Resilient Parents Support Group) It's not defiance, it's anxiety wearing a disguise. Join Dr. Mariella Hogan Gotz and Vashti Summervill to understand demand avoidance: what it is, why it happens, and how to respond in a way that actually helps.
Time & Location
Apr 06, 2027, 12:00 PM – 1:30 PM
Cathedral Of The Rockies, 717 N 11th St #4, Boise, ID 83702, USA
About the event
Simply put, demand avoidance is when even small, everyday requests (e.g., get dressed, brush your teeth, turn off the TV) trigger a much bigger reaction than the request itself seems to call for. It's not about being stubborn or spoiled. For many kids, it's an anxiety response: the demand itself feels like a loss of control, and resistance is the nervous system's way of trying to get it back.
Demand avoidance shows up most often, and most intensely, in neurodivergent kids, particularly those who are autistic or have ADHD, where it's sometimes referred to as PDA (Pathological Demand Avoidance, or Pervasive Drive for Autonomy). But many parents notice some version of this pattern in their kids regardless of diagnosis, which is why this session is built to be useful whether or not demand avoidance has a clinical name in your house.
In this session, Dr. Mariella Hogan Gotz, PhD, LPC,…