Staff member: “It’s time for a bagel. Would you like one?”
Child: “NO.”
Another adult tried a slightly different approach.
“Would you like a buttered bagel or a plain bagel?”
The child immediately got up, went inside, joined the club and ate his bagel.
Nothing particularly remarkable happened here, but I think it is a useful example of how small changes in language can make a difference for children who are very sensitive to demands. The expectation hadn’t really changed. The child was still being encouraged to come inside and join the routine. But the first question had a very easy answer: no. The second gave him some control over what happened next.
I’ve become increasingly interested in demand avoidance recently, mainly because it’s become another puzzle I am working with. For a small number of children, the usual approaches to behaviour simply don’t seem to work. In some cases, becoming firmer, repeating the instruction or adding a consequence can actually make things worse.
So I recently led some staff training looking at demand avoidance from a slightly different perspective: what might be driving the refusal, how our own responses can sometimes contribute to escalation, and the small changes we can make to language and approach that can help. I’ve pulled some of the key ideas together here, including a few very practical things that staff can try straight away.
Most schools quite rightly have clear expectations around behaviour. Children need routines, boundaries, and consistent adults. For most children, our usual behaviour approaches work perfectly well. But most teachers and SENCos will also recognise a smaller group of children for whom they don’t seem to work particularly well at all.
You make a perfectly reasonable request and the child refuses. You repeat it more firmly and they dig in. Perhaps you remind them of the consequence, and now they are arguing with you. Before long, something as ordinary as coming in from the playground has become a confrontation.
This is particularly relevant when working with children who have a demand-avoidant profile. While we are not in the business of diagnosis, demand avoidance can still offer a useful lens for understanding some children. For these pupils, demands can create significant anxiety or a strong sense that they are losing control. What looks like deliberate defiance may sometimes be an attempt to regain that control.
Reduce the threat, not the expectation
One of the concerns I sometimes hear about approaches to PDA is that we are simply allowing children to avoid things they don’t want to do. I don’t think that is particularly helpful either. The aim isn’t to abandon expectations. It is to think about how we present them.
A child refusing to come inside still needs to come inside. But instead of escalating from “Come inside now” to “I’ve asked you three times” and then to a consequence, there may be another route. “We do need to go inside. Would you like to walk with me or go ahead of me?” Maybe simply: “It’s time to go in. I’ll give you a minute, then we’ll walk in together.” The expectation is still there. What we have reduced is the sense of confrontation around it.
This sounds very simple written down. Of course, it is much harder when you are standing in a playground with 29 other children waiting, you are already late for the next lesson and a child has just told you “NO” for the fourth time. That’s why it is worth having a few approaches ready before you need them.
Think about the language you use
One of the easiest places to start is with everyday language. We can give an extraordinary number of instructions during a school day without really noticing it. Sometimes a small change is enough: “Start your work.” might become “I wonder where we could begin?” “Do the first question.” might become “Shall we try the first one together?” “Write the title first.” could become “Title or picture first?” None of these removes the expectation that the child will engage with the task. They simply offer a slightly less direct route into it.
Choices can be particularly useful, but they need to be genuine. Going back to the bagel, either a plain or buttered bagel was fine. If only one answer is actually acceptable to the adult, dressing an instruction up as a choice is unlikely to work for long.
It is also worth noticing how many less obvious demands children encounter. Take a perfectly friendly start to the morning:
“Morning, Charlie. Hang your coat up. How are you today? Come and sit down. You’ve done some lovely writing there! Can you finish that sentence before assembly? We’re going in five minutes.”
There is a lot going on there. A greeting that may require a response, a direct instruction, a question, another instruction, praise and attention, a task to complete, a deadline and an upcoming transition. Most children will barely notice. A highly demand-sensitive child might. This doesn’t mean we need to tiptoe around children or stop talking to them. It means that when a child is already struggling, it can be worth asking whether we are inadvertently adding more demands to an already overloaded system.
When things start to escalate
The really difficult bit is what happens after the first refusal. As adults, we naturally tend to increase the pressure. We repeat the instruction. We explain why it needs to happen. We remind the child that everyone else has managed it. We give a warning. Then perhaps a countdown. Then a consequence. All perfectly understandable. But if the original refusal was partly driven by anxiety or a need to regain some control, we may now be feeding the problem. One simple prompt I use is SLOW:
Stop adding demands.
Lower your language and emotional intensity.
Offer a small route forward or limited choice.
Wait long enough for the child to process it.
The last one is probably the one adults, myself included, find hardest. Silence can feel uncomfortable when a child has just refused an instruction, particularly when other children are watching. We feel we need to do something. Sometimes waiting is doing something.
This isn’t about having no boundaries
I think this point matters because discussions about PDA can sometimes become polarised. Either the child is being deliberately defiant and adults need to be firmer, or every demand must be removed because it causes anxiety. Neither position is particularly useful in a mainstream classroom. Children still need boundaries. Safety still matters. Other children’s learning matters. And there will be occasions when an adult simply has to give a clear instruction. The difference is that we don’t need to turn every refusal into a contest of authority.
If a child does become overwhelmed, that is also usually not the moment for the lengthy discussion about what they have done wrong. Get everyone safe, reduce the language and allow the child to regulate. Reflection and accountability can come later, when they are actually able to engage with it. That later conversation still matters. What happened? Who was affected? What needs putting right? What could we do differently next time?
That isn’t about blaming staff. Working with children who repeatedly refuse perfectly reasonable requests can be incredibly frustrating. It can make us feel ineffective, undermined and sometimes quite angry. We are human. However, the adult response is also one part of the interaction we have the most control over.
None of this means that every child who says “no” has PDA, or that every refusal is caused by anxiety. Children refuse things for all sorts of reasons, and good teaching still requires judgement.
But when the same child is repeatedly refusing, melting down, missing learning or receiving the same consequences, and what we are doing isn’t changing anything, I think it is reasonable to try another approach.