30/08/2026
Boundaries. So important, but so difficult to know how.
Some great suggestions here.
A little advice from a neurodivergent mentor about demand avoidance ❤️
This is something I've been thinking about a lot recently. I speak to parents and young people all over the world, and one thing I hear quite often is that when a child experiences significant demand avoidance, parents are told to remove demands and expectations to reduce distress.
I completely understand where this comes from. For some children and young people, demands can genuinely trigger an intense threat response. What can look like refusal, defiance or "not wanting to do something" can actually be overwhelm, anxiety, loss of autonomy or a nervous system going into fight, flight or freeze.
But I don't personally believe that removing every expectation is always the answer, and I say that as someone who is neurodivergent and very demand avoidant myself.
I never wanted to do my homework. I didn't like showering. I never wanted to clean my room. I hated being told what to do. I struggled to go to school. I would procrastinate and avoid things all the time. I wanted to do things my way and, ideally, on my terms.
But I needed boundaries. I needed consistency. I needed encouragement. Most importantly, I needed adults who understood that something was difficult for me without deciding that I therefore wasn't capable of doing it.
School wasn't always easy for me. I refused to go a lot, but it gave me friends, experiences, social skills and opportunities to learn how the world worked. Those things genuinely shaped who I am today.
I think sometimes we can accidentally confuse reducing distress with removing every difficult thing. They're not necessarily the same.
We know that autonomy, predictability, emotional regulation and reducing unnecessary stress can be incredibly important for neurodivergent young people. But children and young people also need appropriate structure, supportive boundaries, opportunities to practise skills and gradually increasing independence.
So for me, it's not:
"You must do this because I said so."
But it also isn't:
"You never have to do anything that makes you uncomfortable."
It's:
"I understand why this is difficult for you. Let's work out what's making it difficult and find a way through it together."
Sometimes that might mean reducing the demand. Sometimes offering choices. Sometimes changing the language. Sometimes changing the education route. Sometimes it's showing rather than telling. Sometimes giving more processing time. Sometimes breaking something into tiny steps. Sometimes doing it alongside them. Sometimes finding a way to make it motivating. And sometimes it might mean holding a gentle but firm boundary and expectation.
Children are still children. They need understanding, structure, opportunities to develop independence and manageable challenges. They need adults who can believe in their capabilities even when they don't believe in themselves.
For me, understanding demand avoidance doesn't mean removing every expectation, boundary or demand. It means understanding why it's difficult and changing how we support the young person to meet it.
I don't want a young person to grow up believing:
"I can't do anything that feels difficult."
I want them to learn:
"Some things are really difficult for my brain, but I can learn ways of doing them."
That's what I needed growing up, and I know I'm not the only one.
This is my personal perspective as a neurodivergent mentor and someone with lived experience of demand avoidance. Different approaches will work for different people, and I'm not suggesting parents should ignore distress or simply increase demands. Individual needs, wellbeing, safety and reasonable adaptations should always come first.
