About this episode

An interview with Jake about his transformation in parenting to support their sons with Pathological Demand Avoidance.

This episode is an interview with my husband, Jake, about his path from well-founded skepticism of Pathological Demand Avoidance to fully changing his parenting to support our two PDA sons, and how that has helped all three of them. This conversation is for parents who aren't sure about PDA, their partners who are, and everyone who has wondered what it actually looks like to shift the paradigm as the "non-lead" parent. Jake talks about the enforcer role he played, dreading coming home from work, what brought him to shift his perspective, and how he took action to change his relationships with his sons. Key Takeaways Why Non-Lead Parents Lag and Why That Is Not a Deficiency | 00:10:01 Jake explains that his skepticism about pathological demand avoidance came from the same place as his desire to be a good father: wanting his son to be okay long after he was gone. He names the specific experience of not being present enough during the day to witness what Casey was witnessing, the cognitive dissonance of a child who could race through Halloween trick-or-treating and then suddenly be unable to walk, and the ease with which behaviors that look manipulative can be written off as such…

People in this episode

Host: Casey

Guest: Jake

Topics covered

• Pathological Demand Avoidance
• parenting
• fatherhood
• family dynamics
• non-lead parent
• discipline

More episodes of At Peace Parents Podcast

• Giftedness, Pathological Demand Avoidance and Burnout in Adults: My Story | Ep. 163 · May 19, 2026 · 50 min
• A Speech Language Pathologist on Selective Mutism, Pathological Demand Avoidance and So Much More | Ep. 162 · May 12, 2026 · 56 min

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