Confessions of a Former BCBA & PDA Parent

There is a phrase that quietly emerged from our family's journey.

Not from a book.

Not from a training.

Not from a conference.

From lived experience.

Compassion for Capacity.

At first glance it sounds simple.

But it changes everything.

Because Compassion for Capacity begins when we intentionally frame others as doing the best they can at any given moment.

Not because we know they are.

Because we choose to start there.

And when we start there.

The conversation changes.

The questions change.

The support changes.

The relationship changes.

Many parents of PDA autistic children find themselves in a strange position.

Trying every strategy they have been taught.

Following professional recommendations.

Implementing evidence-based interventions.

Trusting the experts.

Only to discover that the very supports being recommended are increasing suffering.

Increasing dysregulation.

Increasing nervous system activation.

And decreasing access to skills.

At the same time.

The professionals providing those recommendations are often doing exactly what they were taught to do.

Exactly what their training prepared them to do.

Exactly what the system expects them to do.

And this is where Compassion for Capacity becomes important.

Because it allows us to hold multiple truths.

A child can be suffering.

And a professional can be trying to help.

A parent can decline services.

And a clinician can genuinely care.

A system can be harmful.

And the people within it can be doing their best.

Compassion for Capacity does not require agreement.

It does not require approval.

It does not require abandoning accountability.

It simply asks us to begin from a place of humanity.

I think often about the BCBA and former colleague who wrote goals for my child during intense autistic burnout.

Goals rooted in the very systems I now question.

Goals that would have increased threat responses.

Goals that would have decreased access to skills.

Goals we ultimately declined.

And yet.

I love and respect the person who wrote them.

Because they did not create those goals intending to increase suffering.

They created them while operating within the framework available to them.

Just as I once did.

Just as many of us once did.

And they respected our decision to decline services.

Just as we respected their intention to help.

Compassion for Capacity allowed both truths to coexist.

And perhaps that is what makes it so powerful.

Not that it solves anything.

But that it allows us to remain human within it.

Because once capacity becomes part of the conversation.

Behavior looks different.

Support looks different.

Expectations look different.

Progress looks different.

People look different.

And maybe that is what so many families are actually searching for.

Not more strategies.

Not more goals.

Not more programs.

Not more behavior plans.

But people willing to see them through a different lens.

People willing to recognize capacity.

People willing to co-regulate.

People willing to sit with uncertainty.

People willing to make room.

People willing to extend compassion.

Not because anyone has earned it.

But because everyone needs it.

Especially when capacity is low.

Especially when suffering is high.

Especially when the path forward is unclear.

Compassion for Capacity does not fix everything.

But it changes where we begin.

And sometimes.

That changes everything.