In this mailbag episode, I answer listener questions about one of the things I get asked most: How to balance adult needs with low demand parenting. We dive into what to do when your family isn’t on board with low demand and how to meet your own core needs when your kid can’t leave the house for months. From finding support as a low demand parent to managing a PDA child’s need for closeness, we’ll explore how to identify our true needs and disentangle them from specific expectations. Tune in for real-life strategies, deep insights, and a reminder that we can meet our needs while respecting the capacity of our loved ones.

Time Stamps:

00:53 Understanding Adult Needs and Low Demand Parenting

02:53 Navigating Family Dynamics and Expectations

07:07 Personal Journey and Real-Life Examples

11:44 Addressing Pathological Demand Avoidance (PDA)

Additional Resources:

• Low Demand Parenting book: a love letter to exhausted, overwhelmed parents everywhere. Get the first chapter free! 


• Why is everything with my kid so hard?: Take the quiz to find your first step forward!


• Low Demand Parenting Blog: a treasure trove of low demand wisdom

Follow us on social for updates on the podcast, blog, and more! 

• Instagram


• Facebook


• Pinterest

The Low Demand Parenting Podcast is your space to let go of the pressure and embrace a more joyful, authentic approach to parenting. We hope you enjoyed this episode and would be honored if you left us a review which helps us reach more parents just like you! 

Transcript:

  Welcome to the Low Demand Parenting Podcast, where we drop the pressure, find the joy, and thrive, even when it feels like life is stuck on level 12 hard. I'm Amanda Diekmann, author, autistic adult, and mom of three. I'm not here as an expert, but a fellow traveler. Together, we're learning how to live more gently, authentically, and vibrantly in this wild parenting life.

Today, we have a mailbag episode where I answer your questions about things that are concerning you, things that you're facing as a low demand family. And both of the questions for today address the way that our adult needs intersect with the demands that we make of other people. Our work to do as the low demand parent in this scenario is figuring out what we really need.

And once we know our needs, We can disentangle those needs from all of the various solutions that are coming to our minds immediately of ways to get those needs met. Typically, as parents, our first way to solve getting our needs met is to get our kids to change. Like, well, if I could just get my kid to go to bed earlier, then I could get more sleep at night.

Or if I want to go to the gym, I've got to get my kid to go to the childcare. Part of our process here is recognizing the core need, exercise. Sleep, and then separating ourselves emotionally and practically from the solutions that we've latched on to as the key way to get those needs met, especially if those solutions are proving too hard for our kids or, as we'll talk about in this episode, other adults in our network.

Once we're clear about our needs, We can let go of the demands and find ways that we can be okay and get our core needs met at the same time as we embrace other people's real live challenges, the places where they simply can't do what we're asking them to do. This is the core of Low Demand. Not that you let go of what matters to you.

Not that you sacrifice yourself while everyone else gets their needs met. It's not even an either or between you or your kid. We're stretching into the challenging, murky, and beautiful territory of the both and. What if we have a family dynamic where we can both get our core needs met as long as we can hold loosely to the way it happens?

When we bring our curiosity and our creativity to our basic needs, there is always a way forward. Our first question comes from a listener who is wondering a very simple, but actually quite profound question. How do I get my family members to get on board with low demand? I'm all about it. But they're dragging their feet.

What do I do? So this one's an interesting one because we really can't get them to agree with you about low demand, to take this seriously, to understand what it's all about. The get them language, when I hear that rising up in my own thoughts or my own wishes or my energy, like, Oh, how do I get them to fill in the blank?

It's usually a sign to me that I'm a little bit off track and it's time to go back to the low demand principles. There's can't not won't. If somebody isn't able to meet an expectation that you have, it's that they can't do it. Not that they won't do it. In this case, it's your expectation that your family.

Would listen and understand and agree with the approach that you're taking. They may not be able to do that right now. It's really important to remember too, that family is. Not a monolith. There are all of these different family members with their own journey, their own needs, their own expectations, and the particular places of intersection where this is coming up for you.

If someone lives really far away, they don't call very often, and they disagree with your parenting, it's probably not presenting a major issue for you unless you are really wrapped up in what they think about you. If that you see them every day, it's an active struggle to negotiate in the moment how you're going to respond to different parenting situations.

You're noticing that you parent really differently when this family member is around, um, or you have real needs for emotional connection with this family member. They're really important to you. They're a key part of your emotional support system. All of that is really going to impact how you go forward.

So, you know, the first thing with low demand is just having a demand lens, looking at what's too hard for them in this particular situation. What is the particular expectation that you have that they're unable to meet? Are they really unable to listen to you talking about low demand, but perhaps your partner or a podcast would be more accessible?

Is there one specific part about seeing that kids do well when they can that's really tricky? That they're able to absorb some aspects of the philosophy, but others are just too hard right now? Um, And then always coming back to why does this matter to you? Is the expectation growing out of your need for more support and validation?

Are you feeling lonely or under resourced? Do you really wish that you had somebody to call to talk about this with? Who could understand and process with you? And you're used to doing that with the assembly members, but when it comes to parenting, they're really not available for you. Figuring out what your need is that's growing into this expectation that's unrealistic and that's presenting as a demand for your family members and then going back to the need.

Is there another way you can get that need met while honoring what is too hard for the people that you love? In the long run, this kind of journey of self exploration and being more honest about our expectations and releasing other people from expectations that are really not aligned for them This actually enables us to have more closeness and more connection, or at least it allows us to have more aligned relationships where we are actually getting our needs met, where we are close with the people who are truly serving us, and where we can be more in honest communication with the people that we're connected to.

Sometimes it does mean taking actions that involve boundary setting around what makes you feel safe or what you need to protect the people that you love. That can come out of realizing what expecta