When Control Is a Cry for Safety: Understanding Demand Avoidance and Autonomy in Neurodivergent Children

It often begins in the smallest moment.
A call from another room, “Can you get me a drink?”
You pause - halfway through something, your brain stretched thin - and for a split second, you hesitate…
They could get it themselves. You wait. The air tightens.
A seemingly harmless exchange now feels like a standoff.

To the outside world, this can look like rudeness, manipulation, or defiance. But in neurodivergent families, moments like this rarely mean what they seem. Behaviour is communication, yes - but more fundamentally, behaviour is regulation. And regulation is the language the nervous system uses to survive.

For many neurodivergent children - especially those with a demand avoidant/PDA profile or what some describe as a persistent drive for autonomy - control is not a preference. It is not entitlement. It is not oppositionality.

Control is safety.

Their nervous systems interpret demands as pressure, and pressure as threat.
The “threat” doesn’t need to make rational sense. It is bodily, not cognitive.
A demand can come from:

• a parent’s request

• a transition

• a routine

• a choice with one “right” answer

• uncertainty

• internal states like hunger, tiredness, sensory discomfort, or excitement

• the desire to please or get something right

Even positive anticipation - a fun outing, a visit, a treat - can create demand pressure.

When enough demands stack up, visible or invisible, their nervous system hits overwhelm.
Fight, flight, freeze, fawn - or, for many neurodivergent children, control.

Taking charge becomes a way to shrink the threat:
“Get me a drink.”
“Go away.”
“No.”
“I said NOW.”
Or, equally, complete shutdown.

These aren’t power grabs -they’re survival strategies.

Not “I won’t.”
But “I can’t cope unless I regain some sense of safety.”

And then there is the parent.

Because this dynamic doesn’t happen in a vacuum - it happens in relationship. It lands in a nervous system that is already carrying its own load: exhaustion, overstimulation, decision fatigue, sensory overwhelm, or simply the weight of holding the entire household together.

Being ordered around by a child can feel activating, disrespectful, even humiliating - especially after a long day of meeting everyone else’s needs.

For many neurodivergent parents, or parents with trauma around control or unpredictability, it hits even harder.

That’s where the feedback loop begins.

The child’s body says:
“I need control to feel safe.”

The parent’s body says:
“I need autonomy to feel respected.”

Neither is wrong.
Neither is manipulative.
Neither is acting from logic - both are acting from protection.

When two defensive systems collide, the thinking brain goes offline.
The child escalates.
The parent tightens.
The child feels more unsafe.
The parent feels more disrespected.
And round it goes, the fear in one nervous system amplifying the fear in the other.

Breaking the cycle has nothing to do with “giving in.” It has everything to do with recognising which nervous system has the capacity to anchor first.

Calm is contagious - and so is panic.

The myths we carry make this harder.
The ones whispered to exhausted parents at 2am or thrown casually into conversation by people who don’t understand this world:

“If you help them now, they’ll expect it forever.”
“They’ll never learn independence.”
“They haven’t even had any demands today - why can’t they cope?”

These feel rational, but they’re built on misunderstandings.

Help doesn’t create dependence - dysregulation does.
Independence doesn’t grow through pressure -it grows through safety.
Demands aren’t always visible - many are internal, quiet, cumulative.

Capacity isn’t a moral quality - it’s a physiological state.

Responding with compassion isn’t permissive - it’s strategic. It’s neuroscience.

Once safety returns, boundaries can return too - calmly, collaboratively, without shame.

And new possibilities open up when we shift the question from:

“How do I stop this behaviour?”
to
“What is this behaviour protecting?”

When we respond to the need instead of the noise, everything softens. The child feels seen rather than threatened. The parent feels connected rather than challenged. The moment becomes survivable for both.

This doesn’t mean saying yes to every request.
It means understanding what the request means.
It means remembering that fear and overwhelm often wear the mask of control.

And growth - real, sustainable growth - happens when safety leads, not force.

Demand avoidance isn’t about disobedience.
It is the body trying to navigate a world that often feels too fast, too loud, too uncertain, too demanding.

When we recognise control as a cry for safety rather than a challenge to authority, everything changes.
The standoffs loosen.
The shame dissolves.
The relationship strengthens.

And both nervous systems get to breathe again.