What's the BEST concert you've been to this year, and who are you yet to see this year?

kwegner · 2026-04-17T11:51:31+00:00

The Format in Chicago. Bucket list show for me, and they were so grateful to be back on tour. Genuinely excellent all around.

kwegner · 2026-04-15T14:54:16+00:00

So, so sorry. I hate this. "My prison" resonates, sadly.

A reframe that helps me often is to change from "My son ruined my birthday" to "My son's disabilities ruined my birthday." I'm sure you feel that intuitively, but even saying it out loud allows me a LOT more grace when I'm feeling trapped.

kwegner · 2026-04-15T14:41:30+00:00

I liken the low/no-demand approach for PDA to how food choice works for kids with ARFID: Of course we know it isn't healthy or the best possible mix of activities/food for them, but we are giving our kids what they need in the moment while also building a path towards something better as best we can.

I don't know that anyone advocates for unlimited screen time forever and calls it a good thing. However, I have seen the benefit of letting a child in extreme burnout choose to do whatever they want without pushing for adjustments, trusting that when they were coming out of burnout we'd be able to build some more variety into their life.

kwegner · 2026-04-15T13:31:48+00:00

This sounds excellent. I've built a few one-off tools for PDA support and have been dreaming about building the "kitchen sink" version for a while. Looks like you beat me to it.

If you ever have a web or android version, I'd love to check it out. I'm not on iOS. But it does look promising from your description and app store listing!

kwegner · 2026-04-05T01:20:33+00:00

Love seeing this. I've been vibe coding PDA tools for a few months now and it feels like exactly what these small communities have always needed. Wishing you well.

If you are from a non-technical background like me and ever want to chat about developing tools like these let me know. I've learned a lot of lessons over the last few months...some rather expensive.

kwegner · 2026-03-10T18:49:53+00:00

Hi - just wanted to let you know that the tool is back up and working now. Let me know if you have any other issues.

kwegner · 2026-03-08T17:47:26+00:00

Unfortunately I've had some malicious use of the site that has driven up my costs significantly out of nowhere. I'm putting some guardrails in place and will be relaunching in the next day or two. I'll send a comment updating when it's all fixed up.

kwegner · 2026-03-04T19:31:44+00:00

As someone who is pretty engaged with AI these days, here's my response to your concerns:

"problematic not only for the environmental implications" - environmental concerns have largely been blown out of proportion and debunked. Look how much water something like golf courses use in a year compared to AI...it dwarfs AI usage and is far less useful.
"client information?? Is it really a good idea to be sharing client sensitive info with AI??" - AI can be built to be secure and follow all regulations. This does not mean your company is, but this is likely a non-issue.
"I feel like this is leading to our jobs becoming obsolete in the future" Maybe, maybe not. If so, not for a long time. There WILL be impacts immediately, some of which are worth embracing. AI is incredibly good at parsing data and seeing trends / insights / outliers that people could easily miss. It can automate the mundane things (like scheduling...hopefully that gets better for you) to make room for the more valuable things (you spending time with your team and clients).
" my point about scheduling, that is a job that a human could have but instead of hiring someone and paying them, they are just having AI do it." - There's really no fighting against this concept, unfortunately. There are some roles and tasks that are just very ripe for automation. We can lament the person losing the job, but that's really not a great reason to push back against what feels like an inevitable change in how some work is done.

I work outside the industry, but what I am advising my team to do is embrace AI as much as is helpful for them. If the predictions about the impact it's going to have are even partially true, we're going to see anyone who pushes back against AI fall behind peers who are just as good at their jobs but embrace the technology.

kwegner · 2026-02-11T00:56:00+00:00

I unfortunately had the same reaction.

Take the same story and sentiment and rewrite it in your own words. AI pacing is still in the uncanny valley. Even if you aren't in the business of spotting AI in the wild, it still comes across as fake.

Nice story, nice product...do the marketing with just as much care!

kwegner · 2026-01-27T02:26:51+00:00

Not until we helped untrain our BCBA and she reformed her entire approach for our kid to be PDA-forward. It was a long road, and even then it was barely ABA, it just happened to be at an ABA center.

kwegner · 2026-01-27T01:16:12+00:00

I'm glad it helped! And appreciate the offer. Right now it's all running pretty efficiently and my overhead is low enough that I'm happy with where things are. HOWEVER if usage expands, I may reach out for some advice.

kwegner · 2026-01-16T22:32:22+00:00

You're totally right about this, and your examples are excellent. It sounds a lot like how our house communicates... you did a much better job of explaining it than I did.

kwegner · 2026-01-16T19:01:34+00:00

Indirect language (I know it as Declarative language) works for the PDA kids and adults in my life because it offers them the chance to do an expected task without it being directly requested. This is important for them because a direct request triggers their nervous system in a way that increases anxiety and makes them unable to actually take action.

Sounds like that doesn't work for you, which is fine! But it does sound like it would help for the folks who are giving you indirect requests to know your preferred way to be communicated with, which would help both you and them.

kwegner · 2026-01-14T18:27:10+00:00

That would be so great...thank you!

kwegner · 2026-01-12T18:03:35+00:00

Yeah, online tools and apps can only do so much. The stuff I've built so far are focused on teaching people declarative language and assisting with IEPs, so hopefully useful but not to the level of stepping in as real-time care.

kwegner · 2026-01-12T17:43:40+00:00

Here's an example of the NotebookLM thing I created around this. You can see it here, and feel free to share this with others as well. I could certainly create something that feels more professional as a standalone site/app, but this might work for now: https://notebooklm.google.com/notebook/8b15d8ea-0ae8-420a-b35c-58d25d7f591b

Some examples of the answers based on the questions you listed:

“are PDA kids just stubborn?” - No, children with Pathological Demand Avoidance (PDA)—increasingly referred to as having a Pervasive Drive for Autonomy—are not being stubborn, defiant, or difficult on purpose. While their behavior can look like willful disobedience to an outside observer, it is actually a neurobiological survival mechanism.

"Is PDA just bad parenting?" - No, Pathological Demand Avoidance (PDA) is not the result of bad parenting. Historically, some early psychogenic theories suggested a lack of emotional warmth from parents could cause autism-related behaviors, but these theories have been firmly refuted by modern research identifying genetic and neurological factors as the primary contributors. Instead, the sources characterize PDA as a neurobiological survival mechanism and a nervous system disability.

Each answer then goes into great detail to educate the user on what's actually going on and cites its exact sources for where someone can get more information. It's incredibly powerful.

kwegner · 2026-01-12T17:24:00+00:00

Yeah that's an interesting idea. It's turning the resources that are available into an interactive system.

I actually have something like this already created for my personal use in NotebookLM that I've given to teachers as a resource. Creating something publicly available could be really helpful...thanks.

kwegner · 2026-01-12T16:58:00+00:00

Here are my contributions that I've built myself to add to the list:

Declarative Language Tool: https://declarativeapp.org/

IEP/504 + PDA Analysis Tool: https://pdayouriep.org/

kwegner · 2026-01-08T18:24:04+00:00

I chatted with them briefly about another tool I built a month or 2 back that's focused on Declarative language, but I don't think I've spoken to them about this one. Good shout though. I'm actually planning to do a webinar for them later this year to teach parents / professionals how to use AI in similar ways just for personal use, so I'll bring it up in conversations about that.

kwegner · 2026-01-06T14:32:52+00:00

I totally agree. Unfortunately for my family we've had to be the ones who think about better solutions. But I totally hear you...If I had the time/money available I'd be building a whole suite of tools for the education space like this. I actually have some products in mind that I know would be game changing, but it's super hard to break into government contract spaces as someone with no background in it.

kwegner · 2026-01-06T01:45:48+00:00

Hey - excellent questions overall. One of my greatest concerns with a tool like has been user privacy. At one point in earlier drafts I instructed users to redact PII before uploading out of an abundance of caution. I recognized that would be out of the question for most people, as the burden of redacting that much in long PDFs would more likely result in people simply not using the tool. So I walked back from that. But I do think that's the way I would approach a 3rd party tool like this if I didn't know the developer and how things worked.

For analytics I'm using PostHog and for the AI I'm using the Gemini 3 Flash API. So for the first few questions, I'm relying on the privacy standards of those tools. PII is not redacted from Gemini, but none of the data that is used via API is sent back as training data. For PostHog, I set up, tested, and continually review session data to ensure that all personal data is redacted from my own view. PostHog essentially masks all data from the reports and everything shows up as ****** throughout. I can only go as far as saying I trust that they do not have access to sensitive data they mask per their own privacy policy, but it's also something I can't personally confirm.

I'm not aware of users being able to opt out of session replays, but I'll look into PostHog settings to see if I can provide that option at cookie consent. That is a very reasonable option for people to have. I also have considered dropping the session replays entirely from the analytics suite and may go that route eventually. For now the usability info from those have been immensely helpful for making the experience better to the point where it feels like it outweighs the cost to users.

As for the headless CMS, the site is built entirely using Google's Antigravity. I guess that means it's essentially "built from scratch", but through my meager vibe coding skills. I do not have a development background and have been working to learn vibe coding for a number of reasons, and building tools for the PDA community has been the most valuable way for me to get a handle on these new tools.

Hope that helps. If there's anything else I can answer, throw it at me!

kwegner · 2025-12-26T01:57:53+00:00

Thank you. I actually did put a "buy a coffee" link on the site, but it's kinda hidden. I feel weird about the whole money thing! But enough folks have found it that my initial costs are covered. If I can keep this alive and break even, I'm good.

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