The Support App for Parents of Children with ADHD or Autism
Thriive helps children grow up feeling understood, not broken.
Everyday support for families navigating ADHD, autism, and other neurodivergent profiles. Track the patterns, find strategies that actually fit, and feel one step ahead on the hard days.
What changes for parents of neurodivergent children
Without Thriive
- Growing up believing they're broken
- Falling behind and never understanding why
- Slipping through the cracks of a system not built for them
- Families feeling helpless watching it happen
With Thriive
- A child who understands how their brain works
- Parents who can advocate with confidence
- Strategies that actually fit, not generic advice
- A family that feels like a team
How Thriive supports parents of children with ADHD and autism
- Pattern Tracker: Log a tough moment in 30 seconds. Thriive surfaces the patterns behind ADHD and autism behaviours, so you can spot the triggers and respond earlier.
- Strategy Library: Real strategies for ADHD and autism, matched to your child's profile. Not generic advice.
- Visual Routine Builder: Step-by-step routines for the moments that usually go sideways. Mornings, bedtime, homework.
- Daily Check-ins: A 30-second mood check that builds a picture of how your child is really doing over time.
- Shareable Reports: Take real evidence to your GP, school, or therapist when it matters.
- The Hive: A community of parents who actually get it.
How Thriive helps parents, and how it helps their children
For parents
Understand your child like never before. Advocate with confidence. Stop feeling like you're figuring it out alone.
For children
Feel seen. Understand how your own brain works. Build a profile that's yours.
Neurodivergent conditions Thriive supports
Parent Guides
Glossary
Daily Challenges
Strategy Categories
Community
Pathological Demand Avoidance (PDA)
Your child avoids everyday demands with extreme anxiety, even things they enjoy
Steps
- Reduce the feeling of demand: use indirect language ('I wonder if...' instead of 'Please do...')
- Offer autonomy and choice wherever possible
- Use declarative language: 'The shoes are by the door' instead of 'Put your shoes on'
- Reduce demands to the absolute essentials. Pick your battles carefully
- Frame tasks as collaborative: 'Shall we do this together?' or as a game
What you need
A shift in communication style, patience, flexibility
Why it works
PDA is an anxiety-driven need for control, not defiance. Direct demands trigger a threat response in the nervous system. Indirect language, choices, and collaborative framing reduce the perceived demand, which lowers anxiety and makes cooperation possible without triggering the fight-or-flight response.
Age guidance
Relevant from age 3 onwards. PDA strategies need to be adapted constantly because children with PDA often resist any approach that becomes predictable.
Real-world example
A parent stopped saying 'put your shoes on' and started saying 'I wonder which shoes would be fastest today?' Their child went from a 30-minute battle to choosing shoes in 2 minutes. The demand was still there — it just didn't feel like one.
Troubleshooting
- PDA is driven by anxiety, not defiance. Traditional behaviour management often makes it worse
- What works on Monday might not work on Tuesday. Flexibility is key
- Connect with PDA-specific parent communities for support and strategies
