11/10/2025
The headline is inflammatory — and that’s exactly the point.
“McFly star’s child has health condition meaning you can’t tell them what to do.”
It’s designed to grab attention, and it does — but it also feeds into a damaging and increasingly familiar media narrative about SEND: one that frames neurodivergence as defiance, disorder, or difficulty, rather than difference.
Headlines like this one aren’t neutral. They shape public perception. They reinforce the idea that a neurodivergent child is somehow unmanageable, difficult, or less compliant. That parents are “struggling to cope.” That professionals are “trying to help.” It’s language rooted in control rather than connection — and it’s deeply unhelpful for families who already face misunderstanding and judgment on a daily basis.
I know what it’s like to parent and teach neurodivergent children. You can’t simply tell them what to do — and that’s not because they’re being oppositional. It’s because they deserve the same respect, collaboration, and autonomy that every human being deserves. When you understand the neurology behind their responses — sensory overload, demand avoidance, anxiety, executive function differences — you realise that what looks like “defiance” is often distress, fear, or self-protection.
Pathologising this helps no one.
Understanding it changes everything.
When the media chooses headlines like this, it shapes a national conversation that is already dangerously skewed. We’ve seen a steady drip of stories that suggest SEND children are “too expensive,” “too demanding,” or “too disruptive.” And it’s working — public empathy is being eroded.
Parents are being judged.
Teachers are being blamed.
Children are being described as problems to be fixed rather than people to be supported.
We can do better than that.
If the child in this story has PDA (Pathological Demand Avoidance, or more accurately Persistent Drive for Autonomy which after a quick Google search it seems the Judd’s daughter does), they don’t need to be framed as a mystery or a challenge. They need to be understood. PDA is about anxiety and control — a way of coping with overwhelming expectations, often in environments that don’t make sense to a neurodivergent brain. Compassion, not compliance, is what helps.
So let’s reframe the headline:
• “Child thrives when given autonomy and understanding.”
• “Family learns to connect through flexibility and trust.”
• “Parent discovers that respect and co-regulation open doors that demands never could.”
Now that would be a story worth sharing.
Because every time a headline like this goes viral, real families feel the ripple effects. Children hear that they are “too much.” Parents internalise that they are “failing.” And professionals who are trying to create more inclusive, affirming spaces are fighting against yet another wave of misunderstanding.
It’s time the media stopped sensationalising SEND and started listening to those who live it every day.
Emma
The Autistic SENCo
♾️
