Our Flexible Routine



In our experience, our autistic children need flexibility within a routine, and that took a couple of years to reach the right balance. Currently the following works for them and the entire family. 

The children wake naturally between 5-6am in summer time and 4.30-5am in winter. They have their morning milk and fruit and get dressed, and we are ready for the day. We learn till breakfast time at 7am (often during as well). We have another learning session until 9am and then it's garden time, where I'm chasing after them madly with hats and suncream. 

Snacks follow at 11am, freshly made fruit, chocolate milk smoothies/milkshakes with homemade pancakes. Learning time commences until midday, and then it's free time/free tv time for the children until 4.30, broken up with dinner time. Free time activities include tv, ipad, roleplay, arts and crafts, puzzles, Lego, Playdoh, baking, or more garden time if they request it. This is my main time for housework, cooking and writing.

Tidy up time follows this, along with tea time, a bed time walk with daddy along the canal, a bath and bed. The house falls silent by 6.30pm....RELAX. 

They need this routine to keep them on track and to fit in everything smoothly, but they also need the flexibility which lies within the teaching and free time activities. They have a lot of control over the order of the teaching. 

Whenever possible I offer them choices and they make the decisions within the yearly goal lines. This produces a good sense of teamwork and gives them personal responsibility over how they spend a lot of the day. It really lessens meltdowns and refusals to do the work, they instead stay engaged and retain a lot more information.

Parents with any superheroes in your care, I hope I have reassured you that there is such a thing as the right environment and home life for everyone. It takes work, it takes tweaking, and an open mind (the stranger the better), but you can create a schedule/routine/way of life that suits you all. We have had so many in the past, built on whatever the current phase was (all parents and teachers know those pesky phases), and this is the one that suits us the best in the here and now. I wish you all success in discovering your personal one for your family. 

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