New year, new routine! With all the things a child has to do during the day, it’s important to find ways to simplify tasks and make them beneficial not only for your child but also for yourself. These are just a handful of ways to get your family (especially if you have a child with a disability) organized in the new year.
1. Organizing Your Child’s School Supplies
Keeping track of school supplies is a challenge for any child; children with disabilities can have an even harder time without some kind of system in place. To help keep the backpack and cubby organized:
Write in an agenda. Most schools give each student an agenda to keep track of their homework assignments and schedule. Unfortunately, their designs can sometimes be cluttered and distracting. Try giving your child a simple agenda sheet of paper that they can understand and attach it to their school agenda. Make sure there’s a space for parent and teacher signatures!
Color code at home. When school supply lists come out at the end of the summer, teachers usually say which items should be in which specific colors. Take this a step further and have a station for your child to do homework at home, using the same colors to code for your child’s classes. For example, you could color-code a set of plastic drawers for homework and projects your child brings home.
2. Organizing the Morning Routine
This can be a challenge for both parents and children. However, establishing a routine that gets everyone up and moving can go a long way. Here are a couple of tips that will work especially well for sensory-seeking, sensory-deprived, or sensory-sensitive kids:
Stretch. Start with stretching arms, legs, and everything in between before even getting out of bed. Holding stretches for about 10 seconds and doing them a couple of times will warm up your child’s muscles and wake them up.
Fuel up. As always, breakfast is the most important meal of the day. Make sure your child gets a balanced breakfast to kick start their day. All that chewing and biting is also a good workout for their mouth, another sensory filter.
3. Organizing While You’re Waiting
For at least an hour a week, parents of children with disabilities sit in waiting rooms for the physical therapist, occupational therapist, speech therapist, and similar appointments, waiting for their child. Why not use this time to your advantage?
Make lists. It comes in handy to have a small notebook in your bag for last-minute to-do list items that you think of on the go. Or if you’re going to the grocery store after the session, you can make a list of what you know you can’t forget to pick up.
Talk to other parents. You’re all there for the same reason. Why not become small support groups for one another? It can be very helpful to have other people to talk to about raising a disabled child. They may even have recommendations that can help you fulfill your New Year’s Resolutions!
Plan menus or activities. Use that extra time to figure out meals for the week (then add what you need to that grocery list you just made!) and think of fun at-home activities to keep the kids entertained and stimulated.
4. Organizing Chores for Your Children
Learning vocational skills is important for anyone at any age. For children with disabilities, it is especially important since those skills may not come so easily or as quickly. Chores also give children a sense of responsibility and routine. Consider working some of these chores into your child’s routine:
Laundry. For children with developmental difficulties, laundry can provide opportunities to develop speech/language and teach goals. This will also teach your child how to categorize (separating lights from darks), follow directions, and the process of sequencing (understanding the steps in the process and how long a load takes).
Setting the table. This will also help with following directions and sequencing, while also developing problem-solving skills, like figuring out which utensil they need.
Cleaning their room. A child’s bedroom is supposed to be their sanctuary, a place that’s all theirs. Teaching your child how to keep their room clean will help establish a sense of pride in their work, allow them to create their own system of organization, and, in cases where clutter causes stress, teach them how to reduce that particular type of stress easily.