This is quite a sensitive topic for a lot of parents/guardians, because it touches on the home life and your parenting. It places a measure of responsibility on you, as the caregiver, to do your bit for the school, to lend them a hand in schooling your child.
Almost feels like you’re back at school all over again, doesn’t it? Well, that’s kind of the point.
I will be the first one to say that parenting is not for the fainthearted, and parenting a child with a neurodiversity feels like a medieval quest game with a million side quests inside the main quest, with random new characters and a plethora of new quests going round in a circle back to square one for no apparent reason or reward. So when the school comes and says “we need your co-operation” or we need your support at home with homework, it can feel like you’re being asked one more thing that’s just too big, or having to add one more “to-do” to your list of never ending to-do’s! There is rhyme and reason to their requests and I’m going to break it down below into small chunks, and hopefully it will make sense when you look at it from your child’s perspective, instead of the schools.
CREATE PREDICTABLE ROUTINES
Neurodiverse children THRIVE on routine, predictability and similar outcomes. For example, I wake up and get dressed, eat breakfast then brush my teeth and we leave for school. Or, we eat supper, I take my plate to the kitchen, it’s bath time and then bed time. These are the things that ground our children, that make them feel safe. Routine. Regular things that happen every day. There are a thousand and one studies that have shown that children, not not just neurodiverse children, do best with their growth and maturing when they live in a home that has routine, stability and safety, and any therapist, Occupational Therapist, Psychiatrist and medical professional will tell you that routine is key to a child’s well being.
Now, hear me out, I’m not saying it’s a strict schedule, like a German Engineering Factory, but a flow, a movement, a dance if you will. When you learn to dance you learn the basic steps, this foot then that turn then swirl. The dance is sticky and feels unnatural in the beginning, but the more you practice the dance, the more your body (and your brain) remember the steps and can do them more and more smoothly, until it’s just one fluid movement and you are able to add your own flair to the dance. This is what routine is like for our children. In the beginning, we implement, for example, eating at the table together. Initially it was fun, then the 3rd or 4th time it was hard for the kids to leave what they were doing to sit at the table, then we fought and argued, and eventually after a few weeks, it’s become an automatic movement. We say “supper time”, they get up, wash their hands (hopefully) and come to the table for supper. There is grace for the hard days, like when they’re over tired or when they’re sick, then they can eat in their rooms at their desks, the point is, it took us a few weeks of persevering through the ups and downs till we found the rhythm of the new eating arrangement.
HOW DO ROUTINES HELP THE SCHOOL?
When our children live with a certain amount of routine, they will find it easier to adapt to a new routine somewhere else. If their morning routine is smooth and mostly the same every day, they are going to be calm, collected and regulated when they arrive at school. When the mornings are chaos and the caregivers are racing around like headless chickens, freaking out about the time and putting verbal pressure on the children to hurry up, this creates a chaotic child.
We need to remember that for a neurodiverse child, attending school is THE MOST CHALLENGING part of their day, so everything that happens before and after that time is BEYOND IMPORTANT, it’s VITAL to their regulation and state of mind to face that most challenging time of their day. The time it takes a neurodiverse child to regulate and return to a state of calm takes FAR LONGER than a normal child. So when they arrive at school wound up and nearing meltdown point, it won’t take much in the school environment to push that child over into meltdown.
Our jobs, as caregivers, is to help our children stay regulated and as calm as possible in the mornings, to keep the routine running, do work alongside our children to get them through the transition from waking up to arriving at school as smoothly as possible.
Here’s my morning routine: sometimes it goes horribly pear-shaped, but this is how I try to keep the morning routine:
- 06h00 my alarm goes off (coffee for me and a few minutes to gather myself, make lunches etc) if I’m not already awake because of hungry dogs or cats.
- 06h45 wake my boys up slowly. I have one autism (Asperger’s) and one ADHD, I open 1 curtain, wake up the budgies and leave the bedroom door open so the ambient noise in the house can start filtering in.
- 07h00 Now it’s actively waking them up if they have not yet emerged. Gentle voice, soft words. Open the rest of the curtains, give a time check so they know the time is ticking.
- 07h15 If they’re not up, now it’s pro-active, ask them if they’re getting up and if they want breakfast. (This sounds very accommodating, but I have one with a PDA profile, so demands are seen as a threat and emotions will escalate fast if approached with aggression and anger).
- 07h25 The 5 minute warning. My boys know, if we are leaving at 07h30, we LEAVE at 07h30. I give a 5 minute warning. Check to see if my ADHD boy has, in fact, eaten his food or if I need to step in and start making it happen. Make sure they are dressed appropriately, that their bags have been packed (by them), and then final call.
- 07h30 We are out the door. If we get delayed, I try my best to stay calm, to keep my voice measured, and respectful. It DEFINITELY doesn’t work every day, but 60% of the time we win.
I just want to add that I know my children, I know they are very different, complete opposite in fact, and I have figured out with lots of trial and error what motivates them, what their triggers are and I have learned that me freaking out doesn’t help them, or me. They love it when I communicate in a fun way, use funny terms for things and make a joke here and there.
WHAT ABOUT A NIGHT TIME ROUTINE?
The night time routine is probably even more vital to the circle of the daily regulation. Children need anywhere from 8 – 10 hours of good sleep for their developing and growing bodies and brains. A reasonable bed time in relation to the start time of school is KEY to success in the morning, as well as their overall regulation. Things that help with having a night time routine is timing. We eat between 17h30 and 18h30, shower time is at 20h00 and bed time is between 20h30 and 21h00. That’s it. Nothing happens in our home past 21h00. We read with our boys at bed time, proper children’s books, a good 3 chapters at night. Then it’s lights out and sleep. No exceptions.
Weekends are little looser, Friday night can be a bit later, Saturday night is normal time again, and Sunday evening is a little earlier, and here’s why.
MONDAY IS HARD.
Monday is the toughest transition of all the days of the week. Nice relaxing weekend, our children have been able to be free from demands and have had their own time, now a neurodiverse child loves their freedom, they cannot breathe if they do not have some form of autonomy in their days. Now we expect them to transition to a Monday, back to school, back to routine, back to learning, back to challenging social environments etc…It’s difficult for us adults to wake up on a Monday, how must they feel?
So work it back, if Monday is going to be a tough morning, make Sunday the warm up round, an early bed time, decent sleep so that Monday isn’t a roller coaster of emotions and meltdowns. Then move back to Saturday, beach, sun, braai, seeing friends and family, busy, out and about, then back to a regular bed time and routine to get back into the rhythm.
Friday night can be a free one, taking into account what will be happening on the Saturday, if Saturday has an outing or a friend to visit etc, then keep Friday on a regular schedule. If Saturday is going to be relaxed then Friday night can be a little later, movie night etc.
In the end it comes down to what our children are actually able to cope with, not what we THINK they can cope with. Do not overestimate your child’s capacity for social interaction and socialising. Their young bodies and minds are still growing and learning, they need rest, routine and good nutrition to develop into healthy adults, and WE play the BIGGEST role in that.
Having a child with a neurodiversity is not easy. We do not get the luxury of living our lives as we please, if we want to have well adjusted, regulated children, there are sacrifices to be made if we want to give our kids the best opportunity to thrive in life. The world is not kind to our type of children, they do not get the luxury of just fitting in and being accepted. Our children will be judged, bullied and made fun of, even into adulthood, our work as caregivers is to educate ourselves on neurodiversity and to teach our children about their unique abilities, to help them find the tools they need to overcome their specific challenges and to give them the home environment that leads to a confident, grounded child that can grow into a well rounded adult.
SO WHAT ABOUT HOMEWORK?
Ah the dreaded “H” word, homework. Every parents nightmare. Here’s why it’s important to get momentum with homework.
I have recently started working at my children’s school. It’s a specialty school for neurodiverse children, all kinds, dyslexia, dyscalculia, ADHD, Asperger’s, ODD and more. BIASED, I hear you cry! No, not biased, I had an epiphany moment this year BEFORE I started working at the school. I realised that without my help, my boys will not be able to face their arch nemesis, homework, with confidence. Without me sitting with them and working it out together, they won’t be able to motivate themselves to get through it (even though it’s only 20min a day). They cannot learn to push through the hard things if we don’t show them how. Sure, the teacher can show them methods of doing their homework or how to study at school, but how is an 8 year old going to hold themselves to it? They are still young, they still want to do whatever comes across their way, they don’t want to do the hard things, they don’t want to push through, they want the easy way out – WE WERE ALL LIKE THIS. I started spending more time asking what their homework is, show it to me, lets look at it together, if you don’t understand it lets Google it together (yes, Google is your friend especially with languages), be real, if you don’t know how to do the math, say so, but don’t give up, look for the answer together, message the teacher to please send an explanation (at a reasonable hour).
The point of homework is not to be a drag, and a torture, it’s a tool used to RE-ENFORCE the concepts learned during class. Often our neurodiverse kids need just a little bit of extra repetition to make the same headway as their peers in mainstream classes. It was explained to me once like a path through very long grass, at first you can’t really see the path, but over time and with repetition that path becomes flat and worn and then eventually the grass doesn’t grow on it anymore and it’s wide and easy to walk on. That is how the brain develops it’s neural pathways (the retaining of concepts and methods), repetition is the only way it becomes automatic.
If homework is an absolute IMPOSSIBILITY, a complete sh*t show in your home, then you should consider asking your school if they do Homework classes after school. Our school does, and it makes a MASSIVE difference for parents who work full day, or cannot get the homework to be done for circumstantial reasons.
