Building Predictable Flexibility to Embrace New Experiences
Hi there! How are you? It’s so nice to see you here!
WHAT’S HAPPENING THIS QUARTER:
Our topic dives into the magic of summer and building in predictable flexibility while keeping your vacations, visits to new locations, and even the starting the new school year in mind. If you’re wondering how to create predictable flexibility while honoring what supports your learner best this summer - this is for you!
July - Embracing New Experiences
Our focus is on predictable flexibility and how that relates to embracing new experiences as a family.
I hear you…
You’re looking forward to a summer that is both enriching and exploratory,
yet is truly considerate of your what your learner’s sensory, emotional, and routine needs are.
What can we do?
Build A Summer Schedule
We don’t need to re-create the wheel here, but we do need to take a quick audit of our learner’s school year schedule and see if those pieces are still making our days work for us instead of against us.
When we transition out of the school year schedule, it can feel very unfamiliar. There’s more down time, often less rigidity and structure and most times the ability for our learners to just be who they are in their most safest places, their homes.
While we love a good schedule for our learners at Coffee Mugs & Clipboards, we also have to honor that these schedules change and a transition to a Summer Schedule is needed. So here’s what we can do:
Look At Your Current “School Year Schedule”
What parts of that schedule are still working? Maybe it’s the morning and evening routine
What parts of the schedule aren’t working? Maybe it’s the space between breakfast & lunch that feels murky.
Look Ahead At Your Family Calendar
Are there any upcoming trips (vacations, day trips, birthday parties, etc.)?
Are there any upcoming camps or summer schools?
Determine What Types of Activities Your Learner Enjoys (& Doesn’t Enjoy):
What types of activities does your learner enjoy most in the summer? Maybe it’s the pool or water table.
What types of activities does your learner not enjoy in the summer? Maybe it’s drawing with chalk on the sidewalk.
Think Of A “Typical Summer Day” & Write It Out!
Visually seeing what the day looks like will give you a greater picture of what you may or may not need.
Lean Into The Familiar
What type of supports work best for your learner with their schedules?
Is it a mini visual schedule?
Is it a daily visual schedule?
Is it a first/then visual?
Create It!
Take a peek at some of our digital resources for building schedules at home for your learner here.
Creating Time for Choice
When our schedules lend to this, it is the perfect time to create choice for our learners because it builds that predictability they crave while also promoting flexibility because there are options.
Choice doesn’t have to be overcomplicated and doesn’t need to occur throughout the day. Rather, choice can occur during a specific time of day or for a certain type of activity.
One way I like to build in choice is during quiet time or downtime. This period of unstructured time can be hard for neurodivergent learners to navigate especially since our learners thrive off of predictability and routine. But also stretching their abilities to enjoy and thrive within downtime is a great skill to develop. So how do we do this?
Determine What Types of Activities Your Learner Has Access To During This Time
Our neurodivergent learners thrive best with parameters and predictability so giving them a set amount of choices (ideally 2-3 presented at a time) to pick from something they enjoy but also some flexibility knowing the options won’t always be the same.
Pick The Number of Choices To Offer (Ideally 2-3)
Presenting 2-3 choices at a time helps with reducing decision fatigue.
When we present more than 3 choices at a time, our learners may struggle with making that decision.
If they do struggle with making a decision, support them in the way they need by providing a model prompt, or assisting with making the decision with them.
Rotate Through The Choices
When presenting the activity choices, swap out ones used a lot to promote expanding their experiences to something new or not done as often.
Rotating choices helps reduce boredom with the same options too.
Embrace These Experiences Gradually
It’s not uncommon to want to dive into something new and exciting and begin throwing all caution to the wind, but our learners don’t thrive under those conditions.
Instead, embrace these experiences gradually.
New experiences mean new sights, sounds, smells, varying crowd sizes, routines, etc.
Take a peek back at our information about transitions HERE (particularly this one about predictable transitions since you’ll know where you’re going and what you’re doing) and use those strategies to build in just how you’re going to transition to new experiences gradually.
If you’re wondering what to do and want to collaborate on sustainable strategies to support your learner at home and beyond, let’s chat over a coffee break together and build something for your learner, together!
Make sure you’re following along on Instagram @coffeemugsandclipboards as we bring this quarter’s content all about transitions to life!
I hope your day goes as smoothly as you wish and as always,
I’m so glad you stopped by!
