School’s out for summer! This chant heard ‘round the country’ by neurotypical students everywhere sends a message of utter joy and visions of long, lazy days by the pool or at the beach; of sleeping in and having no one to answer to, minus the occasional chore. To most parents, it’s a sigh of relief that they got through yet another school year unscathed. To autism parents though this phrase can invoke panic, dread and “oh my God, what are we going to do for the two weeks between school and ESY?”
Rest easy, well as easy as you can, we’ve put together a few simple strategies to help you get through the summer months, especially those with no programming to lean on.
- Always ensure your child has access to communication. Whether it’s high tech or a simple dry erase board you can put choices on, this alleviates so much anxiety for our kids.
- Make sure your child is always organized. We have a schedule from the time our son wakes up to when he goes to bed. We often break it up into mini schedules as well. As long as he knows what he is doing, who he is seeing, and how long he is doing it, makes his anxiety plummet.
- Always be sure to have plenty of positive reinforcement on hand. Many times, verbal reinforcement goes a long way, but for those extra sticky situations a preferred item or task, even a sensory break helps get them through and enables them to move on.
- We build an escalation cycle (Green, Yellow, Red – along with behaviors that demonstrate each) into our son’s schedule. If he starts to get into yellow, we refer him to his escalation cycle and have him take deep breaths, listen to music or just get grounded; whatever works for him to get back into green before we move on. This escalation cycle usually looks different for each of our kids.
- We try to do as much social and sensory activities as we can. This can be tricky, especially the social, as many of our kids already have a difficult time in social situations. Always start small with minimal expectations, and always have an exit plan if things get too much.
- If you are planning on taking a vacation with your child, whether for a day or a week, always prepare ahead of time with a social story so they know what to expect. Include who, what, where, when and how long. We usually do this 3-4 days ahead of time and go over it at least once or twice daily before the event.
- Finally, we’ve found that a dry erase calendar in the home (and even during travel) can be a godsend. We put the last day of school, time off, vacations, and when school will start back up again on the calendar. We even include who they will see and what activities they will do during breaks/vacations. We go over daily and cross off days as they come, that way everyone knows what is expected and there are no surprises.
We hope you all have a happy and healthy summer and hope these tips help your family navigate a stress-free summer break!
