Daily Schedule for Us

School is back in session for most kids at this time and one of the challenges is getting back into a routine or at least a consistent one. One thing that works for most kids is seeing a visual schedule. Some kids need pictures, others words, and some kids need calendars. If you can I would suggest making one up for your afternoon or if your child is in preschool or 1/2 day kindergarten it might help to have one for the morning as well.
I will freely admit that I am not a scheduled person. I tend to like running by the seat of my pants and going where ever the wind may take me however, having a special needs kiddo can change all of that. With my son I have to be specific. I tell him quite a few things. The first thing is I tell him the places I am going to go. An example of today was the following:
1) Doctors for Itsy to be weighed and measured.
2) Dollar store
3) Pet Store
4) Sears
Then following that I told him what we would do in each place so:
1) It will be a short visit and we will only be getting her measured.
2) Poster board and stickers
3) Crickets for his lizard Joker
4) Get shoes
My day didn't go exactly as planned. I decided to save gas and go to Fred Meyer instead as it was right next to the pet store. I also forgot about getting chicken for dinner. However, over all it went very smoothly. My kids DID run around the shoe department at Sears and yes my son lost his Crocs that were thankfully his junky pair although I don't know if it was my son or my daughter that hid them. Oh well, he has new ones and I was going to throw the old ones out. :) However, overall it was a fairly smooth day. The thing I did notice was I started my day out allowing them to use the sensory swing and then did my errands. I then allowed them to go and get back on the swing once we got home. The one we used was the trapeeze bar because they told me they wanted to 'hang' (meaning dangle with your arms not a noose). Anyhow, it went fairly smoothly.
I know there are some kids that must know things way in advance I can't say that I would do well with that at all. We have our own week with certain days that we do things although we are starting to skip church due to just appointments and so forth. It's hard to fit everything in and sometimes church doesn't offer all we need having a child with sensory issues. Many people don't understand the that it's not an inconvience but a need in his case. Anyhow, basically you have to start prioritizing things and seeing what can and can't fit into your schedule because with all the therapies, doctors visits, and so forth it can get kind of hectic. Do what you can and the rest will have to wait until later.