How We Keep a Routine During Winter Break
Keeping a routine during a break from school is especially important to our neurodivergent house. My husband and I both have ADHD, our daughter is autistic and we have a new baby this year as well. I have inattentive ADHD, which means I thrive when I’m not on a schedule and left to my own devices. I am perfectly content to lay around and do nothing all day. On the other hand, my autistic daughter desperately needs a schedule and routine in order to do well throughout the day. So let's talk about how we manage that during a break from our normal routine.
How We Keep a Routine During Winter Break | Plan Lots of Crafts/Activity Kits
The first thing I do is at the end of November or beginning of December, when holiday stuff starts coming out in stores, I buy a bunch of activity kits. I try to have like five to eight of these on hand so when we are not doing anything and need something to do, I can pull one of these out. I usually try to have enough that I can have some planned throughout winter break and then I can pull some out in case of emergency or if something comes up.
While some of these are things that we do at home, I also always organize a gingerbread decorating day with my cousins that my daughter absolutely loves. She adores her cousins so having something for her to look forward to is really helpful as well. We also have a day of decorating gingerbread houses at home so my daughter gets to do that twice.
How We Keep a Routine During Winter Break | An Activity Every Day
Another thing I found that really works for us is having an activity to do every single day. Whether it's something like one of those activities or crafts I just talked about or if it's going out somewhere for an activity, we're doing one big thing every day. We often go to our local aquarium or our local zoo. We also have a children's museum in town we have a membership for and it is awesome. Almost all of our passes come with guest passes or with the option to buy discounted guest passes so I try to invite friends and family to come with us as well to make it a little bit more exciting. We also have friends and family that have passes to these same places that will just tag along with us because they can.
We've also done weekend trips or overnights or even just day trips where we go somewhere a couple hours away and we do some fun things there that are new and exciting. For example, last winter break, my husband needed to go to Nashville overnight for work so my daughter and I tagged along. While he was in meetings, she and I went to the zoo, the science museum and had an absolutely great time together. It was a fun way to get out of the house and spend two days doing something else we've never done before. We've also done this in a way that you don't have to spend any money by going to new playgrounds or going on new hikes. It's completely free but still new and exciting
How We Keep a Routine During Winter Break | Countdown Chains
The last thing we do is something I talk about all the time because we use it CONSTANTLY and that is a countdown chain. We use it for how many days are left until my daughter goes back to school because she loves school and she always wants to know when she's going back. I try to have one ready for when she is done with school before break starts so she can start taking the links off the chain as soon as break begins.
Hopefully this helps your neurodivergent loved one with the hard routine changes that come over the holiday breaks. Happy Holidays!
