Your family is probably in the midst of enjoying their Summer vacation. The start of the new school year is just a few weeks away. Now is the time to start preparing your child for school. Transitions are often difficult for children who have special needs. Start now, and make that first day back a bit easier.
Children feel more secure when they know that their day will follow an expected routine. This is especially true for children who have certain types of special needs. Kids who have an autism spectrum disorder, or ADHD, tend to thrive when they are following a set routine. The routine itself can bring some comfort, and reduce a bit of anxiety.
Summertime often has very little in the way of routine. This probably caused your child to have some difficulty adjusting from the routine of the school year to the more relaxed, less organized, days of Summer. Now that Summer has been going on for a while, it is likely that your child has made the necessary adjustments to it. This often happens just in time for the new school year to begin.
Start preparing your child to go back to school now, when the first day is still several weeks away. Working on this now, and continuing to work on it through the rest of Summer, will make it a little easier for your child to be ready to start the new school year. Here are some tips that can help.
Get your child’s sleep pattern back on track. What time will your child have to wake up to get ready for school? This is when you should start waking your child up in the morning. Select a bedtime that gives your child a proper amount of sleep, and start enforcing it. Your child may resist this change, at first, but it is going to make a return to the school routine much easier for her later on.
Go visit the school. Do this more than once. Remind your child that he will be going back to school in a few weeks. Talk to your child about going on a visit to the school. The building itself might be closed, but you can still park in the parking lot and walk up to the building. Spend some time on the school playground if you are able. Later, when you learn which classroom your child has been assigned to, you can start pointing that out, and perhaps even visiting the teacher and the classroom.
These are just a few tips that can help your child adjust to the idea of returning to school. The earlier that you start the transition, the easier that first day of school will be for your child, and for yourself.
Image by Alan Cleaver on Flickr