Visual Schedules, a.k.a. Sanity Savers

I LOVE visual aids.  We have them all over our house, as our friends and family can attest.  From bathroom duties (potty time, washing hands) to bedtime rules and morning/evening routines, you can literally make a visual schedule for ANYTHING... and we DO.  When any particular task with more than one step becomes a point of frustration for G-Bug or myself ("Go get dressed, please." Five minutes later. "Are you dressed? Where are your socks? Why did you put them THERE??"), I make a visual aid.

A visual aid is simply a list with words and pictures that breaks down any task into smaller steps.  For G-Bug, any simple task can become overwhelming if she's having a hard day.  It is not uncommon for me to ask her to go get dressed, and I will check in on her five minutes later and she is standing in the middle of her room and just looking around. When I remind her what she is supposed to be doing, she startles and apologizes, walks to the dresser, and totally forgets what she is doing again. You can imagine the mutual frustration. AARG.

 If you are quickly losing hair and sleep over helping your child complete routine tasks, please consider trying visual aids.  It doesn't have to be fancy - you can make one on a spare sheet of paper and some crayons (color helps get attention for most kids).  If you want something more formal (or if you fear your drawing skills might cause more confusion than clarity), you can use a program as basic as Microsoft Word or Publisher and some Google images and make a pretty nice chart that you can refer your kids to when they get stuck.

Here are a few that we made to get you started - if you want to tweak these for your own family, feel free to email me to request a copy of the Publisher document and I will be more than happy to share it with you.

Getting Dressed

Morning Schedule

 

Bedtime Schedule

   

Bedtime Schedule (with medicine)

We chose to laminate them so G-bug can use a dry erase marker to check off tasks as she completes them (we usually reserve this for days when she is struggling more to see her progress).

Have a great weekend!

UPDATE: I found a great website with a few more visual schedules for basic self-care, like teeth brushing, potty use, washing hands, etc. Click here to access