Has COVID-19 made you homebound for the next couple of weeks?  Now what???

I went from being a quasi-empty nester to having all four of us working and schooling from home for at least the next 3-4 weeks. My immediate thought was how lucky I am that my kids are adults and that I don’t have to really worry about entertaining them anymore. I am sure we will all have moments of getting a bit stir-crazy but we can all self entertain pretty well at this point.  However, I know there are many of you that do have that concern along with trying to make sense of everything else that is going on in the world.  

In the spirit of offering strategies, tips and tools to help families and anyone else working and living with those on the spectrum, I will be offering daily tips and ideas of what to do while home-bound to help keep cabin fever at bay.

Tip #1:

As a start, it is important to come up with some kind of structure to your days. School and working outside the home sets up structure and routine for us.  However, when this is being done at home we need to create that structure for ourselves. We know that most people thrive with structure and those with autism generally need it even more.  Not just for predictability but to also feel safe and limit management of the unexpected.

So, with family input, set up a schedule with times for:  Waking up, going to sleep, eating, daily chores, physical activity, play, work/school, and being online.  You may even want to consider creating parameters around how much time to engage with the news and media regarding COVID-19 ---  just sayin’.

Make it a visual schedule in a central location where everyone can see it. You can use a white board, cork board, or large piece of cardboard.  Then create one card with each type of activity. Consider color coding if that seems fun. Remember to build in some flexibility as change can occur at any time!! Clearly, a skill that we all need to get a little more comfortable with.