Adjusting to new routines goes without saying for most kids they don’t even think about it , there ferried around by there parents and get from A to B , but for kids with Autism and special needs it’s a little harder .
Oscar adjusts very very quickly to what we are doing daily, and if you divert he isn’t happy, he memorises the route , he will only start eating his breakfast buiscuits at a certain point and again at a different point for his drink , he watches the same programme every morning and it finishes at the same point , if we are to get stuck in traffic he can get distressed and headbang and scream really loud , I’m really anxious in the mornings as I want him to have the best start to his school day .
so we have a very good established routine for going to school both boys in the car dropping one off to school, then once he’s got out Oscar will eat , we always drop off at the same point the journey is predictable and Oscar feels comfortable , he doesn’t like the car reversing and doesn’t like people getting in and out of the car and having to be so tight on time in the mornings, I pick my battles and find myself avoiding reversing! And only stop at the same places !!!! Welcome to the controlling world of autism!
So now we face a new challenge, my middle one has a new school a few minutes from the house , eventually he will walk which is great as it means a door to door car trip for Oscar but initially while he settles I will take him by car , we will stop the journey at a new place , this will unsettle Oscar for sure and I expect he will not eat on route to school until we establish a new routine , something as simple as this could trigger regression for Oscar and could impact on his school day so it really does need careful planning and lots of familiar things in place to make sure he is feeling as calm as possible
Below is an interesting read about routines and autism
https://www.autism.org.uk/about/behaviour/obsessions-repetitive-routines.aspx
