Supporting independence in the morning routine

Mornings in our home are a sort of regimented chaos.  Three kids who all require some form of supervision, two schools to get to and all their gear. Although my kids may seem old enough to be doing a lot of the morning routine themselves, they have a few challenges

Helping my son to focus on what he is doing

There is sometimes a misconception that kids with ADHD can't focus on anything.  With our lad at least, this isn't always the case. Anthony can actually super focus on some things of his choosing. Often his biggest challenge is being able to focus on the task at hand, on what he should be doing especially if it's something he's not interested in.

Organising space for my kids to do their homework

Having a place set for homework is really important to help our autistic and ADHD kids focus.  Some kids and young people need quiet blank rooms and others need the stimulation to focus. As always, go with what works for your kid.

My autistic son is loving his lists

Lists.  We all use them at some point.  They help us organise our thoughts or remind us about tasks.

Helping our ADHD son focus on his homework

It may be the Easter break but that doesn't mean learning stops.  There's all the everyday learning when you go to the park and do activities at home of course.  And then there's also homework that's got to be done too.

The memory functions of my 10 year old autistic lad with ADHD

"I can't find my shoes, where are they, where are they?" screams Anthony as he races through the house. Anthony needs to be reminded to put his shoes in the hall when he takes them off. He can never remember where else they might be and has huge difficulty actually seeing them even when in plain sight. It's like directing a blind folded person to an object on the floor sometimes.

Two changes of direction, two write offs

Explaining to someone who doesn't have much knowledge about autism about the impact of a change of schedule on my son is very difficult. When I worked, I used to do lots of events, and one of the parts of this I enjoyed was I always seemed to be able to get over hurdles and unexpected issues well. I had a sort of practical knack not only for what we could do to fix things but also what was important and needed to fixed.