Post #5 Supporting your child to make choices - & freeing up some of your time to get on with chores or to take a break!

An important addition to your home-learning structure is adding choices or free time. If your child is able to choose an activity and spend some time occupying themselves with that chosen activity, this may give you time to get on with a chore or, dare I say, put your feet up with a coffee!

Choose time can be incorporated on your child's schedule. You may need to use different visual information from that used on your child's schedule to ensure they do not confuse scheduled activities with choose. For example, a child who has a written schedule might have symbols or pictures on a choice board, this gives clarity between activities you have to complete and activities you can choose. 'Choose' can be depicted in different ways, depending upon your child's visual understanding. This example shows how you might use images cut out of toy packaging to clearly show what choices are available for a young child:



In this example, 'choose' is a hand-drawn smiley face which is used any time when choices are available, e.g., during free-play, at snack time. Tip: I learned from a child, who used picture choices like this, that it is best NOT to arrange the pictures in a left to right sequence as this may be confused with a schedule. It is better to arrange the choices in a more scattered way so as not to confuse - I learned from my mistake, so don't worry if you too make some mistakes as these often help us to learn!

Watch this film to see things to consider when making a choice board: Making choices

TIP: For many with autism, making choices can be overwhelming - think how it feels when you are faced with lots of choices on a restaurant menu, making a choice when faced with too many options can lead to not choosing anything! For this reason is may be helpful to limit the number of choices available, it is much easier to make a choice between 2 items than 10! Here is a choice of 2 instruments for music time to show how objects can also be used for choices:



Some children will enjoy having more choices available. Below is a choice board for a child who uses a top to bottom list/written schedule, note the use of pictures and the different layout to clarify this is 'choose' and not schedule. When choose time is finished, your child might cross out the activity or turn the picture card over as in the second example, this clearly shows the child that the choose activity has finished:






Supporting your child to choose can be empowering and give them some control of how to use some of their time. Once you have decided which type of choice board works for your child, you can then use it for choosing at different times, e.g., snack time, choosing  a story book, choice of leisure activities, choice of computer game - the choice is endless! 

Important - Whilst use of a schedule is important for structuring your home learning day, do NOT feel you have to schedule every minute of your child's time. Build in choose time and include choices which you know your child is able to engage with and occupy themselves for a while, then you can get on with something which you need to do. Some of your children may like a timer which helps them to see how long they have for their chosen activity. Do NOT feel guilty when you leave your child to occupy themselves! They might be working on a project about one of their interests, playing at length with a toy, lying under a blanket with some background music, playing with sand or play-doh. THIS IS OK :) Indeed learning to occupy themselves is a skill which will be useful throughout their lives and may be  vital in order for you to also manage your own activities and time. So, build in choose time and free up some time for yourself.

Future posts will move on from structure and consider other strategies which you might use at home in order for you and your child to survive, and hopefully enjoy home learning.

































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