With the October holidays fast approaching, our Family Support Team have put together some top tips for planning a family day out or activity!
- Pack a sensory bag full of things that will help your young person, e.g. a favourite toy, ear defenders, fidget spinner, slime
- Use appropriate visuals. This could be a detailed plan for the whole day or using “first” and “then” if less information is better
- Identify a quieter time to go, e.g. first thing in the morning or later on in the day
- Make up an exit plan for the young person if things get tricky and have a time limit on how long you will spend in each place
- Be realistic – especially around expectations on the day, and remember it doesn’t have to be a whole day, a few hours of quality time can be just as great
- Plan some down time for your young person after the activity
- Involve the young person in the planning process, show them images online of the place and the journey to get there
- Phone up in advance to ask about carers discounts
- Have set rules around screen use
- Think about the demands of where you are going, e.g. sensory demands and social demands and then have a think about how these can be reduced
- If it is too much to do as a whole family, you could plan “date days” with each child to lower the demand on you or do something home based e.g. movie and pizza night, family sleepover night or doing a craft/construction together.
- Remember to make memories! Afterwards, it could be a great idea to add photos, tickets etc to a memory book/box
- If things don’t go to plan, persevere and try again!
We would love to hear of any additional ideas that work for your family! Comment below!
For more information, we cover this topic within our Happy Families training. To book on to this and our other courses please follow this link: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/o/perth-autism-support-7226422323
