I’m a little late in writing this! After having such a hectic week. We’ve had a massively successful half term, which is surprising. All to often, trips and days out that we do fall apart very quickly, I’ve learnt over the last few years that the issues surrounding school holidays stems from the sensory issues that Charlie suffers from. These include places being busier than normal, living to a timetable which increases anxieties in me, such as opening times/ticket times and risking not getting there in time. I will come back to this. The transition between home and holiday and how it effects Charlie. This is of particular importance, and I never really understood it until recently, and since then between understanding and respecting transition times and process times, life has got easier.

None of this was ever explained to me. Not one person, whilst we were struggling, waiting for a diagnosis for the years Charlie was under the community paediatrician and the several school placements that he went to, ever explained the harshness of transitioning or processing. When you have neurotypical (NT) children, you take it for granted that they just get it, and can adapt and process situations at lightening speed. However, Charlie doesn’t and hasn’t been able to grasp that over the years. This means when I’m considering all the activities and days out we do, I always have to factor in his processing time and his transitioning times.

His processing time, is how long it takes him to fully understand what we are doing with our day. The things that help me the most, is giving Charlie plenty of time to receive the information, however not too long before we have to go. For example, it’s not advisable to tell Charlie on a Monday he is going swimming on Friday, because every day all I will get is constant asking and frustration around the fact he’s not going until Friday when he wants to go there and then. However, I can’t tell him the day it happens as then he hasn’t got any processing time and then ends up getting too overwhelmed and often can’t manage the activity which in turn makes him feel awful so it really is a no win situation. So that leaves me with around a 24-48 hour previous to any activities to prepare him. On top of just telling him what we are doing, I write it on our whiteboard in the living room. The whiteboard was a bargain £5 from Wilkos and is updated with all of the plans we have. We have a term time one and a school holiday one, this is because of course the school holidays look so different from term time. Pre-Covid, our term time was set up in a way that every week was the same, this was easier due to the school timetable at the PRU. Charlie was only in 9.30-12.30pm so we often had the week set up that we would do activities in the afternoon which were much quieter because the majority of other children were in school. So we used that time to do things like go to the trampoline parks, clip n climb (indoor rock climbing) drumming lessons, all these are done much calmer, quieter and less stressful without hoards of children around, and of course trips to the park. Then in the evenings I didn’t feel the need to take him out and mix with others and do those after school activities as they had already been done in the afternoon. It was a win for us. Like now, with Charlie only doing 1 hour at school 2-3 times a week it means that the afternoons are there to enjoy on activities in a much calmer space.

Transitioning - this is the time Charlie takes to fully settle in his environment. And can be vary variable depending on the environment. For example it takes roughly around 20 mins to half an hour to settle into the classroom, 2-3 hours to settle into bed, several hours sometimes a whole day to transition back to my house after he has been with his dad, or to his dad’s house. School holidays are no different, it takes Charlie time to settle out of the school routine and into holiday mode. So for us, it probably took Charlie until Monday, from Thursday to appreciate, understand and transition that he was on a school holiday. And vice versa, on the flip side, I told Charlie Saturday he as back to school Monday, several times again yesterday he was told. And then again this morning, and this morning I had a particularly bad morning trying to get him in after the break. And this is perfectly normal for Charlie, that first transition back, after a school holiday is normally the worst I get. And this morning was no different. However, it has been a productive morning. More to follow on that.

So to recap, the major difference between parenting children with SEN like Charlie and NT children is the time it takes for them to process and transition and this is key when establishing any different changes to environments or lifestyles such as holidays or activities. When these things are taken into consideration it massively helps lessen the impact on when a poor transition or rushed transition has on the child, and the behaviour of the child. Some top tips are:

Plan your day/visit/activity
Search it up on the internet first - get your child involved.
Make a social story
Ensure your child has processing time so they fully understand what’s expected of them (age appropriate)
Be mindful your child is transitioning, and by expecting too much from them might hinder their transition.

By doing these small changes, they may have a big effect on how your child manages their days.

Georgina x