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Daily Rhythms: A LIFESMART Perspective

Daily Rhythms: A LIFESMART Perspective


Routines provide structure and predictability. However, life is often unpredictable. Rhythms are more flexible and fluid. What would a healthy daily rhythm look like?
Does your child have a balanced and healthy daily rhythm? What kinds of activities should be included in the day?
This post is an updated version of an earlier post on daily rhythms. I have updated my earlier post to show how to analyze your child’s daily rhythms using the four LIFE components and four indicators for each of these components. Read the post and complete the worksheet at the end of the article. Email me at lifesmartlabs@gmail.com if you want to discuss your child’s routine in terms of these elements.

Artwork by Morpheus Nag


Discovering daily rhythms that work means the process of finding the right combination of activities for the day. For example, we start the day with long walk. Dance is an important part of Ananth’s daily routine. A list of some activities to include in the daily rhythm is given below.


Tips
• Include movement daily
• Include visual and performing arts
• Include activities of daily living
These activities support overall development. Include them as part of your child’s daily rhythm!
Walk
Activities of daily living
• Hanging up clothes
• Folding clothes
• Setting the table
• Cleaning tables
• Making the bed
• Cooking
• Putting things away
• Watering the plants
• Loading Laundry in the washing machine
• Helping in sorting vegetables and grocery items and putting them at proper place
Structured movement activities
• Swimming
• Cycling
• Running
• Karate
• Skating
• Yoga
• Playing a sport like – table tennis, football, badminton etc
Arts
• Drawing
• Painting
• Crafts
Performing arts
• Singing
• Dance
• Instrumental music
Theater Arts activities
Integrating
• Movement and dance
• Music and Rhythm
• Storytelling
• Drama
• Arts and Crafts
Academic learning
• Language and communication


Daily Rhythms for LIFE
I am not the first one to talk about daily routines or daily rhythms. The activities listed above are familiar too. What I can add to this discussion is the LIFESMART perspective.


L: Learn daily
Four words to start thinking about how to support daily learning: imitate, repeat, memorize, improvise. Starting with imitation and evolving to own exploration (improvise) is the way I see the progression of learning.
Practice the imitate, repeat, memorize, improvise steps daily. This is an important component to build into the daily routine.

I: Interests
The words I chose are motivation, initiation, commitment, and effort. Initiation is an important indicator of interest! Not everything we learn is interesting to us. But we are likely to be motivates, initiate, commit time, and put in effort when are interested.
Interests are discovered during daily learning. Encourage exploration of interests daily. However, the daily routine should include activities of high interest, medium interest, and low interest. Everything in our daily routine cannot be of high intrinsic interest!
F: Family interactions
Safety (physical and emotional), encouragement, support, and enjoyment are the words I chose for family interactions. The four words spotlight the role of parents. Ensuring safety, encouraging children in varied experiences, providing support as needed, and enjoying experiences together are the foundations of parent-child relationships.
Family interactions are the foundation for daily rhythms. Parents discover ways to engage their child in varied activities. Parents play a key role in discovering and implementing daily rhythms.
Family interactions are of particular importance for neurodivergent children and for much longer than for others because educational and other systems pose numerous challenges for them.
E: Engaging communities
The words I chose are acceptance, inclusion, expression, and co-creation. All four components are linked. Learning daily, discovering interests, the right types of family interactions enable our children to find the right inclusive environments for expression and co-creation. Being part of such environments daily is something that is happening for us only now.
While access to the right environments for neurodivergent children and adults continues to be a challenge, I believe systems are evolving. By being proactive, we can discover the right environments, facilitate inclusion, and change the system for the better.


Activity for Parents
Use the LIFESMART Parenting Worksheet below to analyze your child’s daily routine in terms of the four LIFE components and the four elements of each of the four LIFE components.
Based on these sixteen indicators, what changes do you think are needed in your child’s daily routine?
Every parent is a change agent. Every neurodivergent child and adult is a change agent. Change begins with discovering the right daily rhythms for yourself and for your child!


Author Dr.Dasaratha Rama

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Magical Visual Calendar

A video tutorial by Monika misra (special educator) on the importance of Visual Calendar and how to teach it to our kids.

A concrete visual calendar is an effective way to show our students exactly what is going on. A calendar is a good way to help your child understand what is happening on a larger scale than a daily schedule.


Unusual events which interrupt the regular routine can confuse children, resulting in behavior problems. Calendars allow you to present these changes in a clear, simple way well in advance using a picture symbol such as going to the doctor on Thursday or to the mall on Saturday.

A calendar can also be used to show:
• When someone is coming to stay for a visit
• When the family will be taking a trip
• When your child might be staying at another house
• Doctor or dentist appointments

Author Monika Misra

Monika Misra
Founder of Deific Skill Portal, Lucknow
Special Educator at Sunrise learning, Noida.
Parent counsellor at Kant Brain Center, Lucknow.

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Resources

Child Empowerment- Empowering kids with the Responsibilities: Play Time by Manju K Iyer

Video tutorials by Manju K Iyer

Child Empowerment

Today I will tell you an easy way to teach empowermebt in our kids by assigning them the daily responsibilities at home and beyond.

Author Manju K Iyer

Manju K Iyer is a Psychologicist, Counselor,  Parent coach, Play Therapist, Homeschooler and Founder of PlayTime ( A coaching program for parents of children with special needs).

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BloggerSaathi CreativeSaathi

Life skills not to be missed for your ASD child

Life skills not to be missed for your ASD child

Hi , in today’s blog I am going to put forward about four important life skills that need to be aware and must develop in your child with Autistic personality

What are mainly life skills? What do they mean for us ?

“Life skills are anything that is desirable and essential for full participation in life”

In case of an individual with Autism , life-skills are  are important to attain independence at home , school , community , increase self confidence and self esteem

So how to start developing life skills for a child with autism and what is the best time to do

Well time is as much  early as possible

If its early it will definitely add happiness in different areas in their life

Now , how to start ?

Well every person on autism is unique and different so their pace to learn and execute shall vary

An important mantra is to give clear , easy and to the point instructions and do hands on rather than expecting them to do it all at the first go

Your intent should be to build confidence in the skill first and then develop the precision and fineness

Remember , they learn , process , express and execute differently and we must enter their world

What are four important life skills that must be in your to do list ?

Well , you should always OWL your child

AHHHH are you confused what is owl ?

Haha …this is O- observe , W- wait , and L- Let your child take lead

So this is observing your child for their specific interest around the chores in the daily routine

You should have a supportive role and practice is the key

Four skills that are utmost important and can influence learning other life skills are

1.Reading and Registering a visual schedules and supports

These can include – morning checklist ,night routine cards , school time table , playtime schedules, therapy routine charts etc

This skill will prepare them to understand what goes in their day and help them be the boss and take control of situation . You will notice less aversion and rigid and challenging behaviours

2. Teach your child to take breaks

The child can get overloaded , overstimulated , understimulated , tired , bored and confused. In order to emotionally regulate , they must be learning to convey that they want break or time out to sort themselves and keep emotions in check

This will again help in lessening out of character and disruptive escalating behaviours and situations

3. Community safety skills

Well this is very important skill. This is because the child might have sensory processing difficulty that can interrupt them to understand safe and unsafe choices and land up in an inevitable accident

So , community safety skills should not be forgotten .This will include understanding danger signals signs , safety signs , travelling in public transport , playing public places. You can start social stories to develop on these skills

4. last and again an important one – teach money skills

Well you might say , the child should have pre- numeracy skills to understand money and further quantification.

How to sort this , try recommending in your child’s school IEP to add money skills , along with this , whenever you get an opportunity , like in grocery , or super market , encourage your child to handover the money to the cashier. This might create better awareness and enlightment about using money as an entity

You can gradually progress to different settings

Broadly speaking , there many more important life skills that you can develop in your child with ASD , but these  four should always be on your bucket list

Other skills you can promote for learning are :

Work on self care – dressing , toileting ,personal hygiene , eating etc

Work on leisure skills – ball skills , cycling , recreational activities like painting , playing any instrument

Work on house hold chores – to encourage child to take ownership and responsibility

Well , I hope this was quite informative and now you have step by step guide when it comes to teach life skills to your autistic child

Please leave comments if you wish more details on any one particular skill

Thankyou

Creative Efforts and Life skills Mentor – Heena Sahi

Artwork by Morpheus Nag

Creative representation of various life skills is wonderfully done by my little buddy CreativeSaathi associate Morpheus Nag

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BloggerSaathi CreativeSaathi

Discovering Daily Rhythms that Work

Daily Rhythms: A LIFESMART Perspective

Routines provide structure and predictability. However, life is often unpredictable. Rhythms are more flexible and fluid. What would a healthy daily rhythm look like?

Does your child have a balanced and healthy daily rhythm? What kinds of activities should be included in the day?

Artwork by Morpheus Nag

Discovering daily rhythms that work means the process of finding the right combination of activities for the day. For example, we start the day with long walk. Dance and/or yoga are part of Ananth’s daily routine. A list of some activities to include in the daily rhythm is given below.

Tips

  • Include movement daily
  • Include visual and performing arts
  • Include activities of daily living

These activities support overall development. Include them as part of your child’s daily rhythm!

Walk

Activities of daily living

  • Hanging up clothes
  • Folding clothes
  • Setting the table
  • Cleaning tables
  • Making the bed
  • Cooking
  • Putting things away
  • Watering the plants
  • Loading Laundry in the washing machine
  • Helping in sorting vegetables and grocery items and putting them at proper place

Structured movement activities

  • Swimming
  • Cycling
  • Running
  • Karate
  • Skating
  • Yoga
  • Playing a sport like – table tennis, football, badminton etc

Arts

  • Drawing
  • Painting
  • Crafts

Performing arts

  • Singing
  • Dance
  • Instrumental music

Theater Arts activities

Integrating

  • Movement and dance
  • Music and Rhythm
  • Storytelling
  • Drama
  • Arts and Crafts

Academic learning

  • Language and communication

Daily Rhythms for LIFE

I am not the first one to talk about daily routines or daily rhythms. The activities listed above are familiar too. What I can add to this discussion is the LIFESMART perspective.

L: Learn daily

Four words to start thinking about how to support daily learning: Imitate, Repeat, Memorize, Explore. Starting with imitation and evolving to own exploration is the way I see the progression.

Practice Imitate, Repeat, Memorize, Explore daily. This is an important component to build into the daily routine.


I: Interests

The words I chose are Initiate, Commit, Practice, and Experience. Initiation is an important indicator of interest! Not everything we learn is interesting to us. But we are likely to initiate, commit time, practice and deepen our experience when interest is there.
Interests are discovered during daily learning. Encourage exploration of interests daily. However, the daily routine should include activities of high interest, medium interest, and low interest. Everything in our daily routine cannot be of high intrinsic interest.

F: Family interactions

Safety (physical and emotional), Relationships, Love and support, Expression are the words I chose for family interactions. Family interactions are of particular importance for our children and for much longer than for others because educational and other systems pose numerous challenges for them.

Family interactions are the foundation for daily rhythms. Parents discover ways to engage their child in varied activities. Parents play a key role in discovering and implementing daily rhythms.

E: Engaging communities

The words I chose are acceptance, inclusion, co-creation, and enjoyment. All four components are linked. Learning daily, discovering interests, the right types of family interactions enable our children to find the right inclusive environments for co-creation and enjoyment. Being part of such environments daily is something that is happening for us only now.

While access to the right environments for neurodivergent children and adults continues to be a challenge, I believe systems are evolving. By being proactive, we can discover the right environments, facilitate inclusion, and change the system for the better.

Every parent is a change agent. Every neurodivergent child and adult is a change agent. Change begins with discovering the right daily rhythms for yourself and for your child!

Author Dr.Dasaratha Rama

An amazing creative representation of all the daily rhythm activities is beautifully done on demand for my blog by CreativeSaathi Morpheus Nag.