Today is the first day of school and while my oldest, Gardner, is now a First Grader cue tears he is still just six years old and I wanted to make his transition as seamless as possible for him. As many of you know he has autism, but after many meetings, testing sessions, and conversations with the school, he doesn’t qualify for an Individualized Education Plan (IEP). He does have a 504 in place, which is basically a step below an IEP, but we all know how crazy the first few days of school can be, so to make sure that he had what he needed we did a few things to make his life (and his teacher’s life) a little easier.

About my Child Worksheet

You may find in elementary school that some teachers will send home an “About My Child” worksheet for the parents. Yes… you have homework as a parent. Being a mom of four, you can ask my husband how I feel about filling out four sets of the same paperwork each year… but I digress. This worksheet is meant for you to help the teacher get prepared to have your kiddo in class this year. For my kindergartener, this paper went home during the “meet the teacher open house” held last Thursday. I dutifully filled it out and will be sending it back to school when she goes tomorrow, since kindergarten is a staggered start.

Since this is something used for kindergarten, I took this idea right out of the teacher’s handbook and decided that I would prepare a little “one-pager” on Gardner to give to his teacher. We brought two copies of this to the open house and left it with her, so that she and her teacher’s aide could learn a little bit more about him before today. It has a little photo of Gardner with his strengths, things he’s working on, what works for him, what doesn’t work for him, what meltdowns can look like, and how to deal with meltdowns. In doing this, I know that I’ve communicated to his teacher just a little bit about what to expect from him.

Of course, this is not everything about Gardner, but it certainly gives her a head start on finding her groove with him in the classroom. The last thing any parent wants is a phone call home saying that your child is being disruptive, knowing full well that you could have prevented the disruption with a little bit of extra communication on how to deal with your “differently wired” child up front.

So often, family members will talk about all the amazing things Gardner does and knows, which makes us so proud of him. We just want to make sure that we set realistic expectations for people that encounter Gardner. He’s not like other kids both academically and socially and may need some assistance with staying on task, executive functioning skills, and dealing with change to his routine.

Here’s a link to the template I used on Canva: https://www.canva.com/templates/EAD7WzJh700-gray-and-black-professional-resume/

See the Classroom and Document with Photos

Attending the open house and seeing the classroom is also really important. Kids with autism are often visual learners. I made sure that we took photos of the classroom, so that we could look back as we prepared for the big first day. Gardner LOVES looking at photos and videos of himself, so this helps him remember back to when he was there and gives him a sense of calm.

Visual Schedule / Morning Checklist

The biggest source of stress in my house on any given day is getting everyone dressed, ready, and out the door on time. With four kids going in two different directions to school it is a feat. The only way I can do it is by having my kids take responsibility for some of their tasks and of course, getting help from my husband and his brother. It really makes things so much smoother in the morning.

For the tasks that I have outsourced to the kids I made them a checklist (complete with pictures) and they live by it. A visual schedule is isn’t just good for kids with autism, it’s good for all the kids. Since my kids are two, three, five, and six, not all of them can read. But all of them know what a photo of a sock and shoes means. Ultimately it’s finding what works for your family.

It’s great for Everyone

Let me re-emphasize, these ideas a great for ALL KIDS! Sending information to your child’s teacher about them is so helpful for you, your child, and the teacher. My daughter loves the photos we took of her visiting her kindergarten classroom too! And visual schedules and checklists are simple and easy to get everyone moving in the same direction.

I’d like to imagine that my children will be standing on their chairs saying, “O Captain! My Captain!” every morning when I greet them, but we all know that’s not reality. I’d love to be the Captain rowing all my kids in the same direction and having to only ask once for them to “GET YOUR SHOES ON PLEASE!” But that’s not real life, and while my mornings are far from perfect, I’m going to keep doing little things to try and make it a little less stressful. cue the three-year-old screaming the entire way to school because he didn’t give his uncle a final hug You can’t win the morning rush every day, so I guess there’s tomorrow.