The role of routine in your child’s life!!
Dr.S.Subramanian
Routines help children do better with everyday tasks, boosts confidence to handle life and can be used to help the child meet developmental milestones through early intervention.
Three types of routines are vital
Transition routines
They help your child switch from one task to other with ease. For instance if it is lunch time after a reading session, plan a reading activity on food at the end which would remind the child of food and what to expect next. Plan transitions for every activity right from therapy sessions to fun time. This will help the kid internalize changes in activity.
Intervention routines
You might be taking your kid for therapy sessions where they will be taught new skills as part of interventions. Combining those interventions with the child’s daily routine can make it far more effective compared to therapies that occur only during the therapy sessions. For instance, for a child with delayed language development, you could say the same phrase every time the child takes a bath so that the child learns to associate those words with the activity.
Play routines
Routines can be especially effective during playtime because the child is more likely to be fully engaged in the activity. For instance, a child being taught to button a shirt can be engaged in a dressing up game for a toy and this can be repeated every day so that the child picks up the ability. Later the game could be modified by playing the game with self- buttoning.
The above are few instances where routines help a child have a grip over daily activities.