Carson’s morning routine is impressive.
Children, and adults, with Autism Spectrum Disorder need routine. Studies show providing an opportunity for repetition and order allows for a path of success for these individuals. It’s been a key for us with managing Carson.
Ever since we have been in our new home, Carson has developed a great morning routine. While both kids have always had their own rooms, their living space is much larger now, and they each have their own bathrooms. It’s clear they both like it by the amount of time they spend in their rooms. Beckett even said one night recently, “I will be in my apartment the rest of the night.”
Carson’s mornings unfold the same way each day, no matter if it’s the weekend or weekday. His evenings are generally the same too, as we don’t let him stay up late on the weekends since nothing good comes from it.
One of Carson’s favorite gifts from last Christmas was an alarm clock. He really enjoys putting it on military time, for some reason. He has set his alarm clock to begin chiming every five minutes at 6:30 in the morning. By the time 7 a.m. comes, it does a steady chiming. If it seems early to you, it’s because it is but he’s in bed by 8:30 asleep most evenings.
When things start trending south with Carson, Pam and I immediately look inward. How we changed anything with our approach? Has his routine been altered? Are we too distracted with other things to realize he needs redirection? Is his anxiety level high?
During our move last month, the answer was yes to all those. Unexpected behaviors started to surface, despite our best intentions to shield the stress from him. When Carson starts acting out and seeming out of control, it’s usually one of three things – his routine is off (resulting in anxiety because life becomes unfamiliar), he’s constipated (he needs to be reminded to do his business daily or he will let himself get backed up) or his medicine needs changing due to him growing.
We typically go through that order when we need to him back on track. At school, routine is something they can focus on with Carson. The constipation and medicine challenges are on us. After a few rocky weeks this winter, a new routine has been created by his school team to ease his day. Through more breaks and opportunities to work toward rewards, the goal is to reduce his anxiety.
We have been on a good roll of late, but you can bet I’m knocking on every piece of wood around my desk right now.
While Carson is a routine type, the other kid in the house is the opposite.
During a recent fog delay, we let him sleep until 8:15 in the morning rather than his typical 7:15. When we went in to wake him up, he was oblivious to the fact he had gotten an extra hour of sleep. When I informed him of the delay and he got to sleep in, he had no idea. He said his alarm didn’t go off. I later learned he unplugged it at some point.
On one hand, while leaving the silly alarm clock topic behind, it was disturbing to me his body didn’t tell him he needed to be up by a certain time. He was clueless and waiting on us to get him up. On the other hand, I was jealous of his ability to simply sleep. He has clearly found his groove on that front.
Everybody is different when it comes to sleep. I’ve become an early-to-bed, early-riser type, but I was not always that way. Beckett, at the age of 11, is clearly a night owl who likes to stay up late and sleep in.
On a recent weekend, he had an entire day free. There was not one thing on his schedule. It’s an unusual thing for an active kid, and he relishes an open day when it happens. He wrongly assumed, though, he would be able to stay up all night without any reason to wake up early the next morning. When we said 11:30 was late enough, he threw the “that’s unfair” penalty flag. We insisted it was plenty late enough because we were ready for bed.
The next morning we were all wondering how late he was going to go. It happened to be a rainy day so we didn’t see any reason to get him out of bed. However, I admit I was getting a little disgusted when I got home at 11:30 a.m. after running some errands and he was still asleep. In fact, he had not even moved an inch from when I left at 9. He was down and out, but I couldn’t let him sleep anymore. When I got him up, he took umbrage, which is exactly how he acts on school mornings.
I congratulated him on setting a new house record for most sleep with 12-plus hours in one night. He wasn’t amused. He was tired.
Later I got to thinking how incredible it must be to sleep that long without a care in the world. It’s a gift. Living a simple life without worries and stress is certainly one of the joys of being a kid.
