Schedules and routines: love ’em or hate ’em?

As a child of a family of seven kids, I grew up with schedules and routines. They helped to streamline the ordinaries of daily living: who was supposed to be setting the table which night, when each child was supposed to be brushing their teeth, who’s turn it was to get to sit at a window seat in the car.

As an adult with ADD, and two kids on the Autism Spectrum, I have gone back to schedules and routines. I find them to be soothing on the one hand as I know what comes next, have an expectation about what needs to be done and when (and by who), and can easily return to ‘normal’ when something out of the ordinary happens.

Don’t get me wrong, though. I don’t have a highly detailed schedule! It’s not always “9:35 Drink tea, 9:45 Put cup in sink…” It’s more like “Get kids to school, plan day, clean kitchen, do driving chores….” but I do things in certain sequences trying to make the transitions logical.

And I do have spontaneity, too. When my autistic son was born and I learned he thrived on routines I built in “spontaneity hour”. Every day at the same time… we’d do something different. It sounds so odd when I say it, but every therapist we’ve worked with has exclaimed what a wonderful idea it is; to bring new things and experiences to a child that otherwise might refuse them.

The downside I have found is that when something out of the ordinary does happen, I feel totally lost. The expectations I had, the plans that are tried and true can’t be carried out, all gone until the circumstances change and things settle back to an equilibrium.

Schedules and routines: love ’em or hate ’em?