Daily Schedule

I love schedules. If I'm going anywhere: road trip, conference, cross-Europe concert tour, I want an itinerary. And if it comes in a binder with color-coded tabs and footnotes, even better. And yet, once I have that bright, shiny, informative itinerary, I'm more than happy to veer off course at any time.

So, naturally, I formulated an ideal daily schedule for this foster respite about a week before I ever met the child. I have waited several "real" days before posting it, just so it would be as accurate as possible and not some kind of mythical creature.

What is the purpose of the daily schedule? It serves many useful purposes:
1. Reassures the child that there is a plan and that it is predictable (it's posted in her room and on the fridge, and she checks it often).
2. Reduces the number of times the child will ask about particular activities (she actually held the schedule in her lap for one of our drives today).
3. Makes sure we are getting food into that little one every two hours, on the dot. I cannot over stress what a massive difference this makes.
4. Makes sure we're getting enough exercise. (Hint: we absolutely are)
5. Keeps me from getting sidetracked, lost, or flustered (as much as possible, anyway).
6. Establishes a routine for our days, which is a huge help in establishing felt safety.

What does ours look like?
7:00 Walk around the block
7:20 Breakfast
7:40 Morning chores: brush teeth, get dressed, make bed
8:00 Art/Reading
9:00 Snack
9:15 Interactive game (bought or invented)
10:00 Fun Outing (varies each day, usually involves exercise, lasts til lunch)
11:00 Snack
12:30 Lunch
1:00 Quiet time
2:15 Snack
2:30 Afternoon exercise (long nature walk, playground, etc.)
3:30 Doll or puppet play
4:15 Snack
4:30 Free Play
6:30 Dinner
7:00 Evening chores: tidy up, lay out clothes
7:15 Bath and brush teeth
7:30 Story time
8:00 Bed

Obviously this varies depending on when she wakes up, but 7 has been pretty constant. And she is not always able to handle "free play," so we have done a variety of other activities around the house. The morning chores we do together, first all of her chores and then all of mine (I am already dressed, of course, but she likes watching me put on makeup). I had originally given more time to the bath, but she is not that interested in playing for long periods of time in the tub, so it has ended up being about 15 minutes each night.

Some objections to the schedule:
1. It's a lot of exercise.
Yes, yes it is. We have found some ways to cope with this--swim time, affordable gymnastics classes, even inventing an imaginary exercise class we were running out in the driveway. For most of these kiddos, exercise is a great way to balance out their brain chemistry and burn off some of those stress chemicals. So yep, there's a lot of exercise.
2. You really feed her every two hours?
You better believe it. We do a lot of portable snacks: trail mix, healthy granola bars, carrots. And the snacks are fairly small but balanced (with as little sugar as humanly possible). Meals are also smaller, though not by as much as I was expecting.
3. That seems awfully rigid.
It's not actually. It's flexible on everything but food. We stretch things out if we have a longer outing or a special afternoon activity. This is just the basic framework--I'm not blowing a whistle every time we're supposed to switch activities.
4. Doll and puppet play, what's that?
We literally play with puppets (or dolls). It's a great opportunity to practice emotion scripts and social situations without feeling threatening to the child. Milo the monkey is rude and then learns a nicer way of sharing with Perry the Panda. Brittney the doll is feeling sad. What can she do when she is feeling sad? etc.
5. That seems really hard.
Yep. We are pretty much within 3 feet of one another all day long. She loves it, but it's hard on introverted me. The nice thing is that it builds trust quickly. We are already worlds improved from just four days ago in terms of manners, "house rules," and some self-regulation stuff (i.e. she will catch and correct herself mid-sentence). But yeah, it's incredibly tough to stay cheerful and creative when I just want to sit by myself and breathe for a while.
6. Quiet time? How does that work?
That's material for tomorrow's post. This post is long enough!