Routine can be important. Doing things in a certain order and a particular way are sometimes crucial. Building a house or defusing a bomb probably wouldn’t go to plan if you didn’t do things step by step! But the resulting fallout from a mistaken change in routine would be nothing compared to what we would experience were Victoria’s routine to be suddenly changed.
I’m not sure why it is so important to many with autism, but it is very common for those on the spectrum to need to be prepared mentally for everything that is about to happen through known, structured routines. Unfortunately life isn’t usually as structured as Victoria would like it to be – change happens (a lot, as we have come to realise) and the effect this has on V’s mental wellbeing can be random at best. Often there is a crossover between V’s obsessions (eg needing to be first) and her routines (to head up to bed first if it is “her” day) – this is where we use routine to meet the needs of her obsessions and this kind of works. Sometimes. Other routines might include where she sits (she has her dedicated seat at the dining table and space on the sofa, both of which Emily will grab when feeling devious, if the dog hasn’t got there first!) or the way she gets dressed or what she is going to do at school.
School is a funny one. As I’ve said in a previous post, meltdowns (which can be the net effect of a routine not being followed) don’t generally occur at school so there is a perception that V is fine with changes in routine. But we know that is definitely not the case. At the start of one particular school year Victoria was obviously very unhappy. She was anxious and stressed to the point of not wanting to go to school. She hated school and would break down in tears and tantrums at the thought of going. Her dread of school was the first thing she thought of in the morning and the last thing on her mind at night.
It took us a few weeks to work out that the daily quizzes she used to do about the book she had read the previous night were now being done on random days, and this change of routine did not sit well with Victoria. We agreed with her teacher that Victoria could quiz on Monday, Wednesday and Friday mornings and as if by magic she went back to loving school and being the generally happy little girl she is. Such a small thing to most of us but it completely ruined her life for those few weeks.
Because she needs routine, surprising Victoria is generally not recommended. When we know something different is going to happen (eg a relative coming to visit) we have to carefully plan when and how we are going to let Victoria know. Tell her too early and she dwells on the change for days becoming very anxious. Tell her too late and it is a surprise she doesn’t really handle very well. Generally for things like a visit or a day out we’ve found the morning of the day before to be about the right timeframe. That is now our routine. What we often question is whether it is right for us to protect her in this way? Life isn’t routine – the last couple of years have shown us that – so we are often torn between preventing the anxiety and meltdown that will ultimately occur and treating Victoria as a normal 8 year old. And again, we also need to consider Emily, a typical child that loves surprises. Taken the girls to see Frozen in London just before Christmas was one such occasion where we wanted to surprise the girls – which we did – and simply deal with the fallout from V – which we also did. Sometimes you just have to roll with it…