Helping A Child With Autism At Home

Parents make a big difference to help autistic children overcome their challenges and get the most of life.

We will provide some parenting tips to help make daily home life with an autistic kid easier.

Being personally equipped with all the knowledge about autism and getting involved in your child’s treatment will go a long way in helping your child.

Here are a series of 4 video showing how a family makes the effort to intervene at home to assist and help their child with autism.

Intervention at Home with a Child With Autism- part 1

Intervention at Home with a Child With Autism- part 2

Intervention at Home with a Child with Autism - part 3

Intervention at Home with a Child with Autism - part 4

Additionally, the following tips will make daily home life easier for your both you and your autistic child:

* Be consistent in what you wish to do to help your child. Autistic children find it difficult to adapt whatever they have learnt in one setting to a different setting. Even environments might upset them and give them a hard time. For a child with autism, it is always better to create a consistency in your child’s environment as that will help to reinforce learning. One way to do that is to find out exactly what your child’s therapists are doing, and then apply the same techniques at home. Since consistency is so important to the autistic child, you need to be consistent in the way you interact with your child, bearing in mind a child with autism is like any other normal child and has moods as well, and at the same time, you need to demonstrate a consistent way in dealing with challenging behavior from the autistic chilld.

* Stick to a schedule. Together with consistency, a highly-structured schedule or routine will go a long way in helping the autistic child because an autistic child finds it easier to cope with repeated consistency. Scheduling would involve putting up a schedule for your child, with regular times for meals, therapy, school, and bedtime. There should be minimum disruptions or changes to the routine, and if there is any unavoidable schedule change, it is important to prepare your child beforehand.

* Reward good behavior. Rewarding good behavior is a good way to provide positive encouragement to the autistic child. When you do find your autistic child doing something good, be profuse in your praise and hearty in your approbation. Praise them when they act appropriately or learn a new skill, being very specific about what behavior they’re being praised for, so that they understand exactly why the praise has been given. Be practical when rewarding them for good behavior or learning a new skill, such as by giving them a sticker or letting them play with a favorite toy.

* Create a home safety zone. Setup a private space in your home where your child can relax, feel secure, and be safe. An autistic child will require help in understanding clearly demarcated boundaries, so it will be useful to use colored tape to mark physical areas that your child can recognize as being off-limits, and labelling certain items with pictures and images that the child can see clearly and identify with.

For example, consider the treadmill in the house, or the exercise bike - these are heavy items that can cause harm if they are not setup properly or fall on your child. Also, these can be tampered with and subjected to child tempering as well.

You may also need to safety proof the house, particularly if your child is prone to tantrums or other self-injurious behaviors. The areas of the home covered are as follows:

The Attic
The Master Bedroom
The Bedroom
The Corner
The Family Room
The Play Room
The Music Room
The Kitchen
The Study
The Bathroom
The Broom Closet
The Front Door
The Back Door

* Have fun with your child. Enjoy time with your child because apart from being autistic, a child is every inch normal, and a child coping with autism is still a child who will enjoy the love and affection from his parents. Therapy at home is not a lifeless chaing that stifles the bonding which can be a joyous time for the child. Find ways to play and have fun together. Don’t be driven by an obsession to tag any activity into the therapeutic or educational mould, and find it burdensome to help your child. The important thing is to enjoy your child’s company! Find ways to make your child smile, learn the difference between temper tantrums and panic attacks, shake pom-poms over their head or on their belly and the chore suggestions the child can learn to do with enthusiasm and for which you can give profuse praise.

Educate your babysitter, respite worker, grandparents and friends about your child with autism, and you can bring an awareness about autism to them. This will help give them insight into the daily lives of the family and offer tips on what they can do ahead of time at their home if they are coming in for a visit or to babysit.

In time to come, if you are considering to let your child learn more responsibilities about caring for others, you may wish to grant him his wish to have a pet, like a puppy. Some autistic children are afraid of the neighborhood dog or cat, and you will need to find out if indeed he is keen to have a pet, and you will need also to prepare him to handle one- the child with autism can accidentally injure a pet or scare one, and the pet can, in all possibilities, retaliate and bit the child.