Back to School Paperwork: The Avalanche Nobody Warns You About
3 min read
Visual Routines
Building a Coming Home Routine for the first ninety seconds through the door.
The moment your child walks through the door, shoes go anywhere, the bag lands somewhere, and by evening nobody can find the reading log.
Free 7-day trial · No email or credit card to start · Built by an autism dad and a licensed SLP
Why it works here
Why a visual routine helps with building a coming home routine
The first ninety seconds home set up the rest of the evening, and they are almost never designed. A short landing routine puts the bag, shoes, and paperwork where they belong before anyone has capacity to argue about it.
You will recognize this if
- Items from school are never where they should be.
- The evening starts with a search.
- Shoes and bags end up in a different place daily.
The setup
How to set it up for building a coming home routine
Takes about five minutes. Use it as written, or keep only the steps your family needs. A short setup that gets used beats a complete one that gets abandoned in week two.
- 1 Give shoes, bag, and coat one fixed landing spot by the door
- 2 Keep the routine to three steps or fewer
- 3 Put anything from school in one place immediately
- 4 Do it before food, but keep it very short
- 5 Use the same order every single day
- 6 Do it alongside your child rather than instructing from another room
The mistake most families make
Making the coming home routine longer than three steps asks a depleted child for too much at the exact moment they have least to give.
In the app
Built into the routine, not bolted onto it.
The Visual Routines lives inside the same routine your child already follows, so building a coming home routine is a step with a visible length rather than a separate tool somebody has to remember to open.
- Attach it to any step in any routine
- Works for pre-readers, gestalt language processors, and AAC users
- Same setup at home, at school, and in therapy
Set this up for your child.
Five minutes to build, and your child sees it every time building a coming home routine comes around.
$6.99/month after the free trial · Cancel anytime · Also at app.vizyplan.com
Common questions
About building a coming home routine
Should this happen before or after the snack?
Before, if it stays very short. More than about ninety seconds and it should wait until after food.
What if my child cannot manage it after school?
Cut it to one step, usually the bag. One thing consistently in the right place is worth more than three attempted.
Does this help with lost paperwork?
Considerably, provided school papers have one destination rather than a general instruction to put things away.
VizyPlan supports routines and communication at home and school. It is not a medical device and does not diagnose or treat any condition. Talk to your child's care team about clinical questions.
