4 Tips For Handling Those Extra-Busy Times With Your #Dyslexic Kid

This time of year can be particularly busy for families. So how can you help your dyslexic kid when things get even busier?

Hey everyone, we're Nick and Sonja and welcome to Dyslexia Journey. So today we wanted to talk about those times in life when everything gets a little busier. So it can feel like it sort of messes with our routine. You know, if we've had one going, things can maybe feel a little more chaotic. It can feel like we get behind on things. And we're sort of feeling that and often feel it in springtime in the northern hemisphere as there's just like maybe, you know, a month or two left of school.

So this could look different in different parts of the world. And of course happens other times, sometimes too. Some of the reasons I think why it happens here are that maybe teachers are wanting to squeeze in some final content and projects by the end of the year. If your kid's in high school or middle school, there may be dances, you know, for example, prom. Also, if they're in high school, there could be like IB tests or AP tests. So there's a lot of different reasons.

Oh, and big one actually is like events. Sometimes there's just like the end of your concert or end of your play or, you know, you're getting towards the end of the sporting season for the spring. So any of that can contribute. I don't know if I can even always pinpoint why. Sometimes I feel like there's not even all those events on a given year, but it feels busier anyway. So for whatever reason, there can be these busier times.

And so because we're maybe even a little extra pressed for time, it's going to vary from every family to every family, of course. But because of perhaps helping our dyslexic kids more with advocacy or with homework and often for them, because they are spending more time on the actual work itself. You know, it can be extra important to mindfully and intentionally think about how to strategize around this extra busyness. So today we have four specific strategies to help you deal with those extra busy times, particularly for families with dyslexic kids.

But honestly, a lot of these tips would would apply to any families. OK, so our first tip for dealing with those extra busy times, especially for families with dyslexic kids in them, is to reprioritize when you've got too much. When it feels like you've got too much going on, you're going to have to kind of have a priority order of what you're going to work on. And those priorities can shift. It doesn't have to be the same priorities week to week.

But you are going to have to sort of figure out, you know, on any given day or any given week, what's going to be emphasized. And so, for example, if it's a particularly, particularly busy week with maybe an end of the year concert, maybe you need your child might not be able to spend as much time on homework that week. They might not be able to work on their extra remediation work that they're doing for their dyslexia.

You know, maybe hopefully teachers would be understanding and would be able to give an extension because they would realize that there's these end of the year events, things like that. So it's just really important to, I guess, to really internalize that when things get busier, you just kind of can't give everything the same priority. And so it's almost less important, like, what you prioritize than that you just make that mental shift and realize that you do have to prioritize.

Right. And kind of the reprioritizing is because, you know, things have been going along pretty smoothly and you've got things prioritized the way the homework is. It's like when these new things come in, trying to realize that for a temporary amount of time, the priorities will shift. It doesn't mean that they're never going to, like, work as hard on their homework again, right? It's just trying to make sure if those important events are there that can you make it not as stressful a time by actually consciously saying something can be lower priority.

I think that's a lot of it, too. You know, we usually I think often we just try to do everything and then everyone's all stressed out and then, you know, maybe it doesn't even happen anyway. So if it can be more intentionally like putting more priority on something else, I think that's really helpful. Yeah. And this leads into our tip number two, which is are there some things you can let go?

So maybe you maybe some of the events at the end of the year aren't as important and you just decide that you're not going to go to them or you're going to not stay as long. You know, and again, the flip side is also true. Maybe it's really important and you want to put it above a lot of other things. But, you know, maybe you even can all in the family, you included, you know, skip your household chores for a month.

I mean, that could be hard for people, you know, if you're you really do like to keep things tidier and cleaner. But maybe it's OK to do that just for a little bit longer than usual or maybe it's just for one week that you skip it. Right. So it's just trying to really like scour your brain for what are like ways that you could let something go that would help with the stress level.

Right. Because, you know, I think you don't want that to include downtime because downtime is still really important. Right. So it's like that would make things more stressful if you're just like saying, oh, we can. So it's not quite the same. You know, sometimes we were told to like, look at our priority list. When are we looking at our phones? When are we watching shows? And we have all that time to do something else.

So this is very different from that because it would be more stressful if, you know, when we're packing something in to try to pack in even more and let the downtime go. What we're wanting to try to do is see if some of those more obligations or those kinds of things could be lightened for a while. Yeah. And I want to emphasize or pick out one point of that that might not be obvious is that this is true for you, those of us who are the parents as well as for the kids.

So it's not just it's not just maybe having the kids not have to do their chores for that week. Like we're talking about you as parents, too. Like maybe you're you don't need to, you know, cook a home cooked meal every night that week if it's a super busy time or whatever. You feel like you could let go. Yeah. All right. So strategy number three is kind of elaborating on something that Sonja just mentioned as part of tip number two, which is that breaks are still super important.

So all of us, I think when we get busier, we tend to think about those times when we are not doing anything productive and think, well, we have time to add something new. But it's really it's really important to have downtime just for everyone. I mean, regardless of whether you're an introvert or an extrovert or or, you know, what type of personality, how active you like to be. I mean, everyone needs some amount of downtime.

And I think as we've discussed in many other episodes, this is especially true for kids with dyslexia. And so making sure that you're building in those breaks as well as kind of sometimes more more exciting, fun things. Like if you're, you know, time to go out for ice cream or, you know, kind of kind of more exciting breaks as well. And then our fourth and final tip or strategy for helping your dyslexic family life and your dyslexic kid when things are just even busier for whatever reason at a given time of the year is to actually take that time of the year into account.

So what do I mean by this? I kind of mean it in a bunch of different ways. And it's going to depend, again, like where you are in the world. So if you're heading, so I'll talk about spring first since that's what we're in. So that can look like leveraging the fact that it's more light out. Like maybe your kid actually like just naturally can stay up a little later for, you know, if you're noticing that and that's okay and it doesn't affect them to maybe get, you know, a little bit less sleep because they're just natural rhythm is going with the light.

That's totally fine. On the other hand, you know, if you're getting where it's darker, trying to really take advantage of that. And if they're starting to get tired earlier, or you are, right, as the person helping them, making sure to, you know, make sure to move some of the things that take more, you know, clarity of brain, moving those earlier in the day, for example. So that can be important to try to really look at the cycles of like the seasons and like what's happening there.

It's causing the events to happen maybe or the different things to happen for that season. But it's also true that like it can affect you physically. And also things like spring fever versus like that cozier feeling in the fall as things are starting to wind down, you could leverage those. So spring fever, that can be tricky, right? Because it can be like they even less want to sit down, let's say, and do their final project.

But maybe there's a way you can sort of leverage that energy to be like, this is like to make it more exciting, right? Like let's, let's use that energy and like really get into this project in a way that's really individualized to you. Or if it's not that, maybe it's just the motivation of you're almost done with the school year. Let's just get this done and then you're done. And we'll celebrate, you know, the end of the school year.

And then, but then the fall energy, you know, can be very conducive to sort of settling in and getting cozy. Like maybe you have your tea and settle in like while you're doing the homework. So that was specific to homework, of course. But it's going to depend on what particular thing is happening that you want to give the priority to. That you might just take into account the light and the physical cycles and that sort of like energetic piece of it.

Taking into account for the time of the year and like why maybe you're particularly busy. This probably would work, probably, sometimes this happens around holidays too. Big holidays, like right before there can be some excitement and more events and things like that. So that's probably another example where you'd want to use it. All right. Well, those are our four specific tips for helping you deal with those extra busy times, especially with your dyslexic kid.

So hopefully those are helpful. And as always, we'd love to hear your feedback. We'd love to hear your suggestions. Let us know.