We’re back today for part 2 of Lucas’ story. Part 1 can be found [here].
Morning routines were a challenge for several reasons, but one of the constant pressure points was getting dressed for school. Lucas was most comfortable wearing pajamas, and Amy and Trevor eventually realized that wasn’t the battle to pursue. Since he was attending a play-based preschool, showing up in Paw Patrol PJs wasn’t a huge issue. However, Amy and Trevor wanted a plan to stay ahead of this.
In addition to the challenge of finding clothes comfortable enough to wear, Lucas was not a fan of water getting anywhere near his clothes. One splash would require a whole process — dry it completely off, or go back to the drawing board to try to find another pair of comfortable clothes.
Because Lucas didn’t share the same water avoidance when he was in the bath or swimming in the pool, Amy and Trevor were stumped.
“How do I know whether to accommodate him vs teach him how to be more comfortable with it?”
Good question. I like to think about this in 2 different phases.
Time for Accommodations
There’s a time and a place for accommodations, and this might change from family to family. But in general, like Amy and Trevor were already doing, I look at the most stressful time for the family and start there. So they’ve already resorted to allowing Lucas to wear PJs to school and help him get dressed on school days. This is on par with how I did things for my own clothing sensitive daughter, and what I typically recommend to families.
The thought process is that, if mornings are already full of other triggers that create moments of dysregulation (and thereby- making it harder to get out of the house), then let’s offload some of that stress as much as possible. Some parts of the morning routine are non-negotiable, like eating breakfast and getting in the car. In the grand scheme of priorities, wearing PJs is a low-lift win that they can give to Lucas .
It’s also helpful to remember that dysregulation is cumulative– if we’re already starting Lucas’ morning out with meltdowns and sensory triggers, then by the end of the day (like afterschool, another time where he’s prone to meltdowns), he’ll already be completely overloaded from his day and extra triggers that might be happening in the classroom.
Time for Skill Building
This is the part that Amy and Trevor wanted help with. Yes, accommodating our sensory sensitive kids is key to helping them function in the day to day. However, we still need to make some space for skill building time. But Tuesday morning before school drop off is not the time to start challenging his clothing preferences. Instead, I encourage families to pick low-stress times of the week to build in some time for “playful practice”
{PS: I talk all about playful practice in my book, The Sensory Code}
For Lucas, this might look like playing some clothing practice games on Saturday mornings after breakfast. When there’s no pressure or time crunch to get out of the house on time wearing something specific. This ensures that there’s no real pressure, which already removes a layer of stress for Lucas.
I reviewed my “From Stressed to Dressed” framework with them so they could start introducing new clothes into Lucas’ wardrobe. One of the games we came up with was for sure going to be a hit with him:
