Our Alexa praises continue today with a third instalment of the autism and alexa series. If you missed instalment one, check it out here. And, you can find two here. How Alexa can help your ASD kiddo and/or autism families like ours.Alexa has lived with us for a good while now. She is great friends with Badger, who uses her to answer the important questions in life: How old is Kanye West, Harry Styles, Calvin Harris. (Birthdays are the latest fascination.) And yet somehow it is only through the homeschool groups I am in on Facebook that I heard about Alexa Blueprints. I was overcome by a few of the options in particular. This is definitely going to help our family on a day to day basis. I have no doubts. Which is why I am so keen to share this mini-series. Read on below the ad for the third instalment: Chore Chart. I'm just going to dive straight into this today. You want to get yourself over to Alexa Blueprints and select Chore Chart. If you are the UK then this is the link you need. If you are US or elsewhere in the world then I believe this link will still work but a message will load which directs you to the correct web address for your country. Once in, log into your account and you are set to go. Chore chart is a fantastic resource which turns household chores into a game by offering a scoring system for completion. This is exactly what we need in our house because ALL the members could do with a kick up the ass. {Sorry, it had to be said. Even Dad.} The added advantage and especially useful bit for autism families is that you can add anything to this... it's designed for chores, yes, but you can add in anything you like... homework, brushing teeth, bath days, speech therapy, OT, sensory time, breaks etc. And Alexa will remind. Get into Blueprints, add the members of the house, add ALL your household chores - or tasks as I prefer. On the next step, you are able to assign the various chores to the appropriate people and select the days that this needs to be done. If you wish, you can set an alert... and that's it. Save it, and let the brilliance that is Alexa's persuasive tone commence. (I talked about how Badger is so much more willing to listen to the inanimate Alexa than me! And after chatting with other parents about this recently, I think it's safe to say that is a common theme.) A quick note on this before starting … You need to have yourself a very comprehensive list of everything that has to be done through the course of a week. At least the standard week. Jot that down over a few days as it is so easy to forget this, that, the other. One thing I made a point of doing at this point was to write down things that others in the home never usually do... AKA is left to me, always. I wanted to distribute some of that workload to the other members so that I could afford myself a little more rest and relaxation. I encourage ALL of you who bear the brunt of household duties to consider this. Studies clearly tell us that primary caregivers - usually mothers - even those who work out of the home are still responsible for hugely disproportionate amounts of house, child, health and education tasks. You cannot pour from an empty cup. You need time to yourself. Your family and your kids deserve you at your best. You deserve to feel the best you can. The simplest way for families like ours' - where reliable, regular childcare is very hard to come by - to do this is to better balance the mechanics of your home. Good Luck! Hope this helps. :) Get to it here: https://blueprints.amazon.co.uk/bp/amzn.ask.bp.b5e27302-c740-41d1-bc60-dacaa15985df/en-GB?ref_=ask_bp_home_1
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