With so many appointments, how do you keep everything straight – AND keep everyone informed? The answer: SHARE the calendar.
In our family, we’ve got a lot going on. The list of people who need to know what’s happening each week is pretty long: my husband, the babysitter, the program manager for my son’s Autism therapy program, the ABA therapists who work in our home, my ex-husband, and the kids. Knowing the schedule has been a key to my son’s success. When he knows what’s coming, he is ready for all of the activities he faces in the week ahead – especially if there are changes to the routine.
To keep things simple, I have one calendar that is shared with the kids and the babysitter who all view it on their iPhones. I email the weekly calendar out to the ABA team and my ex-husband. My program manager uses this to decide when she wants to meet with therapists to gather data or just check in. And then we don’t need to coordinate since I’m at work anyway. This also gets questions answered before the work week starts – so I can actually focus at work rather than dealing with appointment details in the middle of my day.
I'm a working parent with young adult daughter and son with Autism. I am an independent Product Management Consultant focused exclusively on helping companies who serve children with special needs.
I'm also passionate about my kids, as I would expect any parent to be. I bring my project management skills home and my crazy knowledge about managing schedules home and use them both to manage my family. More importantly, I use these skills from work to manage my son's Autism therapy program.
Over the years, I've wanted to volunteer more with the Autism community. My form of volunteering is mentoring parents of friends who have found themselves in the difficult position of raising a child who has Autism. I have moments where I wonder where we'd be if I wasn't a project manager by trade, especially as I help parents who are struggling as this is new territory for them.
I recently was helping a long time friend who was dating a man who had a child with Autism. As I shared my ideas with her and strategies for how to make life better for this child, she said, "You should write all of this great advice down."
This blog is about capturing those ideas. I also hope it inspires other parents out there to not only be the best parent they can be, but to do that while still pursuing the dreams they have for their careers. I believe you can do both.
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Organizing Dreen 