Neurodivergent Homeschool Life

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Regulation First

Without regulation, our homeschool day would quickly fall apart. With neurodivergent kids, most parents understand between Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA), Occupational Therapy (OT), Physical Therapy (PT), and speech therapies that the week can get pretty busy. So how do we balance therapies and schedules without our children, and ourselves, becoming overwhelmed and dysregulated? We keep schedules simple and use low pressure learning skills that I talked about previously.

Setting Limits With Therapies

At our maximum, I was feeling pretty drained managing schedules and driving to and from therapies multiple times a week. For my daughter, we had Speech 4x a week plus two hours of ABA another evening. Between therapies, homeschool, and other activities I was drained. My daughter was drained. Our regulation was slipping, and I knew I needed to make a change.

It’s Okay to Set Boundaries

My daughter loved her ABA therapist. She looked forward to seeing her and was always excited when she came over. I also felt like I was learning valuable tools to add to our parenting toolkit. However, we kept running into one central challenge: my daughter is a high masker and often held everything together during therapy. After evaluating the number of therapies we were juggling and which ones were truly benefiting our family, we decided to stop ABA. I’m not recommending this for everyone—ABA and BCBAs can play an important role for many children. But for our family, it was no longer the right fit at that time. Once we simplified our therapy schedule, I started looking for ways to make the time we were already spending in the car feel more intentional instead of stressful.

Incorporate Learning Into Your Drive

Like me, you’re probably in the car a lot between therapies. For my daughter, cars bring sensory meltdowns to seat belts. But they also give us time where she’s genuinely bored. I use this boredom to our advantage, and incorporate low pressure learning into the drive. Here are a few low-pressure activities we keep in the car that encourage learning without adding stress.

1. Yoto Cards. We have geography (paid link), science (paid link) and history Yoto cards that my daughter and I love to utilize on our drives to and from therapies. I’ll pick a category for the day and she gets to choose which card we listen to. It gives me a win for some low pressure learning, and it gives her the control to pick what she wants to learn about.
2. Search and find books. My daughter never tires of these search and find books (paid link). She will sit and look at these for hours, which improves her focus and concentration.
3. Reading books
4. Blank notebooks. My daughter LOVES a good blank notebooks, stickers and a pen. This will keep her busy, and she gets to be creative and work on her own “art.” She will often use stickers and then draw images or write words around her sticker placement.
5. Kids activity books. We both love these sticker books. We have used both the animal habitats book (paid link) and the months of the year book (paid link). It’s easy to move the stickers around, and there’s even a coloring page for the kids too. It keeps my daughter entertained for a while and she always looks forward to these.

Schedule a Down Day (Or Two)

For my daughter’s regulation (and my own) I have to plan at least one day during the week where we have no obligations. I still plan for homeschool these days, but she needs a day where we physically don’t have to leave the house unless we walk to a playground or go on a walk. Typically, I plan that day for Monday. I know after a busy weekend of playing with Dad and seeing her best friend next door, she’s pretty tired Monday. I keep Monday low-pressure, and if she’s having too hard of a day I know we have the tools in place to help her regulate and get through Monday.

Our Weekly Plan

In the end, everyone’s schedule will be different. The best schedule is the one that works for your family. For us, learning is best kept to 10-20 minute increments, throughout the day. Here’s what works for us.

I use Monday as our “home” day where we just focus on learning and regulation without having an external obligation for the day.

Tuesday is our speech day, so I intentionally keep academics short. A quick art lesson and handwriting practice let us build consistency without asking too much after therapy.

Wednesday is one of our longer days with co-op, so we just do 15 minutes of math and 5 minutes of handwriting when we get home. If she’s too tired, I allow her to skip for the day, knowing she practiced a lot of core academics and fine motor skills at co-op. On the way to co-op in the morning, we utilize Yoto science in the car.

Thursday is another busy day with both speech and nature class, split up with plenty of time in the car. Before we leave for speech we knock out our math for the day, and then on our drives we use Yoto history cards for more low pressure learning.

Friday is a loaded day. We focus on math, phonics/reading, and social studies. After we get the learning complete, we have some fun with a friend at the pool. We have a fantastic indoor pool nearby so this continues through the winter months (and counts as PT!)

Every family’s schedule will look different, and that’s okay. The goal isn’t to check every homeschool box—it’s to create a rhythm where your child can learn while feeling safe, regulated, and supported. When we stopped trying to do everything, we found that our homeschool days became calmer, happier, and ultimately more productive.