Hang jacket, tidy shoes

#jacket#shoes#hang#tidy#organize#clothes

The door opens and the tank is empty for the day. Two tasks are still waiting to be done: jacket up and shoes aside, before the body is allowed to sink into the sofa or arrive at the afternoon snack. The pictures below show them in order.

A boy hangs his jacket on a hook with his shoes on the floor.

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Hang jacket, put shoes away

A boy hangs his jacket on a hook with his shoes on the floor.

A girl is hanging a jacket on a hook and tidying up shoes.

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Hang jacket and tidy shoes

A girl is hanging a jacket on a hook and tidying up shoes.

A girl holds a jacket with shoes and clothes on a bench.

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Putting away jacket and shoes

A girl holds a jacket with shoes and clothes on a bench.

About this visual support

Coming home is a sharp threshold moment in everyday life. The day’s sensory load is still humming in the body, the stomach may already be shouting for a snack, and right then two separate tasks have to be completed just inside the door. The brain wants to move on inward to the safe zone of home, but the hallway insists that you stop right there, in the middle of taking off everything.

That is why two pictures usually work better than two reminders shouted from the kitchen. The first shows the jacket on its hook, the second shows the shoes placed by the wall. The sequence is concrete, short and ends in the same spot every day, which makes it easy to memorise. The child does not have to hold two memory items while still trying to land at home.

A tip for this two-step sequence: put a small mat or marker where the shoes belong, right next to the hook. The second step turns into a place to walk to, not a decision to make. Many children then manage the whole hallway without an adult prompt. In Routined you can build the homecoming as a short two-step routine and try it for fourteen days without paying.