Celebrate Midsummer
Lots of people, dancing around the pole and songs with moves nobody taught your child first. Midsummer is fun but follows no usual order. The steps below show the day in advance, so your child can join in without losing their footing.
♂Flower crown
A smiling boy holding a midsummer flower crown above his head with a rising sun behind him.
♂Maypole celebration
A laughing boy beside a decorated maypole, holding a flower wreath with confetti around him.
♂Dancing by the maypole
A boy dancing beside a maypole on the grass, holding up a flower garland in the sunshine.
About this visual support
The party starts long before the pole goes up. Relatives and neighbours your child rarely sees turn up, someone hands out flowers for crowns, and suddenly everyone is holding hands and dancing in a ring to a song about a frog. For a child who likes knowing what's coming, that's a lot of new at once.
This is where visual support helps: the day becomes a row of pictures in advance instead of one surprise after another. Pick flowers, make a crown, eat herring, dance round the pole, hunt for strawberries. Once your child has seen the order, each new thing is a point on a list rather than yet another thing with no end.
A tip just for Midsummer: run through the dance games at home the evening before using the pictures, so the moves to the frog song aren't completely unknown while everyone else already knows them.
Download free pictures here and put together your own Midsummer day in the Routined app, so your child can follow it in their pocket through the whole celebration.