Dad is away
When dad goes away, more changes than who says goodnight. Mornings, drop-offs and evenings look different, and the pictures below help your child see that he is away for a while but will come home again.
♂Dad is travelling
A smiling man waves next to a red suitcase, with an arrow pointing away.
♂Dad is not home
A man holding keys waves by a door, and the whole picture is crossed out with a red X.
About this visual support
Absence is hard to understand when it cannot be seen. A child who is told dad will be away for three days rarely has a feel for how long three days are, and the question comes back at breakfast, at drop-off and at bedtime. It is not that your child was not listening. It is that the news has no shape to look at. The worry needs something concrete to hold on to.
The pictures show a dad waving next to a suitcase with an arrow pointing away, and a picture where the dad at the door is crossed out as a sign that he is not home. Put them in a calendar or a row of days, and let the last day show a picture of him coming back. Then the trip becomes something that starts, goes on and ends, instead of something that simply is.
A practical tip is to let your child remove or turn over one picture for each day that has passed, so the countdown can be seen and felt. Decide too who does the things dad usually does, such as the bedtime story, and show that with a picture. In Routined you can plan weeks with a parent away using pictures in your child's schedule, and the app can be tried for 14 days at no cost.
Use this image in a schedule
Build your own visual schedule with this image and download it as a print-ready PDF. Completely free.
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Take the visual supports with you
In Routined you build schedules from these pictures, add timers and voice instructions, and your child follows the day on their own.
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