Take a walk

#walk#exercise#movement#outdoors#leisure

It is not the walk itself that is hard, it is leaving something fun and putting shoes on without a clear reward at the other end. The pictures below give the transition steps you can actually see.

A man walking outside.

Take a walk

A man walking outside.

A cartoon image of a woman walking with a happy expression.

A woman walking

A cartoon image of a woman walking with a happy expression.

A woman with a ponytail strides forward in a blue t-shirt and dark trousers.

Woman out walking

A woman with a ponytail strides forward in a blue t-shirt and dark trousers.

About this visual support

A walk is one of those activities where the doing is usually pleasant but the starting is a wall. There is no goal, no instant reward, just the body being asked to stop doing what it already enjoys and head for the door. Transitions without a clear purpose are some of the most resisted moments in a child’s day.

Visual support gives the missing reward a shape you can look at. When the sequence shows leave toy, shoes on, jacket, out, and a concrete thing to spot on the way, like a particular garden or a lamppost the child likes to count, the brain finds something to aim at. Toddlers in language development and older children working on transitions both benefit.

A specific tip: agree on a tiny mission before you leave, for example finding three red things or picking up a stone that fits the pocket. The mission pulls focus away from what was left behind and forward into the walk. In Routined the walk can sit as a short sequence with a start, a midpoint and a return home, so getting going stops being the entire mountain.

This image is part of these ready-made schedules

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Build your own visual schedule with this image and download it as a print-ready PDF. Completely free.

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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