The Square Peg’s summer holiday 2020 – Part 1.

The 2020 school summer holiday is certainly a different one! So how do you keep an autistic child entertained when they’ve been in lockdown since March?

I don’t claim to have all the answers but I can show you what we’ve been up to.

As you know, we are a family who love the great outdoors and I strongly believe that autistic children benefit hugely from these experiences.

You can read my post about why you should take your autistic child to the beach here.

It has been a significantly stressful time for all of us during this global pandemic. My husband and I both being key workers and trying to home school at the same time.

With me being a school teacher and having the same holidays as the kids the responsibility of child entertainment falls to me.

The first day of the holidays is always a strange one for us. Everyone is tired and cranky so we just stay at home and rest.

After the first day, Mummy is itching to get OUT!

So we decided to head out to Princetown in Dartmoor and walk up to Little Mis Tor whilst Daddy and Matthew went on an epic cycling adventure.

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Edward loves exploring Dartmoor, from finding random bits of grass that he likes to pretend are spaceships, to finding a big ditch that could have been caused by a meteorite. I just love his imagination.

We have also had the chance to review some really lovely clothing suitable for autistic children and adults with sensory issues. You can check out our review of Born Anxious clothing here.

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Geocaching is also something I’ve discovered only recently. Geocaching is using a phone app to locate some containers that you can write in and log that you’ve found. There is a lot more to it than just that but that will be a post for another time.

Edward liked to pretend that he was playing Blue’s Clues and kept singing the theme tune!

Mothecombe is our nearest beach so we have been there quite a few times recently. It costs £5 to park but the beach makes it worth every penny. Each time we visit the beach, Edward does more things. Years ago he refused to even put his feet on the sand, he would run off and would certainly not go near the sea, but now he is more than happy to play with sand and run in and out of the sea.

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We also went on an amazing coastal walk. A full 10K that Edward walked the whole way. Planned the route before we went. We stopped for a drink outside at The Ship Inn in the stunning village of Noss Mayo on the River Yealm.

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That was all in the first week of the summer holidays. Now I have paid for Edward to go into the holiday club that his school runs. Part of me feels slightly guilty for putting him in everyday for two weeks but the rest of me knows that I need to some respite and Edward will have some sort of normality before he goes back to school in September.

I plan to take the boys outside as much as possible, even if its just for a half hour walk.

How are you spending the 2020 summer holidays amidst the global pandemic? Same as usual? Completely different? Let me know in the comments below.