Earlier this year, I delivered the workshop All Things Waking Up in the Morning to the parents and carers of Little Hiccups. We explored why mornings can feel so challenging for many disabled and neurodivergent young people and how we can better support them.
As part of that workshop, attendees received a handout to support their reflections and support ideas. I’ve had several people ask if it could be made available afterwards, so I’m pleased to share it here.
The downloadable handout is available to paid subscribers. To access all downloadable resources and webinars, subscriptions are £5/moth or £50/year.
For many families, the morning can feel like the most challenging part of the day. We decided to create the All Things Waking Up in the Morning workshop after hearing the same experiences shared repeatedly by parents and carers. While every family and young person is different, many families described similar struggles.
Some of the most commonly reported challenges included:
Difficulty waking or getting out of bed
Emotional dysregulation shortly after waking
Difficulty with getting ready for the day
Running late, leading to stress and tension across the whole family
These experiences are often misunderstood as a lack of motivation or poor behaviour. In reality, there can be many interconnected factors influencing mornings, including sleep quality, nervous system regulation, sensory processing, executive functioning, anxiety, healthcare conditions, interoception and the demands that lie ahead.
Rather than looking for a single cause or a quick fix, our workshop explored how understanding these underlying influences can help us create mornings that feel more supportive and compassionate for everyone involved.
Image from Canva by pixelshot
You may also be interested in some of my other sleep blogs ‘Protecting Relationships When Sleep is Hard for PDAers’ and ‘Why Waking Up in the Morning Is Hard (It’s Hormones, Not Behaviour) and ’Webinar Recording and Write Up: What can we do about sleep difficulties when home doesn’t feel safe?
Use the downloadable resource below to map your morning routine, identify patterns and explore supports.