Welcome back to our Seasonal Life Skills Series, where we have been taking a closer look at the way we can consider teaching, learning, or practicing life skills through a seasonal lens. 

In Part 1, we highlighted some of the ways that the season might impact the types of life skills we apply and how we might use them, and in Part 2, we explored life skills in the fall. 

In Part 3, we are taking a closer look at winter life skills, as winter can for many climates be one of the most impactful times of year on which life skills we use and how we apply them.

Winter can entail some of the most extreme weather of the year, in addition to major changes in the amount of daylight we get each day and a plethora of holidays that mark the end of the year. We will be going over some of the specifics of winter holidays in Part 4, but for now, let’s focus on life skills as they apply to the winter season in general.

Winter often represents a major shift in the way we do things, often because of environmental factors that become relevant mainly during the winter season. 

A classic example for many wintry climates is snow, which often doesn’t show up other times of year but can completely change the way we do things when there is a significant enough snowstorm. Snow can change the way we drive, how we are able to access community resources, what we choose to wear, and whether we even want to go outside! 

Snow also demands specific life skills, such as knowing how to shovel a driveway to avoid things melting and icing over, or knowing about specific maintenance steps like salting pavement or running a small amount of water to keep pipes from freezing. 

These daily living skills aren’t especially relevant unless the weather specifically calls for it, and for most of us, the time that is most likely to happen is in the winter.

Winter is a time when our days get shorter, and for some people, that makes little difference, while for others, that makes all the difference in the world. Even if we might not mind being up at night, we might still feel the impact on our schedule as the days feel shorter overall and like there is less time to be at our most productive. 

Some people might need to seek out sensory aids to ensure they can maintain a similar schedule, while others might need to adjust their schedule entirely to something more sustainable in the winter season.

Even those able to easily adjust to the changes associated with winter might notice that all the extra steps they need to take to be prepared during the time of year have a cumulative effect, and they simply cannot accomplish as much as they might another time of year. 

This can be especially true during the holidays (more on that in Part 4!), but it can happen throughout the winter in spaces where winter has a major impact on people’s lives. We can try to combat the cumulative slowdown by asking for help or trying new tools, and we can also acknowledge that sometimes we may simply be a little less productive in the winter and adjust our expectations or priorities to manage that reality. 

The important thing is that we acknowledge that it can or is happening and take steps to adjust rather than trying to keep the same pace in the face of obvious mitigating factors. Whether you are a teacher, self-advocate, or caregiver, you can work with your team of stakeholders on identifying the best available options based on your unique context!

We hope that this post has offered some starting points for a discussion on life skills during the winter. 

While every season impacts every person differently, we can learn about some of the ways that seasonal changes most commonly impact our needs and goals and how best to adjust based on our own individual context. 

If you’d like to share your own process for identifying season-specific life skills to work on, then we would love to hear from you! Just drop us a line at hello@autismgrownup.com, and we will see you in Part 4 to talk about winter holiday-specific life skills.