I was just talking to a parent about establishing routines in the evening hours with her toddler and remembered the “Family Routine Guide”. It is a wonderfully pragmatic tool to look up great interventions for common issues that come up for families with toddlers.

This Family Routine Guide was developed by Rochelle Lentini and Lise Fox to assist parents and caregivers in developing a plan to support young children who are using challenging behavior. Children engage in challenging behavior for a variety of reasons, but all children use challenging behavior to communicate messages. Challenging behavior, typically, communicates a need to escape or avoid a person/activity or communicates a desire to obtain someone/something. Once parents understand the purpose or meaning of the behavior, they can begin to select strategies to change the behavior. They can do this by selecting prevention strategies, teaching new skills, and changing the way they respond in an effort to eliminate or minimize the challenging behavior.

Family Routine Guide English

Guía de rutinas familiares (Spanish version)