Do

Practical Strategies

• Give choices – Help your child feel as if they’ve successfully exerted control and independence (important developmental needs). By involving your child in the decision-making, they’ll feel committed to the process (vs. forced to go along with what a grown-up has told them to do). For example:
  • Getting dressed –> Offer two clothing choices.
  • Taking a bath –> Offer having it before or after dinner.
  • Breakfast –> Involve your child in deciding what to eat for breakfast and prepping it the night before.
• Countdown *and* continue the activity later – Alert your child to a set amount of time before the transition starts and then countdown – typically no more than 5 minutes. Beyond 5 minutes, it is too long for a young child to plan out. For example, signal a warning at 5 minutes…2 minutes…then clean up begins. *And* save time for the activity to continue later. For example:
  • “I see you’re so busy on your drawing. It’s time to get dressed for school. Would you like to save 5 minutes to keep working after you’re dressed?”
  • Routine charts are helpful for visual learners.
• Give advance notice – For many children, knowing what’s going to happen ahead of time so that they can self-regulate leading up to the transition is helpful.
  • Set a timer your child can actively reference without your help.
• Sing! – Use a song to indicate a transition is coming, or sing through a transition; a simple and effective signal without feeling like a grown-up is talking “at” a child.
  • Songs make everything fun: clean-up songs, diapering songs, bath time songs, putting-on-shoes songs. Make it up! The songs don’t have to be specific (or real); just a song that happens every time you do the activity. For example:
    • “We’re going on a bear hunt” as you go down the stairs to leave the house is a fun way to hustle.
• Play a game as you move through the transition – Our favorite ideas:
  • Clean-up
    • Pretend everything is a jewel that needs to be hidden away from the dragon who’s coming to take it!
    • Mystery object game – There is one toy that is the mystery item. Whoever cleans it up gets to choose…(insert something awesome – what playground to go to today, what’s for dessert, which book for story time, etc.).
  • Get ready for the day / get dressed
    • A pretend officer (the grown-up) gives a series of “commands”. Once completed, the cadet (child) responds, “Mission accomplished!” For children who struggle with multi-step directions, breaking down jobs is incredibly helpful.
  • Get out of the house / into the car
    • The volcano is about to erupt and the car is the “safe zone” so you can drive away from the lava. You have to move as quickly as possible to escape the lava!
    • You are explorers on a new planet. Put on your astronaut suit, helmet, boots. Eat your astronaut food to fuel up. Grab your jet pack (backpack) and get ready to depart! Get the keys, start the rocket ship, have your child call, “Mission control – reporting for duty and ready for take-off!” Fly to the car and depart.
• Prep in advance – Although this requires more upfront planning, it builds in buffer time for those inevitably challenging days. For example:
  • Clothes
    • Ask your child to choose their clothes the night before and have them ready. In the morning, a simple reminder may suffice, “It’s time to get dressed; remember the clothes you picked?”
    • Have a bin of accessible weather-appropriate clothes your child can independently choose from (a popular Montessori method that builds independence).
  • Meals
    • Older children can pour cereal in a bowl and a cup of milk to be kept in the fridge overnight, and get their own breakfast the next morning – an age-appropriate chore for kids as young as four.
    • Use a crockpot or slow cooker, make muffins, etc. to prepare meals in advance.
  • Backpack
    • Create routine jobs with your child, like: cleaning-out their backpack daily as soon as they get home (emptying out lunch box, removing paper scraps, etc.); washing their water bottle, refilling it and and putting it back in their backpacks ready for the morning, etc.

What to Do When Your Child Doesn’t Go Along with the Plan

• You’ve finished your countdown and your child is still not done. Hold your boundaries and follow-through: “OK, our 2 minutes is done. It’s time to put the toy away.” (Child doesn’t put the toy away) “OK, I’m going to help you put it away now.”
• More often than not, a child will go along with the plan at that point.
• And true, it doesn’t work for all transitions (e.g., you can’t make a child eat), more power struggles could happen and public tantrums are especially tricky. But it’s important for grown-ups to follow-through on boundaries. Our responses teach lessons. For example, if you give in one time, it’s likely that your child will repeat the same behavior the next time they want something.

Helpful Tip

If you read the above and thought, “Too much! Playing a game with my stalling child sounds like a nightmare”, or “My child just doesn’t listen to me”, fear not. Reframe things as a 2-for-1 about building a positive connection *and* getting things done. For example, singing a song to signal teeth brushing or playing a game to hustle out the door can: 1) Start the day for both of you on a positive point of connection; and 2) Get your child moving quickly. Remember the ratio goal?

Stay Connected to Your Child

Easier said than done, but staying connected to your child during difficult transitions can have a tremendous impact. This may mean derailing from your plan, and taking a few minutes to read together, sing songs, joining in the activity that they feel is so important at that moment. For example:

• “I can see that you’re not ready to stop building your spaceship. How about I join you for 5 minutes to build a launchpad, and then we clean-up so we don’t keep all our friends waiting at swim class?”

Derailing from your game plan may not be ideal, but the pay-off may be worth it (meltdowns can be harder and longer to recover from than an initial point of connection).