The Trouble With Transitions: Why They Are So Hard For Some Kids And How To Help
My four-year-old was very hesitant when I signed her up for gymnastics class. After a few sessions, she started to join in and now she LOVES it. I can’t get her out of there when class is over. But every week, when it’s time to go back, she fights tooth and nail, insisting she doesn’t want to go. It’s like Groundhog’s Day. I just don’t get it.
This phenomenon is one that many parents I work with find confounding and frustrating, understandably. Where is the learning curve?
As I help parents do the detective work to figure out the root cause of why their kids react this way, in most cases the challenge is making the transition, not their feelings about the activity. Once the child is engaged in the experience, they love it—whether it is school, dance class, jujitsu, art, or going to the playground. As one mom reported just earlier today: “This weekend we told Bodie (5) that we were going to the playground to meet some friends. He melted down, screaming that he wasn’t going; that he hates the playground, and he hates the children we were meeting there. We held firm and got him there, which was really, really hard and uncomfortable. But within minutes he was having the best time playing with the child he had claimed to detest just minutes earlier."
Why are transitions so hard?
Transitions can be challenging for kids, especially those who are highly sensitive. Moving from one thing to another requires shifting their energy which is often intensely focused on something else (which might be just vegetating at home in their comfort zone.) The transition can be taxing and feel overwhelming, triggering them into discomfort, which overrides their memory about how much they love the activity they are going to.
This puts parents in a real quandary. It feels wrong to force a child to do something that isn’t a “have-to”, like brushing teeth or staying in bed at night. But over and over, parents report that their children are thriving in these activities that are edifying and have major benefits.
“This is exactly my 5 yo and it is SO hard not to feel guilty for making him go in those hard moments. But outside of those moments he begs and begs to do these activities!”
"Since Nellie (6) started jujitsu—where she is a superstar and has the best time—she has been much less aggressive at home. She is able to channel her energy in healthier ways. But it's a fight to get her there every single week. What gives??"
This is another one of those situations where what feels insensitive is loving. Taking a child kicking and screaming to an activity that is not a “have-to” feels mean and harsh, when in fact, it is loving. It’s helping your child move through discomfort in service of a much greater good. Missing out on these fortifying experiences is what would be harmful to the child.
What You Can Do
When it comes to helping parents address challenges with their child, whatever they may be, the intervention is always multi-dimensional.
One important component is talking to your child about their feelings, helping them reflect on their experiences, and brainstorming ways to cope and problem-solve. These conversations happen in quiet moments, not the heat-of-the-moment, when your child is regulated, not agitated.Their bodies and minds are calm and they are able to absorb the important information and messages you want to share. They are able to think more clearly and objectively. This may be during a car ride when they are a captive audience or when you are having a snack together. Cuddling at bedtime often works best—when your child is relaxed and also invested in keeping you present and so are often more open to talking.
Then there is what you do in the heat-of-the-moment when it's time for the limit to be set or transition to be made and your child is devolving into dysregulation. For most kids, especially big reactors, this is not the time to be going deep into processing feelings or to expect them to be able to be rational and respond to logic as this usually results in an increase in the child's agitation. Once a child is dysregulated, what I generally find most helpful is to make one empathetic, validating statement to show you truly understand, and then to provide the boundary they need to cope with whatever the challenge at hand is: leaving a store when they melt down over not getting a desired toy, taking the tablet away when they refuse to shut it down, carry them into the car to get them to school on time. (The articles listed at the end go deep into how to implement this approach.)
Here’s how this might apply to the “Groundhog’s Day” challenge:
Reflective discussion: In a quiet moment, you might say something like: "I was confused about why you got upset when it was time to go to gymnastics class because you love it so much when you're there. Then I realized that what's hard is moving from one thing to another. I totally get that. When it's time to move from home to an activity, the discomfort you feel takes over your brain and you're not remembering or thinking about how much you like gymnastics/school/swimming." (NOTE: If your child resists these kinds of reflective discussions, check out thisblog.)
Once you have tuned into them and shown you understand, and aren't trying to talk them out of their feelings, children are often open to brainstorming what might help them make the transition. Strategies that I find work best are those that engage the child’s attention in a positive way before the transition needs to be made. Some examples that have worked for families include:
Having a special audiobook that the child starts listening to before it’s time to make the transition, so they are engaged and focused on it when it’s time to get into the car. Then they continue listening in the car on the way to the activity.
Have your child choose a book to read together that you start before you leave for the activity. You read it halfway through, put a bookmark where you leave off, and finish it when you get back home. This also provides a nice bookend.
Transition time: When the time for the transition is approaching, give your child advance notice and see if they are open to using one of the tools you have brainstormed to ease making this change. If they are able to use a tool—awesome.
But keep in mind that even when you have had a great conversation with your child about making transitions easier—you've come up with some brilliant coping strategies and they seem all in—when it’s actually time to go to the activity, many children still fall apart. If that happens, remember—less is more. Resist the temptation to try to rationalize with your child at a time when they are in an irrational state; for example, reminding them of how much they love the activity you are heading to. For the kids I work with, this just serves as fodder for defiance—a common reaction to being told how to feel. They refute all of your efforts to convince them to be happy about the transition, to the tune of: “I HATE jujitsu! I don’t know why you signed me up!” (When, in fact, they love it once they are there.) Or, they make threats to thwart you from following through with the transition: “If you make me go, I am not going to listen to the teacher and will do nothing!”
Instead, show validation and have a plan for how you will help them move along: "I know it's hard to leave when you are so cozy at home. But it’s time to go to gymnastics. You can get into the car on your own or I will be a helper. Which option would you like for getting into the car?”
Once children see that you are not going to try to convince them to cooperate or to be happy about the plan, that you are clear that going to the activity is a “have-to”, not a negotiation, and, that you have a plan to move them along, they ultimately adapt.
Parents often harness the confidence to mete out a plan like this when they have a child who fights going to school many mornings. The child insists that they can’t or won’t go, and often make a host of negative claims about school—it’s boring, no one will play with them—that their parents sense are not true (and that they confirm with the teacher to be sure). But since school is a “have-to”, they know they can't make it a choice, so they don't get bogged down in negotiation. They have to muscle through and get their child to school, even when they are kicking and screaming. The silver lining is they also learn pretty quickly that once their child is settled in the classroom, they thrive. Recalling this helps them apply a similar approach to other activities that are healthy for their kids.
What about when you don’t feel comfortable physically moving your child to help them make the transition?
This is a situation many parents with children five/six years and older find themselves in, when their kids are too big to physically move. This poses great risk of a power struggle prevailing. Knowing they can’t make their child agree to get their bodies into the car or to walk safely to enter the activity, parents naturally default to trying anything they can to convince their child to cooperate. This opens up a big black hole that the child fills with every obfuscation imaginable to prevent the transition they are resisting from taking place.
The approach I find most helpful and effective in this scenario goes as follows:
“Nellie, going to jujitsu is a ‘have-to.’ We signed up for the class and it is our responsibility to go each week. I can’t and will not make you get into the car. Here are your two great choices: you can cooperate with the plan and get yourself safely into the car to get to jujitsu on time. That is your job. If you choose to do your job, it saves time that we can add to an “extra” later today. (The extra might be screen time, additional books or cuddle time at bedtime.) If you choose not to do your job—to get into the car on your own or with my help—every minute I need to wait is five minutes less of screen time (or some other “extra”/preferred activity). And, the 60 minutes that you would be in class is quiet time at home—there is no playing or screens as this time has been allotted for jujitsu. You decide which choice is better for you.”
I find that once parents stop trying to convince their child to cooperate (so the child isn't getting any power or reinforcement from a struggle) and impose a natural consequence that the child doesn’t like, it often leads to their making the healthy decision to go to the activity.
Related Resources
These blogs address how to deal with the multiple, mundane transitions kids have to make to go from one task to another, like from playing to getting ready for bed:
The Two Great Choices Approach to Parenting Without Power Struggles
Mastering The “Have-To”
Getting Children Through Daily Routines
When Limit-Setting Gets Physical