Transitions

[Anonymous]

Any thoughts on how to help a 9yo who struggles with transitions ? And any common cause for this ? My dd has always struggled with transitions but it doesn't manifest at school. At home if she has let's say a class on Saturday which at one point she wanted to do then decides she doesn't like it and just wants to stay home. She'll throw a tantrum of shouting, pouting, stomping feet.

[Anonymous]

Op here - forgot to add, I already give her lots of advanced notice and warnings. I also empathize and verbalize how she might be feeling. Nothing works !

[Anonymous]

Behavioral therapy or ABA.

Lots of things can cause this. Not all are diagnosable.

[Anonymous]

My DD8 has done this for years (since 3). She has anxiety so it was usually before an activity.

[Anonymous]

My DS is a terrible transitioner.

A few thoughts. 1) for us, cuing does help. It may not be enough, but it really helps. In addition to verbal notice, I ask him to repeat back and when we are a few minutes away, I change the lighting as another cue.

2) anything that can become a routine is no longer a transition. this means school holidays used to be absolute hell, because he'd go from being escstatic that we weren't going to school to sobbing and screaming when we had to leave the house to go shopping or even to go on a playdate. I have learned from this to try to keep playdates/errands parallel to school schedule so that even though it'd be nice to "sleep in" or "take a break," it's actually better for all of us to keep the routine in place and get out the door smoothly.

3) sometimes life is unexpected. we have emergencies. activities get cancelled. we run out of something we need. I try to talk with him about the fact that not all things in life are in our control, like the weather. This means we need to have some flexibility and some ability to cope with these unscheduled and often unwelcome changes. I figure eventually the cognitive part of his brain will kick in (I hope!!!).