Tips For Successful Transitions From One Activity To The Next!

Does your child struggle to transition away from activities? This blog will provide you with some tips and strategies to assist your child with more positive and successful transitions.

1. Provide Clear, Simple Directions In order for your child to truly understand the directions, try to keep your directions clear and simple. For example, "First, clean up trucks then shoes on". Simple and clear direction allows your child to more clearly, quickly, and effectively process what you want them to do.
   

2. Give Warnings Provide your child with ample warnings that the activity will be coming to a close and a transition is about to occur. For example, "In two minutes, we clean up trucks" or "when the timer beeps, we will clean up the toys". You can repeat yourself multiple times until the transition happens. This tends to help reduce meltdowns since the child is given chances to cope and process that the activity ending.
   

3. Make the Transition Fun! Try making the transition experience fun and interactive for the kiddo. For example, you can sing the directions, dino stomp to transition away from the task, sing the "clean up" song, hop like a bunny to put the toys away etc.
   

4. Play to their Strengths Begin to understand what type of learner your child is. For example, some children may respond best to a visual schedule or even visually showing the child the activity that comes next. Some children may respond best to verbal directions and/or countdowns given to them to most efficiently process the transition.
   

5. Use Rewards If needed, use rewards as a strategy for successful transitions. Some children respond well to working towards something they would like to earn. Based on your personal preference, the item they are working towards can either be tangible or non-tangible. For example, if a child has 3 successful transitions, they can earn a small toy from a prize box or even a pizza party etc.
   

6. Praise! If the praise is completed successfully, remember to praise your child for their cooperation and hard work! This will lead to more independent transitions in the future. DISCLAIMER: The content in this blog should not be used in place of medical advice/treatment and is solely for informational purposes. All activities/exercises posted in this blog should be performed with adult supervision, caution, and at your own risk. Big Leaps, LLC is not responsible for any injury while performing an activity/exercise that has been posted on this blog. If you have any information on the content of our blog, feel free to contact us at info@bigleapsct.com.