Episode #29:

Tricky Transitions

I’m sitting in my office at 6:30 at night and my phone lights up with a text from my husband

“When will you be home?”

“Leaving now!” I reply

But I don’t. I spend the next few minutes finishing up some emails, straightening the playroom and just putzing around.

Because transitions are tricky from me. Even if I’m headed to somewhere fun, it’s hard for me to leave what I’m doing and gather the energy to move to something new.

And I’m a grown up with years of transition experience under my belt.

So imagine how hard transitions feel for kids.

Anytime we’re asking them to move from one activity to another (“stop playing and come to dinner” or “head upstairs to brush your teeth”) a whole host of things need to happen in their brain and body to turn their boat in a new direction.

Transition struggles are the biggest complaint I hear from families I support. It is incredibly frustrating when you have to yell “Get your shoes on!!” 600 times before your kid hops to it.

But there are some ways to make transitions easier (or at least slightly less painful).

On today’s “Good Enough Parenting” podcast, I share tips and tricks for getting your kid moving BEFORE you start throwing things at them. The key is to honor the transition itself, not just focus on the before/after activities.

I also share how to honor the bigger life transitions – like moving or heading to a new school – to help ease the passage from one phase to the next.  

This might be advice I could use myself when I’m stuck on my couch in a youtube rabbit hole when what I really want to be doing is going to sleep. But at least I made it home from the office! And today that’s good enough.