TBRI Tip #5: Transitions
When is your child’s most difficult behavior? It could be during routine transitions from one thing to another, yet you may not notice it as this. Daily transitions include doing things such as getting out of bed to getting dressed, going from school to home and stopping playing video games to doing homework. We all do many transitions throughout the day but for kids with trauma or from hard places as Dr Purvis co-founder of TBRI prefers to call them, transitioning from one place or thing to another can be one of the hardest things they need to do. This is because the underdeveloped prefrontal cortex of their brain doesn’t give them the capacity to shift easily from task to task. They literally lack the hardware to do this with the same smooth ease that other kids without trauma have.
How can you begin to recognize melt downs and behavior as being caused by their inability to cognitively shift during a transition? TBRI Empowering Principles give us a way to track behaviors and what the child was doing right before, to begin to notice when (ie during transition times) a behavior occurs by using a Behavior Diary. You can make your own 3-column Behavior Diary. On the left side is where you mark down what you Child’s Behavior was, in the middle, log the Time & Date and in the right column write down the Circumstances, that is what was happening. Over time you’ll see a pattern emerge of what transitions cause behavior problems and you can begin to be proactive during transitions to prevent those problems. This 3-column Behavior Diary can also help you identify other circumstances that routinely cause behaviors, such as not eating or drinking water within the last two hours. The key to helping your child is to be proactive.
Teach and Apply Transitions
Being proactive means before, during or after the transition time, you implement tools to help your child get through it differently. They can be taught and done ritually so that your child knows what to expect as well as their nervous system and brain are able to make the shift more easily. Here are 5 tools to ease through a transition:
1. Transition warnings before – remind the child, 10 minutes before it’s time to quit and go …, 5 minutes until…3 minutes…1 minute. Try to do it in a playful way that lets your child know you are in it with them.
2. Transition activity before - talk about what’s going to happen or what a situation might be like, to help them feel more prepared.
3. Calming Transition – do some simple bilateral arm movements to ease a ramped up nervous system, such as when going from outside playing to doing homework. Keep in mind that for some kids a ramped up, dysregulated nervous system has trouble differentiating from fear and active play, so it can be difficult to calm down as their bodies are in more of a fight or flight mode and need help regulating.
4. Transition cards – create 3x5 notecards that contain the day’s activities (TBRI Tip #4) to have a visual predictable way to see the day to make transitions easier.
5. Other tools parents have created specifically for their child’s transition issues are wonderful, so be responsive to your child’s needs and create your own!
TBRI Empowering Principle gives a way for you to facilitate the transition with these 4 guidelines:
· Attention-make sure your child is paying attention to you when you give a transition warning by warmly getting their eye contact. This is especially true if they are doing a consuming activity such as video games and may not actually even hear you. Then by the time it’s time to transition, you’re ready to go, but they have no idea. Take the time to get their attention with eye contact and acknowledgement of your request.
· Mention-let your child know what it is that’s happening next with a transition warning and get acknowledgement of your request.
· Distract-get them doing the next thing by talking about how fun that activity was or is going to be and start moving them to the next activity or by talking about anything. Give them ‘early’ praise for moving on such as, “great job stopping the video game to do your school work”. Saying it early in the transition catches them off guard and they will stumble into doing it.
· Act-do the next activity.
Help them do the transition-don’t just expect them to do it, that is co-regulate with them in their transition. Transitions are one of the most difficult areas for kids from hard places to do and your child will need lots of support in moving from one activity to another and staying regulated. Free yourself from having the same meltdowns or behaviors and learn your child’s patterns and be proactive! For further, in-depth information go to www.child.tcu.edu.