Time for Transitions

Sometimes children resist transition times.  To avoid power struggles, make transitions fun and interesting.  Sometimes children who will argue with you over a transition will happily comply when a puppet asks them to do something. Make your transitions imaginative; use the child’s love of pretend to make things interesting.  Pretend to be animals: walk like ducks or trot like horses.  “Let's be like Peter Rabbit and dig up some carrots to eat. Take them back to your tree.”

Use mood magic to signal a transition: change the lights and use calming or energizing music to set the tone you want.  Soon the music and lights will do the work for you, getting the children ready to make the changes more easily.

Be prepared so that the children don’t have to wait for the next activity any longer than necessary.  Involve the children in getting ready for the next activity.  Letting the children lay out newspaper for painting and tape it to the table can help you and can keep the children involved instead of just waiting.

Calming Cleanup

Cleanup time is often a tough time of day.  It helps to have a cleanup meeting.  Help children see what is out of place by talking about it before you get up and do the work.  Cleanup assignments can also help.  Teach children to break the job down into manageable parts.

When possible, let children save their creations for later.  When it is play time again, remind the children what they were doing: “You wanted to play under the blanket on the table after lunch so I left it up for you.  You can play now.”  Children will learn that cleaning up doesn’t mean the end of a great idea.  Even if they rarely go back to their play, they will be reassured that you will give them a chance to continue it later.

Transition Tips

• Help parent and child develop a good-bye ritual every morning. Watching Daddy go from the window and blowing a kiss good-bye could become the regular start to the day. 
  
  
• Give children plenty of play time.  They need time to develop their own play ideas.  If the play time is too short the children will not want it to end.
  
  
• Meals and snacks work best if you sit down with the children.  You can help children relax by relaxing yourself and speaking calmly.  Talk about what has happened in the morning, and what will be happening in the afternoon.  
  
  
• Surprises help avoid power struggles. Instead of struggling with a child over cleanup, say, “Let’s pretend we’re squirrels and we’re hiding these nuts in the toy basket.” You’ll have plenty of helpers for this job.
  
  
• As you move from lunch to rest time, change the mood by changing the lights and using the same soft music every day.  Children can clean up after themselves.  Let children pick books to take to their resting place as they finish eating.  To help children settle down, keep your voice low, move slowly, and darken the room. Make the end of rest time as calm as possible. Allow children to wake up slowly. 
  
  
• The end of the day can be hard.  Both you and the children are tired.  It can be hard for the children to see everyone else leaving.  Let children play quietly with puzzles or look at books during this time.
  
  
• Finish up by reviewing the day.  Write what children say about the day on a dry-erase board.  Leave it out for parents to read.  It can reassure parents that great things are happening every day and will give them ideas for talking to their child about the day.

Summary

Transition times in your child care day, such as moving from story time to lunch or from lunch to rest time, can be smoother and even fun with a little planning. Giving children plenty of play time, using lights and music to signal transitions, and letting children know what to expect are all ways to make transitions easier for you and the children in your care.

1. What is the toughest transition of the day for your child care? Why is this a hard time?
   
   
2. What three ideas can you use to make transition times better?
   
   
3. You and a child are about to get into a power struggle over cleaning up. What surprise can you use to keep the struggle from getting started?
   
   
4. Make up your own way of making a transition fun!  Describe it below.