Hi everyone hope you're okay so today we're going to talk about transitions . For those who dont know Transitions can be : School moves or changes , someone moving,moving houses or cities , becoming potty trained , going college, separation , divorce , new boyfriend or girlfriend, someone moving in the house, new sibling, finding out there's a new sibling , finding out their adopted, someone close to them passing away . I hope I covered all the transitions but anyway , the important thing is to GIVE YOUR CHILD A HEADS UP . The reason for this is when a transition is happening and sometimes even before,changes of routine children are quite intuitive, and they sense it and they often times play up - they suddenly misbehave ,because they can't pinpoint how they are feeling and they are just communicating their inner chaos through behaviour - Let me make you think of your own examples and I know they'll pop up to your head as I am speaking. If you're not a parent you will think about a time you as a child , could sense something was off , and no one was telling you , and you were about to go through a transition . If you are a parent -Just think about a time when , your child went through one of those transitions perhaps you were moving houses and even before you started packing your child , started playing up and you were unsure as to how did this behaviour came about? Glad you remembered ... I mean I hope you did .. Anyway when those Transitions do happen there's a few things to keep in mind - and tell your child Explain to your child what is happening and how this will affect their day-to-day routine - Honestly this bit is the TOP1 ONE because as soon as they understand the situation they start adapting their behaviour to it This is also a HUGE opportunity for you to talk about Expectations to your child ,tell them what you Want them to do , Example: because of this transition changes are going to happen and mummy needs you to do extra good listening I know it's a new routine but that is what I need you to do . Or literally any kind of behaviour expectation you have The next thing is ... Give them a time-frame to explain to your child how long this will affect them for , for example if it's a relative living in your house for a week , then you'd say for a week this is what is happening , tell them about it talk about expectations. If it's a school move then that would be A WHOLE different approach because the time frame is more about the countdown of how long their lives are about to change. - so the conversation would be in 1 month time you will be going to big children's school and that would mean that and then you'd talk about the expectation - it will feel a bit different at first but I need you to be confident because you will make friends and things are going to be amazing - try to be very positive with them , even though you might feel anxious yourself , to be honest transition to school is a topic for a podcast on its own to be honest -- but just understand the approach would be different. The next one is - Use resources , depending on your child's age use different resources - So depending on what transition they go through , try to find books , movies , videos about them and if age appropriate use them as talking points to say , the girl in the video is also , idk for example changing school look she was scared and now she's fine it will be similar to you - You can also find someone that's gone through the same transition as them ,so your child can have that open conversation and know their not alone, this is quite helpful to be honest - Ask them How do you feel - Welcome any feelings to be raised even negative ones , allow it to be a safe zone for them to express themselves , because change as an adult is so hard , let alone for children - so asking them to talk about it is quite useful .