As parents, we often find ourselves reacting to phases and stages and things that our children go through—but sometimes, we can actually prepare ourselves and our children in advance for transitions and life changes that are coming up on the horizons.
Things like changing schools or a move might come to mind, but there are other transitions that can be traumatic as well. Moving into a new class, starting a new activity, learning to drive, searching for a college, getting ready to move out, going off to summer camp—you can see how there are so many changes and events that happen for our children that we can actually help them prepare for—instead of just dealing with them when the reality comes upon us. Of course, different children will respond to preparations differently and while some may be perfectly fine to wait until the last minute to face the inevitable, others will respond well to being able to talk things through and plan a bit for life changes.
Depending on the age of the child and his or her temperament, having conversations and talking things through can be helpful. Extremely young children may respond to being able to pretend or play about things that will happen. When my eldest daughter was six years old, she had to have her tonsils and adenoids taken out and while we talked about what would happen in detail, we also “played” at going to the hospital and let her pretend what it was like to be a patient and to be the doctor doing the operation on her stuffed animals as well. All of this “play-acting” helped to get her geared up for the process and while she didn’t have a great time, she didn’t panic and was able to work through the experience.
Helping our children prepare for transitions and changes means that we as parents have to deal with them too. Some of us prefer to procrastinate or NOT face things until we absolutely have to so it can take some practice and effort to learn how to deal with things in advance so that we can help our children process transitions as well.
Also: Learning About Cause and Effect