Hi Rachel (and Community:-)... I need help getting back on track with how to help my daughter with transitions. New school year, new school, new teacher and my dear middle child (who is now 6 and in 1st grade) is struggling again with transitions in the classroom, and still at home as well. The teacher is SUPER, and has a great open line of communication with me. But, I got a phone call today and the teacher said it got to the point that the teacher had to physically take the school laptop from my daughter and then my daughter swatted at the teacher's hand out of frustration/resistance. There have also been times where my daughter has just told her no and flat out refuses to transition to the next thing (and this is only the first month into the school year!). The transition piece is nothing new. Rachel, we have talked about this in the past from the moment I first started working with you. My daughter is still having issues transitioning and stopping what she is doing (both in the classroom and at home) to take care of bathroom issues as well. I have a doctor's appt schedule to triple check to make sure everything is physically okay... but now there are talks about possibly having her tested for ADHD mentioned by the teacher?? I don't know if my daughter is just stubborn and doesn't want to transition out of what is really fun (the computer in the classroom or laying on the carpet, for example) to a not so fun task (cleaning up or lining up of the next thing). I thought we would have outgrown a lot of this by now, but it isn't happening and only seems to be getting worse. I want to be able to help my daughter and the teacher is pretty open to doing anything that will help the situation. Thanks for your advice Rachel.
@chaoscoordinator I'm sorry you're still going through this...
I actually don't think it's a bad idea to have her tested. I'm NOT saying that she has ADHD or that anything is necessarily wrong, but I do think it's helpful to rule things out. And I will say that the ability to transition from one task to another is an executive functioning skill, and if she doesn't have these skills, it would explain a lot about her behavior.
This also leads to your point about whether she's "just being stubborn." Of course that's something we all think about! But usually when kids are still doing the same behavior despite all of the consequences they've faced in the past and all of the traditional interventions, they're not being "stubborn"... they're struggling with some skill. Just like we wouldn't call a child who was hard of hearing "stubborn" for not listening, we wouldn't call a child whose brain struggles to transition "stubborn" for not transitioning effectively. I know you already do this, but the goal is to HELP her with this rather than seeing her behavior as something negative, which will only put you on opposite teams.
In the meantime, I know you want to help the teacher. You can start by letting the teacher know that when a student is engaged in something, she needs help either a.) finding closure or b.) transitioning slowly from the place of engagement. It may help for the teacher to prompt her before she begins an activity to find an ending point. (As you know, giving her a 5 minute warning won't do anything.) She may also allow your daughter to write down her thoughts about one engaging activity before joining another. For example, if she is on the laptop, she can ask her to write down or draw (on paper) her 2 favorite things about the activity she was doing so that she can transition more slowly out of the activity instead of being "yanked," which is what caused the Yuck and negative behavior. (Note: being in Yuck is not an excuse for negative behavior. It is just a reason that needs to be addressed.) If you want to show her the transitions document, you're welcome to do that!
I hope this gives you a place to start. Let me know if there's anything else you need.