“My toddler won’t stop watching Bluey and come to the dinner table.”
“My kid won’t get into the car to go to daycare without a huge meltdown.”
Every week I have clients seeking support to help their neurodivergent kids transition throughout the day. Sometimes it’s to get them ready in the morning, sometimes it’s to leave an activity to go to another. The common emotion they experience is frustration and helplessness in identifying what strategies work for their neurodivergent kid. I have compiled a list of seven of the reasons why some neurodivergent kids struggle with transitions along with some quick tips.
1. Auditory processing disorders
Neurodivergent kids can have an auditory processing disorder and as a result may struggle to hear your instructions especially in loud environments, or ones with competing noise. Kids with auditory processing challenges can also struggle with discriminating certain words (e.g. confusing “up” with “at”), recalling instructions, or have issues with sequencing of the task. As a result, you should try to reduce background noise (e.g. tv, or dryer) and also allow for a 3-5 second delay before expecting your kid to respond to the instruction.
2. Hyperfocused in task
Kids with ADHD, or Autism Spectrum Disorder often struggle with leaving a highly preferred activity, such as Legos, to engage in a less preferred activity. For those with ADHD, a dopamine deficiency may be the reason that task switching is so hard for them. A strategy for success would be blocking the activity they’re engaged in before providing the instruction, or to gamify the next request. For example, have them pick up their clothes by “shooting hoops” and throwing them into the laundry basket instead of simply placing them in it. The goal is to make to next task more reinforcing than the first.
3. Overstimulation
Your neurodivergent child may not transition simply because they are highly sensitive and overstimulated in their environment (e.g. at a birthday party). Their nervous system may be in fight or flight and they cannot take in anymore information which includes auditory instructions. For these kids you will need to know their sensory threshold- which is essentially the amount of information they can take in through their senses before they react through meltdowns. This will help you decide when these kids need breaks which will subsequently help you during your next transition.
4. Can’t read the non-verbal cues of environment
If you see your neurodivergent kid with their head in the cloud during a group transition, they may not be reading the non-verbal social cues of their environment, such as seeing the kids walking to line up after recess and imitating them. You can help them build emotional intelligence (aka EQ) for these situations by reading picture books and asking them questions about what they think the characters are feeling based off what they see on the page.
For example, “What happened to Daniel Tiger in the picture?” Why do you think he was crying?”
This helps also expands their theory of mind which is the ability to understand that other people have different states, thoughts, and beliefs from their own. This skill is crucial for empathy.
5. Next location is aversive
Neurodivergent kids may not transition because the next location is not fun, or is scary to them, such as starting school. You may see this more often with slow-to-warm-up temperaments, or anxious kids. You can support them through visual supports, such as weekly schedules, or by priming them in advance through video modeling. Video modeling is essentially a way to teach a kid a new skill by watching someone else do it first.
6. Want more control of their day
Your strong-willed child may simply be ignoring you due to wanting more control and autonomy over their day. You can support them by giving them more choices throughout their day and validating their emotions (e.g. “I know you wanted to stay at the park longer with Emme and feel sad. We will see Emme tomorrow too”).
Another type of avoidance of transitions would be pathological demand avoidance (PDA) which neurodivergent kids avoid the demands because they are simply demands. For these kids there’s an ‘irrational quality’ to the avoidance and the demand is avoided depending on their capacity for it at the time.
7. No/inconsistent parental follow through
The last reason a neurodivergent kid may not transition is simply because their parent doesn’t follow through and they get out of the task by minute-by-minute procrastination. Try to be consistent when there is a transition and be prepared to turn off the tv if they are unable to follow through independently. The more consistent you are, the less likely they will try to delay following the instruction.
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