I spoke in my podcast last week about change, mostly focussing on adults and how we deal with change, or how we can help others to do so. I provided some Top Tips, and they got me thinking about children and the changes they face and how they cope with them. Of course, when we think about change for children, we are often considering the impact of transitions. There are the big obvious transitions, like moving from Primary to Secondary, but also the little ones, maybe just moving from one activity to the next, or from home to school. Transitions and change can be huge trigger points for many children, and how we anticipate and manage them can make a real difference. 

Change is stressful, transitions are scary. Our ability to cope with change is a really personal thing, it depends on things like whether our basic needs are met, our experience of previous change, how well supported we feel and the context around the change. Our ability to cope will alter dependent on how big we perceive the change to be, how much we are enjoying where we currently are and how we feel about what is coming next. I talked in the podcast about the importance of communication and guess what, this is just the same for children. As with anything I ever talk about, having a positive relationship with the child, and understanding what they need is imperative to communicating effectively about change. The more we can help them to understand what is happening, the more likely they are to be able to deal with it. 

Now some changes or transitions are easier because we know that they are coming. If a change is expected, we have an opportunity to prepare, plan and manage it. As we face the end of the school year, I am hoping that transition is a word that is on the tip of your tongue and a common theme in lots of the work you are doing with children in school. Obviously if the child is facing a school move, this is a much bigger transition, although even for those children just moving up a year the transition can still seem huge. As with adults facing change, children are instinctively thinking about what they are going to lose, and we have to ensure there is lots of discussion about moving forward and the positives that they will gain going forward. 

Clearly the pandemic and bubbles are not very conducive in planning transitions, however we can’t let this become a barrier to ensuring we capitalise on the opportunities we do have for planning and preparation. I am also conscious that bubbles appear to be bursting everywhere, which I am sure is causing lots of disruption to the best laid plans. We have to be mindful that if children are isolating, they are not forgotten, and that if they are missing discussions or activities around transition, they have the opportunity to access these virtually or at a later date. 

With all transitions we have to be guided by the child and how they perceive it. It may not seem like a big change to us; however, we can’t assume that this is the case for the child. If we consider a child on the autistic spectrum for example, we have to understand that the stress and anxiety around even the smallest of changes can be significant. We have to appreciate that this stress can become a behaviour trigger, whatever that looks like for each individual child. As I have talked about in previous blogs, this trigger could then lead to fight, flight or freeze, so we may see a child becoming aggressive, we may see a child refusing to do anything, we may see a child becoming really withdrawn and disengaged. If we can anticipate the change and plan for it, then we stand a chance of reducing the stress and thus reducing or even eliminating the resultant behaviours. 

So, when we are dealing with expected changes or transitions the key, as you may have guessed, is planning and preparation. How can we maintain some of the consistency, structure and routine that the child needs, whilst also facilitating a transition? We also need to consider how the child is feeling and what is behind those feelings. We need to use our emotion coaching techniques here to model how we might feel and then deal with the change. It’s a time for compassion and being curious. It may seem silly that a child really strongly reacts when you ask them to finish one activity to be ready for the next, however we have to consider how it felt for them, from their perspective. What if you were doing something that you really enjoyed, and that you were really engrossed in, so much so that you are not thinking about anything other than the activity you are doing? What if someone then told you to stop, without any warning? There are a number of ways you might respond, you might ignore them because you want to finish what you are doing, you might even say no I’m doing this, you might get angry because you have to stop, you are less likely to just calmly stop. This is why warning children that the time for their current activity is coming to an end is so important. 

There are some great and simple strategies for this. Depending on the age of the child, time reminders can be helpful, so just saying things like ‘In 5 minutes I am going to ask you to put your pens down’, or ‘You have 5 minutes to complete the paragraph you’re writing’. For younger children, you may need to focus less on time, however let them know what the expectation is. For some children their anxiety about the change is worrying that they haven’t finished what they are doing. It may be therefore really helpful for these children to hear ‘You have time to finish the sentence you’re writing and then we can come back to this piece of work tomorrow afternoon if you have not quite completed it’. Thinking about children who need more visual cues having a sand timer or an electronic timer on your whiteboard can be helpful. Tell them that they are coming to the end of the activity and if they look at the sand timer they can see how long is left. Visual cues are so useful for so many children. 

I love a visual timetable, and often we have them for individual children, or just for very young children. They actually work well for anyone who has a more visual learning style, or where language is more difficult, or where sequencing is a challenge. They can work well for all ages; older children could be supported to create their own that they keep in their planner for example. Whole class visual timetables are also a great idea – especially if it can be someone’s job to remove the activity that has just been completed – everyone can see what is happening Now, Next and Later. We all feel better when we are clear about when break will be or when we can eat lunch! A visual timetable can reduce anxiety and distraction, and it can also stop the child asking endlessly when its home time!

Visual cues are fabulous for planning larger transitions too. The loveliest example I ever saw was in a Special School where they were preparing a child to begin swimming lessons in a different location to where they were used to. This was causing huge anxiety, and staff were so keen to get her excited about it because swimming was an activity she adored. Staff used the strategy of Social Stories. They had compiled a book of photos which had been commenced weeks before the change was planned. They had started by putting in pictures of the journey and the new pool and then put little bits of information around the photos which answered the questions the child had asked. Over the weeks they then took pictures of the child experiencing the change, for example one of her ready to leave her school with her coat and swimming bag, one of her on the bus, one of her outside the building and so on. 

They were really small steps, and this was all they focused on each week. The child had seen the journey and then could see her making it. My favourite part was that they had then made a duplicate of the book, so the child had one at school and one at home. The child could use it to see that the change was possible, to ask any questions and to visualise herself making that change. By the time the child went swimming at the new pool it all felt really familiar to her. She was nervous however in an excited way, rather than a refusing to go, aggressive, meltdown type of way. It took time, planning and preparation, however by investing prior to the change, managing the change went smoothly, and actually other changes that occurred after this went more smoothly too. The child had learnt and understood that she would be supported through any change, and that she was capable of accepting change. With older children these types of strategies could move to visualisation techniques. Using NLP techniques such as anchoring for example could really help a child to deal with a change that they feel anxious about. Transitional objects are great too. So having a teddy that the child takes from home and that sits on the teacher’s desk in school, or the pen that a student ‘borrows’ from their form tutor that they have to return at the end of the day, or the book that the teacher lends the child to be returned after the Summer holidays. They help children know that someone is keeping them in mind.

So, that’s all lovely if you have lots of time to plan and prepare, but what do you do about unexpected changes, as these are the ones that really throw children, whether they are big or small. Yet we know in schools there are often disruptions, things that happen out of our control and that shifts to routine are sometimes unavoidable. Firstly, we still need to think about planning and preparation, this time not for a specific event, but preparing the child or young person for any change. One of the best things we can do here is role modelling and again using those Emotion Coaching techniques. As professionals we often hide our feelings and certainly, we manage them in front of the children we are working with. This is of course appropriate; however, the downside is that they are not seeing that we have these emotions too. Verbalising what is going on our head can therefore be really positive, ‘I had planned to do Maths first this morning, I have just heard we have assembly now. I was feeling a bit frustrated about that, and I’ve had to take a few deep breaths. I have thought about it and realised that I can make doing Maths after playtime work just as well though, so I’m okay now.’ Adding in these small anecdotes can help children see that feeling an emotional response to change is okay, we can model techniques that they could use, and then we are demonstrating that we can survive change, and that it can be a positive thing. 

We can coach children ahead. So, when a child has their learning brain engaged, we can talk them through how they feel about change, what strategies they use to cope with change, and introduce new things they could try. When unexpected change occurs, we can use these previous conversations to support them through it, ‘I know that change makes you feel unsettled and mad, I wonder if you are feeling like that now. What can you do to feel calmer? Remember we talked about counting backwards from 10 to help slow your breath.’ Transition routines can also be helpful, and if these are in place for planned transitions, they can also then be used for unexpected change. They are usually very simple and just something familiar that the child can hold on to, when other things feel disorientating, ‘Put pencil down, straighten shirt, take a breath, ready for what’s next.’ Take cues from things that the child already does and let them identify their own little routine, ensuring that it’s a routine that is unlikely to need to change. These can be so simple that no one else would even know that they were doing it and can move with the child as they get older. 

It's also important that we celebrate success. When a child has successfully managed a change - tell them and make a big deal of it. Children and young people who struggle with change need tangible evidence that they can do it. Take a photo of them successfully doing something differently than they are used to, preferably with a massive smile on their face (or on yours!). The next time a change is about to happen, show them this evidence that they can get through this, and they will be okay. Keep pieces of work that they completed with a supply teacher and that were really good. You can then visually demonstrate how they responded to a change, ‘Remember when you weren’t expecting there to be a different teacher, and then you coped really well and did this amazing piece of work.’ Point out the strategies or skills that they used, make a point of emphasising things that they did which are good skills to develop, ‘I loved the way you noticed that assembly was going to be at a different time, and you just took a really deep breath and smiled at me to let me know that you were okay.’ 

Finally, I think it’s important that if children feel a change is coming from nowhere and being forced upon them, like of all of us we may demonstrate challenging behaviours because we are just trying to claw back some control. As I discussed in the podcast, taking control is a positive response to change so we need to remember this for children and young people too. Actually, the instinct to take control is a good one, however unless we manage that response it could lead to problems in a school setting. So when change is occurring, we need to provide children some limited choices so that they feel like they have some control over the situation, ‘When you go outside at break today you have to go to a different area, would you like me to come and find you to take you to the new area or do you want to choose a friend who can meet you and go with you?’ Allowing someone to feel like they have choices can be empowering and this then reduces anxiety and stress. They are not avoiding the change, however you are giving them some control on how to manage it. 

I love the quote by John Kabat-Zin that says,

“You can’t stop the waves, but you can learn to surf.”

We can be tempted to try and eliminate change from children and young people’s lives, especially for those who find this particularly difficult. The danger however is that this is not what happens in the real world. The last few years have been a sledgehammer of a reminder that change, and sometimes unexpected and mind-blowingly huge change happens, and sometimes there is nothing we can do about it but manage through it. The more we can build our children’s resilience and provide them with support and strategies that they can employ when change happens the better. Being able to respond positively to change and transitions is a powerful strength, and one we need to equip children with before they go into the world. I actually think that so many of our children showed incredible resilience and the ability to respond and be flexible to change over the past couple of years – maybe they can teach some adults a thing or two!

So when preparing children and young people for change, plan and prepare, role model, be compassionate, be empathetic, be curious and just be kind. 

#learntosurf #becurious #justbekind #becompassionate