Am I the only one who struggles with my kid’s slow daily transitions? Real tips that actually work
7:12 a.m. My coffee has been sitting on the entryway counter long enough to go lukewarm, and I’m tapping my boot while my 7-year-old son Leo arranges his plastic T-Rexes in exact order from biggest to smallest on the living room rug. We have 8 minutes to get to school before the bell rings, and he still doesn’t have his shoes on. I count to 10 under my breath, and the thought pops into my head uninvited: Am I the only one?
That night, after Leo’s bedtime, I folded laundry on the couch and typed that exact question into my neighborhood mom group chat: Am I the only one who spends 20 minutes every single day begging their kid to switch from playing to whatever we need to do next? I expected maybe one or two replies from people who felt my pain. I got 19.
One mom said her 8-year-old still takes 15 minutes to put on pajamas every night. Another said her kid will stop mid-errand to stare at a crack in the sidewalk and zone out for 10 minutes, and she’s been late to three dentist appointments that year. A couple people gave the usual advice: set a timer! Make it a game! I’d tried all that. The timer made Leo shut down and sit on the floor staring at the wall. The shoe race worked once, then he decided mid-race to build a block pedestal for his winning shoe, and we were even later. I left the chat feeling a little better that I wasn’t alone, but no less stuck.
Two weeks later, I sat down for parent-teacher conferences with Leo’s first grade teacher, Ms. Henderson, an older woman with 28 years of experience who keeps a jar of lemon drops on her desk. I brought up the transition thing: the slow mornings, the fights to leave the park, how I always end up feeling like I’m nagging nonstop. I said, “I can’t be the only one, right?” She laughed and said, “You are definitely not the only one. Nine out of 10 parents I talk to mention this exact thing. The problem is most of us are approaching it wrong.”
She explained that little kids’ brains don’t shift focus like adult brains do. When an adult is working on something and gets asked to switch, we can wrap it up in a minute because we’re used to juggling 10 things at once. For a kid 8 and under, whatever they’re focused on is the whole world. Pulling them away is like yanking a pen out of your hand mid-sentence – it feels disruptive, rude, and hard to recover from. It’s not misbehavior, it’s just how their developing brains work.
Then she gave me three small, specific things to try, nothing that required extra planning or big changes to our routine. First, give two warnings, not one, and add a small physical cue every time. Just saying “we leave in 10 minutes” often doesn’t register if they’re deep in play. Tap the edge of their drawing or their toy bin, make eye contact for half a second, then say the reminder. Do that for 10 minutes out, then again for 2 minutes out. It’s a tiny thing that helps their brain catch the cue instead of tuning it out. Second, give them a bridge to the next activity. If they’re in the middle of building something or playing a game, don’t make them put it all away and end the activity right then. Let them bring one small piece with them, or promise the set-up will stay exactly how it is when they get back. For Leo, that means one dinosaur comes in the car with us, and the rest of the line stays on the rug until we get home. Third, do one tiny prep step the night before for morning transitions. It doesn’t have to be laying out the whole outfit – just ask them to do one 30-second thing that connects them to the next morning. For us, that’s sticking a sticker on the tongue of one shoe, or setting their backpack by the door themselves. It primes their brain to remember that step exists, so it’s less of a shock when you bring it up the next day.
I went home that night and started testing the tips. The first morning, I gave the 10 minute warning, tapped Leo’s dinosaur rug, he looked up, nodded, and kept playing. Two minute warning, tap again, I offered him the choice of T-Rex or Triceratops to bring in the car. He picked T-Rex, put his shoes on, and we left three minutes early. I stood in the parking lot blinking, like that actually worked? Of course, it didn’t work every time. The next Friday, he decided mid-transition that he needed to dig a worm out of the backyard to bring to show and tell, and we were 10 minutes late. Some nights, he still fights putting away blocks to take a bath. But the fighting is shorter, and I don’t get as frustrated, because I know it’s not that he’s being intentionally difficult or that I’m a bad parent for struggling with it.
I’ve thought a lot about that question “Am I the only one?” since that cold coffee morning. We see all these posts online about perfect routines, kids who get themselves ready for school by 7 a.m. no fuss, and it’s easy to think you’re the only one who’s still fighting the same small battle every day. But the more I talk to other parents, the more I realize almost everyone has that one thing they wonder about. That one thing that makes you feel like you’re doing something wrong, when really it’s just a normal part of raising kids.
It’s been four months now, and we still have bad mornings. Last week, we were late because Leo stopped to count every acorn on the front lawn on the way out. But I don’t stand there by the door wondering if I’m the only one anymore. Most days, the tips work. When they don’t, we’re late, we deal with it, and we try again tomorrow. That’s enough for me right now.
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