Transition Issues -- A Definition

Pretty much every week, I’m in an airplane.  At this point, I have flown so often that nearly everything is routine about it.  Those of us who board earlier in the process are already sitting as the rest of the passengers walk on.  Nearly everybody is using this time to talk on their cellphone, text messages, or do something technological until the plane takes off, when all electronics must be shut off.  So it was not unusual that the guy across the aisle from me was chatting breezily on his blackberry phone in a foreign language as the plane filled up.  I heard the big door shut and sealed by the flight attendant, who announced that all electronics must be turned off.  They walked up and down the aisle.  Politely, they reminded a few of the passengers that they had to finish using their laptops or phones.  The big jet was being backed out of the gate.  One of them tapped him on the shoulder and gestured, with a smile, to his phone.  He nodded his head in cooperation as he continued to talk on the phone.  The plane started to taxi to the runway.  Both flight attendants approached the man and told him verbally that he must shut off the phone.  He kept talking but nodded his understanding.  They walked away, as the plane got closer to the end of the runway.  The plane stopped.  Both pilot and co-pilot, in uniform, emerged from the cockpit and came to the man.  He saw them, smiled and held up his index finger, as if to say ‘I’ll be with you in  a minute.’  One of the officers said, “In 15 seconds we will have you removed from this aircraft by Federal marshalls.  You will be taken to Federal detention.  You are committing a crime and will have a criminal record.”  The man, showing an unexpected facility with languages, seemed suddenly to understand English.  He abruptly said into the phone, “I gotta go,” and turned off the device.

Ask any parent about getting their child to turn off the video mid-story and wash their hands for dinner.  Sometimes they wish they had a couple of Federal marshalls to call.

This is the first essay of several on transition issues, techniques, and objects.  I hope some readers find these ideas helpful.

Transitions are the times of overlap between what we are doing and what we are doing next. 

This is my own definition, so it doesn’t appear just this way in parenting books.  But I think it applies throughout our lives.  In babies, it could be transition between being awake and being asleep, or maybe between being held and being put down into the crib.  For preschoolers, it might be the transition between one activity and another, say coloring vs. playing with blocks.  In school, there are transitions between classroom work and lunch, lunch and active play, then back to class.  By high school, it may be all about just getting off the phone.

Being able to navigate successful transitions is a life skill.  Our frequent flyer, for example, nearly spent a night in jail.  There’s an important balance to be struck between being bad at this and being too good at it.

Many children are brought to me for evaluation of what is thought to be an attention problem.  (Because I do this very carefully, I often find other issues. )  Other children are brought in for behavioral advice because every transition results in a tantrum.

Being able to pay attention is also a key life skill.  It enables us to listen to a story, to follow crucial directions, and to fall in love.  Even if it didn’t help us get through school, it would be important in establishing human relationships and stalking prey on the savannah.

But it’s also important, and little studied I think, to be able to break off our attention when appropriate.  Otherwise, we might end up on the No-Fly List.

There’s something about certain activities, I believe, that interferes with the normal balance of transition controls in the brain for certain children.  For some, video games tap into something very primal.  There aren’t many activities that a child can do for so many hours that they ignore bodily functions.  There’s a clue about autistic spectrum disorders here, by the way.  Some children with ASDs will continue to do a repetitive activity until they fall asleep exhausted, or are distracted or stopped by somebody.  Maybe it’s making a sound, maybe it’s not so benign.  Decades ago, some of these were assigned the unfortunate categorization of self-stimulatory behaviors. 

Max was brought to me because his mother didn’t know what to do.  In kindergarten, he did fine with the class activities and didn’t get in trouble.  In school, he could transition between circle games and coloring and learning to write his name just as well as everybody else in the class.  He was not a behavior problem.  At home, however, it was a different story.  No matter what he was doing--playing with blocks, playing with his robot people, or looking through picture books of trucks--his mother couldn’t pull him away.  She’d plead with him to come to dinner, bargain with him to get into the bath, but he always said words that were the equivalent of holding up an index finger as if to say, ‘I’ll be with you in a minute.’  When she was more assertive, a long and unpleasant tantrum exploded.

Max was not, in my professional opinion, developmentally abnormal, attention-challenged, or emotionally unstable.

It was hard for him to give up a fun activity.  Because of his normal developmental stage, it was almost impossible for him to envision himself in a future situation, even if that future was only 15 or 30 minutes away.  So even when his next activity would be even more fun, he could never appreciate it.  So there was never an incentive to stop what he was doing and move on.

For the record, he was brought to me with his mother complaining that he was constipated.  It was only after I asked lots of questions that the whole story emerged.  He focused so intensely on whatever he was doing that he never wanted to stop, even for brief bathroom breaks.  After a while of ignoring the feeling that he had to go, he no longer felt that he had to go.  This led to a spiral of holding it in until it turned to concrete.

The first step would be helping him get to a less intensely-focused state, in which he'd be less and less invested in his current activity and more ready for the next.  I suggested a gentle reminder at 20-minutes.  Mom could tap him on the shoulder and let him know that a change was coming.  As expected, he would nod his head or indicate he understood but otherwise show no indication that he would comply.  Then again at 10-minutes, but this time with a little more discussion.  At 4 or 5 minutes, he should be told to shut off the video.  He won't, but he also won't be surprised when it happens.  Maybe he won't like the transition, but at least he'll be prepared for it.