Getting my 3-year-old to switch activities without a meltdown? Nearly impossible. One small thing that’s helped is giving him a heads-up and starting a timer. When the timer goes off, he knows it's time to move on. It works about half the time (we often get, "let's start another timer"). But it has made transitions slightly smoother.
But then I tried something different—and it worked surprisingly well.
A few weeks ago, we decided to go on a family hike... I was pretty sure that Jay would NOT want to go. The last time we went, I tried to hype him up about seeing a waterfall, and he told me, "Mama, go buy a waterfall."
I knew I had to get creative. So this time, we played Blue’s Clues. We started with the theme song, and a drawing of the jeep.
- 1st clue: A strawberry. On his car seat. With where to go next (Trail).
- 2nd clue: The color pink. On the trail a few minutes into the hike.
- 3rd clue: Circle K - a little ways up on the hike (okay, this one backfired a bit—he wanted to turn around and go to Circle K, where we usually procure lollipops).
But I reassured him that Blue had left the last clue at the top of the hike. When we got there, he found out what Blue wanted to do—eat a strawberry lollipop!
It wasn’t perfect, but it made the hike more fun and manageable. He was excited about the game and didn’t focus on the fact that we were hiking—until we made it to the top, at least! I did end up carrying him the whole way down. But don’t worry—when I say "hike," I mean a 0.8-mile round-trip walk.
I hope this gives you a little inspiration if your kid is as stubborn as mine. It’s not foolproof, but it’s something that’s worked for us.
P.S. If you hate drawing, you can also just Google image search a few things. Here’s the paw print to get you started. If you don't have clue ideas, check out the 3 clues for every episode in Season 1.
P.P.S. Blue's Clues is cool and all, but save my sanity with that at-home gel mani system.
