Got a kid who digs their heels in, at the exact moment you need them to get moving? Then you need “pre-work,” a super handy tool for helping kids with transitions that can unstick those sticky moments. Here’s the scoop:

The following is an edited transcript of this podcast episode.

One of the moms in our parenting program was packing for a trip and I saw her “HELP!” messages start to come in on our group line. She was saying, “Oh no, I forgot to do that thing that Abigail has taught us all to do, and now I am paying for it!”

She said: “I’m realizing that I’ve spent the last, like, however long in this community, doing it so much that everything’s gotten really easy, and I forgot why I do the things that I do! And today I didn’t do it and I’m paying the price!”

The Importance of Pre-Work in Helping Kids With Transitions

The thing she didn’t do that day was something we call “pre-work.” She was packing for this trip and she had neglected to mention all of the particulars of what their day was going to look like to the child.

And so, as the child started to find out what it was going to look like, their own anxiety kicked up, and they started digging their heels in about all of the plans.

No, they would NOT pack. No, they refused to take that carry-on luggage. This wasn’t gonna happen. They refused to make that flight. All of this was going down, all because the mom had forgotten to do the simple step of pre-work, which is this: Get it out of my brain and get it into yours.

Preparing Your Child for Transitions, and Changes in Routine

Instead of just assuming, “I’m the leader of the family, and I’m going to make the decisions” — which, by the way, we definitely want to be leaders of our families, but deep leadership is also deep service, and that means you’re very aware of who you are leading. So if you are leading a child who likes to understand what’s going on, who doesn’t do transitions well, who doesn’t like surprises, then you need to make sure you get it out of your head and into theirs beforehand.

This means not only telling them what will happen – but actually getting their buy-in. That’s super important. You have to really enroll them in the idea of what’s going to happen so that they can see themselves in it, and like it.

How Preparing Your Child Ahead of Time Makes Transitions Easier

Now, it’s not that simple to make sure that you’re hitting all of the marks, but the basic concept behind pre-work is simple enough that I wanted to share it with you here, which is to say, make sure you are communicating and doing the PRE-WORK before the WORK needs to happen.

Because if you don’t prepare your child, you may not be prepared for what happens next. And we don’t want that for anybody! This is just ONE of the ways we “reset” our hearts, our habits, and our home. You can learn more about all the Parenting Resets we offer right here.