Guide · 4 moves

Stopping something is harder than starting something.

What a five-minute warning actually asks for, the four moves that make a change cheaper, and the five transitions that come up most.

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A sand timer standing on a kitchen table beside a half-finished drawing.

The four moves

Four moves, in order

A five-minute warning asks a child to hold a future event in mind, monitor time they cannot see, and stop something they are enjoying — all at once.

Warn from beside them, not from the doorway
The warning is only useful if it is received. Said across a room to a child who is absorbed, it does not count as having been said.
“Two more minutes, then we stop.” — said at their level, after they have looked up.
Give them a way to finish, not just a way to stop
Most refusal is about the unfinished thing. Naming a stopping point that makes sense inside their activity costs seconds and removes the whole fight.
“Finish that level and then we go” beats “Now.”
Trade the unknown for something they can picture
A child is being asked to leave something specific for something vague. Make the next thing at least as concrete as the thing they are giving up.
Arriving is its own transition
The move is not over when the door shuts. A child dropped into the new place with nothing to do will go straight back to arguing about the last one.

The five that come up most

The same four moves, applied to the transitions parents mention first.

Hard transition

Screen off

Name a stopping point inside the thing — the end of the level, the end of the episode — rather than a number of minutes they cannot verify.

Hard transition

Leaving the park

Two more goes on the thing they are on, counted out loud, then walk together to the gate rather than calling from it.

Hard transition

Coming to dinner

Warn once from beside them, then give them a job at the table. Arriving with something to carry beats arriving having been summoned.

Hard transition

Getting in the car

The car is the vague part. Make it concrete — the same seat, the same tool in the same place, the same first song.

Hard transition

Leaving a friend’s house

Agree the leaving time with the other adult before you arrive, and say it once on the way in. Negotiating at the door has an audience.

A classroom has thirty of these a day

Carpet to table, table to line, line to hall, hall back to table. Most of what looks like defiance in a school day is a child arriving somewhere without having finished leaving the last place.

Put the warning where the child is, not at the front of the room. A general announcement reaches the children who did not need it.
Give the same two or three children a job in the move. Carrying the box to the next table is a way of arriving that does not involve waiting.
Keep one tool at the destination rather than in a bag. A child who has to ask for it in front of the class will not ask.

The same four moves work at home, at a smaller scale: name what is happening, make the next thing concrete, give a way to finish, and let them carry one constant thing across the gap.

If every change is a fight

Transitions that break every single day are worth raising.

If a child cannot manage any change without distress, across settings and for months, that is information for a SENCO, an occupational therapist, or a GP — not a routine to try harder at.

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