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Transitions

Do you get a scene worthy of 19th-century tragic opera when it's time to put coats on and go to preschool? Does your child pitch a fit when it's time to dismount the jungle gym? You may know you need to get home for dinner, but even the most reasonable request can feel like an ambush to your child if you spring it on him out of the blue.

What to do: Give your child a five-minute and a one-minute warning that something's going to happen. And then stick to it, says Julie Dollinger, M.D., a pediatrician in Lexington, Massachusetts.

Lauren Owensby, a mom of six in Great Falls, Virginia, uses a kind of advance-warning system to keep tempers in check. Her kids range in age from 12 weeks to 12 years, and she makes sure she always talks them through an action before she does it.

"Instead of telling one of my kids something while I'm cleaning up, I've learned to stop, look them in the eyes, explain what's going on, and get an acknowledgment that they've heard my explanation," she says. "For example, if my daughter is watching Little Einsteins and I need to brush her hair, I don't just start combing it. I tell her, 'I'm going to brush your hair,' and make sure she's understood what I'm going to do. That way she doesn't fight me off, and we get out of the house on time."

Changes in routine
A move or a new baby sib can make a little kid feel insecure, jealous, or ignored, emotions that often express themselves in the behaviors we associate with anger, like screaming and hitting.

Sometimes the change is barely noticeable  -- at least to a grown-up. At 3 years old and 19 months, Mason and Charlie Tate have a hard time when their dad, who's a lawyer, has to put in extra hours and arrives home long after their bedtime. "Charlie doesn't have the verbal skills  -- he just cries," their mom, Allison, of Orlando, Florida, says. "Mason yells and then cries and says, 'I miss Daddy.'"

What to do: For everyday changes in routine, try to keep your child busy. "I plan activities like a trip to Grandma's house when I know my husband will be working late," says Tate.

To make a new event more concrete to your child, create a short picture book together, says Nancy Carlsson-Paige, professor of early childhood education at Lesley University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. If he's going to a new daycare, say, have a photo of the old one on the first page of the book and the new one on the second. Your child can say goodbye to the old childcare center, and then flip the page and say hi to the new one.