Change is a constant part of childhood and adolescence. Some transitions are expected, like starting school or moving up a grade, while others arrive suddenly or carry real emotional weight, like a family move, a divorce, or the loss of a loved one. In this episode, Beth, Britt, and their guest Ann Bystedt, LCSW, explore how these transitions affect children and teens emotionally, behaviorally, and developmentally, including why even “positive” changes can create stress and how kids express adjustment differently across ages. 

Listeners will learn how to recognize when a child is struggling versus adapting, how to support emotional processing without overwhelming them, and how parents can stay steady when life feels unstable. This conversation reframes transitions not just as disruptions, but as opportunities to build coping skills, flexibility, and emotional strength over time. 

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Meet the Guest  

Ann Bystedt, LCSW 

Ann is the Senior Director of Child and Adolescent Programs Compass Health Center and a Licensed Clinical Social Worker with over twenty-five years of experience working with children, teens, and adults navigating major life transitions. In addition to her clinical work, Ann provides collaborative parenting support and coaching, helping caregivers build confidence, strengthen connection, and create consistent, effective strategies at home, grounded in her belief that meaningful progress happens when families feel supported, informed, and united in their approach. 

Episode Transcript  

The following transcript has been lightly edited for clarity and readability. 

Britt Teasdale (BT): Change is a part of growing up. Sometimes transitions arrive as expected, like moving into a new school year. Other times, they come with uncertainty or loss that can shift the rhythm of an entire family. As parents, we want to help our kids feel supported and steady—even when we’re feeling those transitions ourselves. 

Beth Hope (BH): Today’s guest works closely with children, teens, and families navigating life transitions and the emotional impact that often comes with them. As a clinician and leader, Ann Bystedt helps families better understand how change affects emotional well-being, behavior, relationships, and a child’s sense of safety and stability. Ann, tell us a little bit about yourself and the work that you do. 

Ann Bystedt (AB): I’m Ann, and I’m a licensed clinical social worker. I started at Compass Health Center as a director and am now senior director, coming up on nine years this summer. Before that, I spent many years in education—starting as a school social worker and eventually finishing my career as a principal—spending most of my time working with kids in therapeutic settings. 

BT: From a developmental perspective, why are transitions so vulnerable, especially for kids and teens? 

AB: I think humans in general all seek predictability and routine. Routine and familiarity aren’t merely comforting—they’re neurologically efficient for us. When we think about adults, our prefrontal cortex is fully developed, so we’re able to handle change, even when it’s hard, with much more ease than our kids and teens can. But when we ask our children to navigate transitions, they have to work so much harder, and that puts them in a much more stressful position. So even when a change is positive, it makes them more vulnerable from the outset. 

BH: What are some of the typical life transitions you’re referring to, and what are some examples of the unexpected ones? 

AB: Obviously there are all the school transitions—kindergarten, the move to high school, the move to college. The birth of a sibling can be a big one too. Then there are the unexpected ones, like a loss in the family or a divorce. Things like puberty—or adolescence more broadly—are transitions. Retirement can be a transition. 

BH: Let’s talk about how parents can prepare for these expected transitions. What matters most in terms of conversations or changes we should be thinking through? 

AB: Something we talk about a lot at Compass is “coping ahead.” It’s really about controlling what you can control. There’s so much that’s unknown and out of our hands, but the question becomes: what do we actually know? 

We have a calendar in our kitchen—my son and I both really benefit from having a visual schedule posted. What are the dates? What are the times? What do we need to know? All of those known entities are really important to lay out clearly up front for kids. As parents, our job is to offer the tools; it’s up to them to decide how much of that information they want to take in. 

BH: Is there a way to figure out how much information to share when coping ahead? 

AB: I think the biggest message is, “I’m here to talk, and here’s where you can find the information.” Maybe there’s a way to post it somewhere visible—a bulletin board in the kitchen or office where the information is readily accessible. It’s about finding that balance and trusting your gut as a parent, because you do know your child. 

BT: How do you help prepare a younger child when transitions feel daunting, even for the adults? 

AB: I think the biggest thing through any transition—expected or unexpected, wanted or unwanted—is having an adult who can co-regulate. There’s a lot of research on stress buffering, the idea that when an adult can help mitigate the impact of a stressful situation, kids get through it more easily. 

Co-regulation is contagious; so is dysregulation. If I’m yelling at my kids to get their stuff together, that’s actually not helpful for them at all. So, the question becomes: How do I take care of myself so I can co-regulate, and they can be in a better place? A lot of it comes down to those in-the-moment choices—making sure the transition feels as calm and stress-free as it possibly can. 

BH: What types of behaviors might signal that a child isn’t coping well with an upcoming or current transition? Is it more about the behaviors we see, the things they’re saying, the feelings they’re expressing—or is it more about an overall shift from how they usually are? 

AB: I’d say both—and you know your child. For little kids, it might look like regression. You’ll sometimes hear about kids regressing with toileting, or kids who used to sleep through the night suddenly not sleeping through the night. That makes sense at that age, because they don’t have the language to explain how they’re feeling or what’s going on for them. For slightly older kids—six, seven years old—it might look more like meltdowns or tantrums. Again, they don’t have the language to explain it contextually, so it comes out as behavior. For adolescents, you want to be on high alert for isolation, withdrawal, or any risk-taking behavior. Is this a kid who used to talk to you about things and now isn’t? Are their friends, teachers, or coaches expressing concern?  

I believe that we need to lean on the other adults in our kids’ lives who care about them. That might be a family member, a coach, a school social worker—anyone who sees our kids regularly. If you’re worried and your antenna is up, it’s completely appropriate to call a coach and say, “Does everything seem okay? We had a transition in our family, and something just feels a little off.”  

It’s also never wrong to tell your kid directly: “I’m worried about you, and I want to schedule an extra session with your therapist,” or “I want you to have an assessment. I’m a little worried, and I understand you might not want to talk to me about it—that’s okay—but I want to make sure you’re getting the help you need.” 

BT: When a family is coming apart—whether through separation or divorce—what do you find kids and teens are most afraid to say out loud, and what do parents tend to get wrong during the process? 

AB: I think kids often worry that something they did caused it. In a divorce, there can be a real fear: did something I said or did cause this? They might also feel angry—at one parent or the other—and feel forced to pick a side, even though, deep down, they wish they didn’t have to. Kids are doing the best they can too. With a death, younger kids especially can have that magical thinking, “I caused this,” or it can show up as “I need to keep doing this specific thing, or it could happen again.” 

As for divorce, I hesitate to say parents “get things wrong,” because I genuinely believe that, no matter how hard a divorce is, parents are almost always doing the very best they can in really difficult circumstances. The best outcomes happen when parents are able to say, “We have to co-parent. We have these kids until they’re eighteen, and we have to figure this out together. At some point, we loved each other—let’s figure out how to do this well.” 

It’s really hard for kids when the rules are completely different between houses. If we can find some consistency—say, screen time rules Monday through Thursday are the same at both houses—that gives kids predictability and stability. So again, I wouldn’t say anyone “gets it wrong,” but when there’s some alignment between parents, it really helps the child. 

BT: If someone’s going through this, are there specific things they should avoid? 

AB: I think it’s about remembering that your child is still your child, whether they’re seven or seventeen. Sometimes kids get parentified, and that can be a really difficult role for a child to carry. We want parents to have support, and we really encourage that support to come from a therapist, a friend, or another family member, not from the child. When possible, avoid putting your child in that role. It gets tricky, and boundaries become hard to maintain.  

I also think overly confiding in a child—which we see a lot in divorce, where parents are under so much stress and end up sharing details of the conflict—puts the child in a position of knowing too much. Use other adults, use a therapist, to process that information, and protect the child from the adult issues as much as possible. 

This goes back to stress buffering and co-regulation—giving adults the chance to regulate themselves, to get to a calm state, before trying to support their child through it. That allows the child to actually be a child, to focus on what they need to focus on. And I recognize this is incredibly hard for the adults navigating it; they’re under enormous pressure. It’s not easy, which is exactly why having a strong support network matters, so parents can show up in the best way possible for their kids. 

BH: And just to be clear: co-regulation doesn’t mean hiding all emotions in front of your children. Age matters, of course, but if an adult is experiencing a loss—a divorce, the end of a relationship, a death, an illness—it can be really helpful for kids to see that adult say, “Yeah, I’m feeling really sad too,” or “I’m feeling a little scared too,” and to model that in an age-appropriate way. That normalizes the feeling. 

I don’t want anyone to think co-regulation means staying neutral, professional, and unemotional at all times. We’re just not putting the weight of those emotions onto our children. If we need to fully fall apar, maybe that happens in private. But it’s completely okay to talk about our emotions and model them; that’s how kids learn, as long as they don’t feel like they have to carry that weight themselves. 

We all remember the first time we saw our parents cry, or get really emotional. It’s hard to witness, but there can be real meaning in that—it can bring people closer together in a healthy way. 

AB: That makes sense. And if it’s two weeks later and you’re still sad together, that’s fine. Essentially, when it’s appropriate, we want to support our child’s central nervous system in becoming regulated. If everyone in the family is dysregulated, it’s going to be hard for our child to become regulated. At some point, we don’t want everyone in the family dysregulated at once—so how do we work together to get back to a calmer place? 

BH: For those of us who might not know, what does “supporting our child’s central nervous system” actually mean? That sounds a little daunting and clinical. 

AB: I might lower my voice, talk a little quieter, or say, “I want you to match the tone of my voice.” I might get down to their physical level because I want to match them, or we might practice deep breathing together. I’ll do things that calm my own central nervous system, as opposed to staying in a state of being really upset, crying, breathing shallowly. After noticing shallow breathing, I’m going to take some time to come out of that and actually feel calmer. Because what I’m doing in that moment isn’t making me calmer, it’s making me feel more out of control. And that’s not what we want. 

BH: Some of the same things that work for us as adults also work for our kids when it comes to the body. Modeling that, or doing it together—and maybe sometimes in an exaggerated way. So, if I have a child who’s breathing shallowly, crying, freaking out, I might just start taking deep breaths myself, without even announcing it, and they start to mirror that. Or if I lower my voice, they might match that too. 

BT: I’m so glad you brought up that it’s okay for kids to see us crying or upset during transitions, because that’s normal and healthy for them to witness. And then, like you said, there comes a point where you can start practicing those skills together.  

I remember—when a new sibling enters the picture—my son was four when we had our second, and it was such an emotional time. Part of me felt like, “I need to keep it together for my four-year-old.” But there was just so much going on—you’ve just had a baby, you’re excited, but you’re also a little sad, grieving the shift for your older child and the change to your family system. I remember my son being curious about why I was crying, and it became an opportunity to say, “Sometimes you cry because you’re so happy, and there’s just so much emotion.” It normalized that for him, because we hadn’t really had a big emotional moment like that in our family before. I think it’s okay if you can’t hold it together—that, too, can be normalizing for your child, depending on the situation. 

AB: Exactly; we’re not robots. We don’t want our kids to think that adults just move through life without emotion. When we’re talking with parents and teaching kids skills, we encourage giving kids opportunities to hear about the mistakes you make at work too. It’s the same idea: we want kids to know that you don’t turn eighteen and suddenly stop making mistakes. We have emotions, we cry, we mess up at work, we learn from it, we fix it. It’s really healthy for kids to see that, because it’s something that continues throughout our entire lives. 

BT: I don’t want to forget about young adults either, because these life transitions really affect them too. Things don’t just stop mattering once you turn eighteen—loss, grief, divorce, a family moving out of a childhood home—all of that can still deeply impact someone as a young adult. How do transitions affect different ages differently? 

AB: When kids are younger, they don’t have the same language to express what they’re feeling, so parents are often trying to connect the dots themselves. As kids get a bit older, they’re often in that stage where puberty is kicking in alongside a growing push for independence, and they become less vocal. For those kids, parents are still piecing together what isn’t being said. I always encourage parents to look at their child’s functioning and what their baseline typically looks like.  

Parents often ask, “When should I be worried?” And often my answer is, “I don’t know—should you be? Is this what they’re typically like?” Some kids come home from school and genuinely need an hour or ninety minutes to decompress, and that’s just who they are at their best. For another kid who doesn’t usually need that, and suddenly does, that’s a shift worth paying attention to. As we think about transitions, it really comes down to paying attention to what’s different. 

BH: If a child’s baseline already includes some introversion or social anxiety, but it doesn’t impair their functioning, how do parents know when to push them to build new skills and step outside their comfort zone, versus accepting that this will be tough, but it’s just part of getting through life? Because part of any transition—even a great one, like starting college or a new school—is rebuilding a sense of belonging in a new environment. 

AB: There’s so much research supporting the importance of social connection. It’s a little harder with young adults in college, because as a parent, you just don’t have the same level of control. But I think a good baseline for a middle schooler or high schooler at a new school is: “I don’t care what you join, but you need to join one activity, and you need to go to at least three meetings.” I’d say the same for a new college student.  

My daughter just finished her junior year, and the expectation was the same: you have to put yourself out there. She’s an introvert, and I think she probably would have done it on her own eventually. On every college tour, you’ll hear schools talk about something like a “mega fair”—usually during the second weekend, where every club and organization on campus comes together on a big field. Schools know that the best way for students to succeed on a college campus is to get involved. The same is true at any new school—you have to get connected. Belonging is critical.  

My advice for any parent is: give choice, give options. You’re not asking your kid to commit for four years; you’re asking them to attend three meetings. After that, if they decide it’s not for them, we’ll have a conversation. You need them to get out there, to put a little skin in the game. We know that if kids get connected, sometimes all they need is one person—one person who sees them, who they have something in common with. That can be the difference between feeling like you matter, feeling seen, having a friendly face to walk into school toward, versus not. Parents do need to push a little to make it happen. 

BH: I imagine this is harder for some kids than others. I’m thinking about kids who struggle with things like rigidity. How does this factor in for kids, teens, and young adults on the autism spectrum, or those with anxiety or other conditions? 

AB: Neurodivergent kids often experience transitions more intensely, so the more you can cope ahead—allowing more time, doing more prep—the better the outcomes tend to be. That said, too much prep can sometimes be unhelpful for certain kids, because the worrying itself can be the worst part. If you know a move is happening in October, but your child has all summer and is really looking forward to camp, is it actually helpful to tell them before camp starts? Or will they spend the whole summer worrying about it? There’s a real question of whether it’s better to wait and tell them in August, even if that means losing some prep time. If your child has a therapist, that’s a great conversation to have with them. Obviously, if your child is eighteen, you shouldn’t be having that conversation with their therapist without them, but if they’re seven, absolutely have that conversation. 

Sensory components can also be really tricky. My son has ADHD, and we know that when we think about prefrontal cortex development, executive functioning, and impulse control, he lives very much in the present moment. That’s wonderful for him in a lot of ways, but it also means we have to do a lot more prep work, which is part of why we love our calendar.  

For kids with ADHD, parents sometimes have to essentially operate as their child’s prefrontal cortex to make sure everything gets done. If you wait until the last minute, that room is never going to get packed, and that’s just going to create more stress on top of an already stressful process. So maybe you create a visual schedule, or say, “We’re setting a time for this in advance, because if we don’t, I’m worried it won’t happen.” For kids with autism, you may want to think through what moving day itself will actually look like—will they have their own copy of the schedule? Will they have a role in planning it? How do we involve kids in the process so they feel like participants rather than like something is just happening to them?  

Often, kids feel like these changes are happening to them rather than with them. So as much as possible, the goal is to figure out how to make the process feel collaborative rather than completely out of their control. 

BH: Knowing that life is going to be full of both expected and unexpected transitions for everyone, are there general things we can do proactively to help build resilience? Not specific to any one transition, but just to help our kids, our young adults, and ourselves be ready to face whatever comes? 

There’s something called stress appraisal—the way our brain evaluates something the next time it shows up. The primary appraisal is: is this dangerous, or is it just demanding? Once the brain decides it’s not dangerous but it is demanding, it moves to the secondary appraisal: do I actually have the skills to handle it? And if we’ve done it before, our brain says, “This is hard, but you can do it—you’ve done it before.” I think what parents can do is reinforce that through praise: “You can do this. It’s hard, and you can do it.” 

AB: And we can do it together. I love it when parents can say, “I believe in you, you can do this.” And the good news is, if you don’t feel like you can do it alone, that’s okay too—you’ve got a whole team of adults who love and support you. When kids know that, they’re unstoppable. Knowing they have a team of people who can help them through it is really what kids need. 

BT: I want to ask about guilt, because a lot of chosen transitions—a move, a divorce, anything the parents have decided for the family—can come with guilt, especially if a child is struggling with the change. What do you say to parents who believe they’ve made the right decision, but still carry guilt over the discomfort it’s caused their child? 

AB: Parenting is hard, and kids are resilient. Just because your child is uncomfortable with a decision right now doesn’t mean they won’t be able to manage it. We also can’t accommodate everything kids want. Say it’s a move—the kids loved the old house, and now there’s a new one. Yes, it was hard to leave, there were a lot of great memories there. I feel sad about it too, but I’m excited about this new house, and I’m confident we’re going to build new memories here. It just takes a little time.  

I think continuing that narrative, that mantra, matters. And if the kid is angry about it, the parent can keep saying, “I know you feel that way, I’m sorry you feel that way, but I believe this is the right choice for our family.” It’s okay for kids to struggle with change—that doesn’t mean it was the wrong choice. 

BT: Right, because there’s always that fear of, “You ruined my life. You made us do this and you ruined everything.” 

BH: I think with little kids—and maybe teens, maybe all ages, really—media can be a helpful tool, if you know what you’re choosing. There’s a Berenstain Bears book about moving that’s great for kids; it walks through the feelings associated with it and getting through the process. There are lots of books out there, though it helps to vet them yourself as a parent—movies and TV shows too; episodes about families experiencing loss or divorce. That can be a really helpful tool if you find the right ones. 

BT: A follow-up, still on the guilt topic—if a parent is really struggling with guilt and having trouble moving past it, can those feelings ripple over to the child, making them feel like something bad is happening to the family? How strong can that ripple effect be, and how conscious should parents be of it? 

AB: If it feels like it’s having that kind of impact—if it doesn’t feel like a short-term thing—I’d recommend getting a therapist and engaging in family therapy. It also depends on the age of the child and whether they’re developmentally ready to participate. But if it feels appropriate, a therapist can be really helpful, and it can be short-term. Or if a parent feels confident in the decision but just needs help sorting through their own feelings, an individual therapist can be just as impactful. I’d say any time you go through a divorce, a therapist is genuinely helpful—that’s a major life transition, especially when kids are involved. 

BT: And there’s grieving for the whole family in that, right? 

AB: It applies to the whole family, yes. While navigating grief, it’s important for parents to stay observant, stay curious, and be ready to ask themselves: can I handle this, or do I need professional support? And that’s an okay thing to need. 

BH: As a clinician, a former school social worker, and a former principal—how much should parents be sharing with schools about upcoming or recent transitions? Some parents have close relationships with their school and are very forthcoming, while others are hesitant to share personal information. 

AB: Given my background, I’m a big advocate for creating that partnership whenever possible. Schools want to support kids and families, and they see our kids for six or seven hours a day. My own kids go to CPS, which has a huge number of students, but if my kids were going through a significant transition, I would still want someone at school to know—it’s another set of eyes looking out for my kid.  

Even at Compass, I tell families I’d highly encourage alerting the school, or whatever trusted adult their child has identified as someone they rely on. Give them a heads-up: “This is what we’re navigating, please keep an eye out.” 

BH: Slightly different topic, but talking about schools reminds me—we’ve seen a lot of situations where kids and teens behave very differently at school versus at home. I want people to be aware that just because a child or teen seems to be doing well or holding it together in one setting doesn’t mean that’s the full picture. A school might say, “I have no idea what you’re talking about, they’re doing great,” while at home they’re falling apart. What can we do to make sure kids and teens are actually supported? 

AB: What’s most common is that kids let their guard down at home. Parents often get the rawest version—and I think we all do this. The people we’re closest to get the worst version of us. When parents say, “They’ve been a bear, so irritable, I ask them to do one thing and they’re yelling at us,” and the school says, “We haven’t seen anything like that in class”—what’s actually happening is that their ability to mask at school is a pretty effective coping strategy.  

But we shouldn’t trust that surface calmness too much. Just because a child looks totally fine at school doesn’t mean everything is fine—it means they’re capable of masking. That’s exactly why we need parents to establish what their child’s baseline looks like with the people who know them best. And when there’s a shift in behavior in the settings where they feel safest and most comfortable—that’s when we should be paying attention. 

BH: On the flip side, if a child or teen is really struggling with a transition and having trouble functioning, how does a parent know how hard to push? 

AB: If they need a couple of mental health days—”This is so sad, I just want to stay in my comfy pajamas”—that’s different from genuine impairment, where they’re saying, “I literally can’t imagine getting out of bed to do what I need to do to function.” That’s when parents need to say, “We need to get you evaluated.”  

Typically, parents can tell the difference between a kid who needs some TLC, a hug, a day or two to regroup, versus a kid who isn’t able to do anything at all—doesn’t want to see friends, doesn’t want to engage. There’s also a distinction between a kid who doesn’t want to go to school but still wants to go out with friends on the weekend versus a kid who doesn’t want to do anything at all. That’s more of a cry for additional support. That’s when I’d say get them in with their therapist for an evaluation, or get them assessed somewhere like Compass. This represents a significant shift from their baseline, and time matters.  

Sometimes parents will say, “This has been going on for three weeks,” and three weeks is a long time to not be able to get out of bed. Divorce is incredibly sad. Loss is incredibly sad. And most people, even while feeling that sadness, are still able to go to school or go to work. So when someone can’t, that’s when we need to say, “This is significant, and we need to get you more support so you can live a meaningful life.” 

BT: I imagine that’s where the “and” becomes so important. Something we teach in DBT is the idea of holding both: I can be sad and also find some silver linings. I can be excited and scared about a transition at the same time. The more parents and professionals can help kids hold both, the better. 

BH: That “and” really is so important—this both/and. I can be sad and also find glimmers of hope. I can be excited and scared about a transition simultaneously. The more we, as parents and professionals, can help kids understand that it’s not all-or-nothing—that you can feel both positive and negative emotions at once—the more empowering and helpful that becomes. 

BT: And it’s worth remembering that timelines for processing loss or transition vary so much depending on culture, community, or religion. I want to bring up one transition that every parent of a school-aged child goes through every year: the transition into summer, which we’re all about to experience right now. Do you have any tips for preparing for that transition, and maybe some signals that a child or teen might need extra support during the summer months? 

AB: Now that my kids are older, I’m fully in the “get me to the end of the school year” camp, because my kids have independence now and get to do all the fun things. It felt very different when they were little and in camps—so much shuttling around. But I think there’s a balance between overscheduling your kids—and as a working parent, you often need that structure, whether it’s a full-time nanny or back-to-back camps—and giving your kids some downtime to breathe. It’s about finding that balance and figuring out what your kids are actually interested in.  

I’ve liked it when parents create a summer bucket list—are there fun parks in your area you want to visit? Other things you want to fit in as a family? I think it’s worth resisting the impulse to overschedule. Summer goes by so fast—June arrives, and we think, “We get to have summer!” and then suddenly it’s August and we wonder where the time went. 

The biggest thing we see at Compass is that as August approaches, adults experience something like the “Sunday scaries,” and for kids, it’s worth thinking about how to gently, gradually cope ahead for what going back to school will look like. It can be done in a slow, gradual way so the actual first day back doesn’t feel more stressful than it needs to. Do you gradually start moving bedtime earlier? Practice waking up earlier? Rehearse the routine of packing the backpack? All those small things help kids feel prepared rather than caught off guard. 

BT: What about mental health-wise—without the structure of school, even if families try to maintain some structure to their days, we sometimes see kids and teens start to struggle a bit over the summer. What can parents do to support kids who might be struggling during those months? 

AB: Even before school lets out, it’s worth refreshing your family’s screen-time plan. What’s the expectation during the school year, and does it change in summer? Ideally it’s not a complete free-for-all. If kids have to charge their phone in the kitchen or a parent’s bedroom overnight during the school year—which I think is generally the best policy—maybe in summer that shifts from a 9pm phone hand-in to 10:30 p.m., since they’re staying up later. Having those conversations in advance avoids a lot of headaches and arguments compared to negotiating it in the moment, once things already feel stressful.  

I’d also encourage keeping an open dialogue. Summer feels busy for everyone, but is there a way to say, as a family, “We’re going to have dinner together every Wednesday night,” or “We’re doing something together every Friday night”? Kids can still see their friends, but having that conversation ahead of time means it doesn’t feel like a surprise or a letdown—everyone’s already aligned on the agreement.  

And if you have a child who’s more socially isolated, with a smaller social network, think about what you can do to help them stay engaged and connected. That might be a kid you schedule a little more deliberately, because you know they’re not going to get invited to things as often as some of their peers. 

BT: Is there anything we haven’t covered today that you think would be really important for parents to know about transitions? 

AB: The only thing I’d add is that I want parents to give themselves grace—parenting is really hard, and transitions are really hard, so when you’re doing both at once, that’s a double whammy. If parents can remember that as long as they’re showing up, when possible, as a consistent, reasonably regulated adult—and if they can’t do that themselves in a given moment, bringing in someone else they trust to step in—their kids are going to be okay.  

The research really does show that as long as there’s one consistent person who sticks around and shows up for a child, kids do okay. Stress is actually good for kids, as long as it’s short-term, and once the adversity is removed, we know their stress levels come back down and they grow from the experience. As parents move through this, they can remind themselves: at the end of the day, their kids are going to come out of this stronger. 

BT: Thank you so much, Ann. This was wonderful. Big changes tend to bring big emotions because they disrupt what feels known and predictable. Even when a transition is positive, adjusting to new routines, expectations, or environments can feel really overwhelming for the whole family. 

BH: Life is always going to include change—new schools, new routines, losses, growth, and big feelings. Parents don’t have to get things perfectly. They need to communicate and continue to show up, and that’s what we’re taking away with us this week.