Supporting our Families Successfully Through Change
This school year has been full of surprises for my family. Little did we know so much would change in a matter of weeks! I had already planned to write an article on how you can apply change management principles to successfully support your family, so here is our real-life example. After that, I’ll provide an overview of the phases of change and how we can use these principles to support our families during any major transition.
At the beginning of the school year, we were settling into our schedule with my son continuing in his elementary school and flag football league. He was happily enjoying his new teacher and practicing being quarterback on the team.
Then one day we got a call from the school nurse that he had injured his thumb at recess. When I picked him up from school, his thumb was swollen, and he said it really hurt. We made an appointment at urgent care, and it turned out to be broken. They gave us a splint and told us to make a follow-up appointment with an orthopedist.
For a very active kid, this was tough. Last year he broke his arm chasing a kite and it was difficult for him (and us) to get his energy out. So this time, we all went out to dinner at our favorite Peruvian Chicken restaurant and then out for ice cream and commiserated.
Since he could no longer play football, that weekend we looked into alternate activities like music and art school. He didn’t want to take voice lessons but was interested in art classes. We also drew pictures – angry, sad, and disappointed faces – about how we were feeling about him breaking his thumb.
A week later, we learned that his teacher was leaving rather suddenly, and he wouldn’t even be able to say goodbye. When I picked him up from school that day, he said that he didn’t want his teacher to leave. Over the next few days, he had difficulty transitioning to his new teacher, who had a different teaching style. This caused some behavior issues. We continued to talk it through with him, the new teacher, and school counselor to smooth out the transition. We also scheduled a meeting with the teacher to talk in person.
In summary, there has been lots of change for our family in a short amount of time. We’ve been emotional and stressed, and I found that I needed to do more self-care and practice more patience with my son (not always successfully!). To help myself cope, I went to the gym more often, and my husband and I gave each other the opportunity to do other activities to recharge.
If you’ve followed my writing for any time now, you know that as a certified project manager, I like to apply project management principles to family life. I find that once you learn and remember these principles, they can be reapplied to different situations - like family transitions.
Any change is something new – a transition from something known to something unknown. Your family may feel like they’re losing something as part of the shift, and that can bring on large emotions, especially for kids that don’t have as much emotional regulation as adults. During periods of change, it’s common for people to go through the phases of grief:
1) Denial that the change is happening
2) Anger and resistance to the change
3) Bargaining for things to remain the same
4) Sadness/depression over the change, which can bring loss
5) Acceptance of the change
This grieving process is similar to the William Bridges’ Transition Model outlined in the Project Management Body of Knowledge. It lists three stages of transition:
1) Ending, losing, and letting go. This is when the change is introduced and includes the first two steps of the grieving process like anger and resistance.
2) The neutral zone. This is when the change occurs and the emotions from step 2 to 4 of the grieving process may continue, along with thinking about how to handle this new change.
3) The new beginning. This is similar to step 5 of the grieving process, when people can work with the new change and have figured out how to adapt to it.*
To apply these transition principles to your family, it helps to recognize first that they’re going through a change. When your kids start to act out, recognize that feeling upset, scared, uncertain, or anxious about change is normal. You can support them by talking about it, drawing pictures about how they feel, or role-playing.
Along with validating their emotions, help them think through how they can adapt to the change. Problem-solve along with them and get their input on ideas on how to adapt. If I had just signed my son up for voice lessons without involving him, he wouldn’t have wanted to participate and we would have wasted our money. Ask your kids what would help them and try to implement their ideas.
If you have advance notice that a change is coming, let your family know as early as possible. This will allow them time to start processing their emotions. It’s more difficult for people to adapt to change in a shorter period of time.
Here’s a recap of tips for how to support your family successfully through change:
Give people as much notice as possible when a change is coming
Talk about how they’re feeling about the change
Give family members time and support to move through their feelings
Increase self-care and offer grace for family members during periods of change
Ask them what would help them get through the change
Implement ways to support them during and after the change
For my family, we’ll continue to talk to my son about how things are going at school and support the transition to his new teacher. We go back to the orthopedist next week to get his cast checked and will see if he can return to football this season or will need to do other activities. Finally, my husband and I will keep a watch on our self-care and practice patience and grace as we move through these transitions and towards a new beginning.
*Project Management Body of Knowledge, PMBOK Guide, Seventh Edition, p. 164
Hilary Kinney is the author of Project Management for Parents, a timeless book that provides resources for busy parents to streamline life at home. She is a certified Professional Project Manager with 17 years of experience at a Fortune 500 company.
