Joanna Fortune: My grandchild gets upset when it's time to leave the playground

Dr Joanna Fortune: "Essentially, make it fun to get it done. She may still protest, but if you can stay calm and consistent, she will learn through repetition that playground time must end."

I regularly bring my 22-month-old grandchild to the playground. She gets very upset when I take her off the swing to put her in her buggy. She knows it’s about to happen if I reach for a snack or her bottle. I have to manhandle her into the buggy. She is not talking yet, but she understands a lot. Should I avoid the playground even though she loves it?

What a lucky little girl to have all of this playtime with her grandparent, and indeed you with her. Small children love the playground. It has so much variety with different things to try, challenges to master, (healthy) risks to be taken and other children to meet and befriend. All of this is good for her development.

However, transitions are not easy for young children to manage, so they often struggle with ending one fun task (playing on the playground) and doing something not so fun (going home for lunch/nap, etc).

I like how you are using a consistent cue (reaching for the snack/bottle) to mark the transition, but of course, she now recognises what that cue signifies ahead of time and is responding with typical two-year-old resistance — physical and verbal protest.

Perhaps you could try mixing this up a bit. For example, hide her teddy in the buggy and ask her to come over and help you find it. Or you could tell her that you see teddy outside of the park heading down the road and beseech her to ‘quickly climb into the buggy’ so you can catch it. 

Once strapped in, leave the playground, call for teddy, and then produce teddy for her, saying ‘We found her, yay’ while you are on your way out.

Young children typically need a creative cue, such as a new activity, to help them move on.

So, instead of saying ‘OK it’s time to go’ or ‘playtime is finished’ but that you use the search/find idea above or similar ‘let’s fly like butterflies over to this side of playground, now stomp like elephants to the other side, let’s creep like little mice to our buggy, let’s slither like a snake inside the buggy’.

You could also declare ‘it’s hopping/jumping time’ and count how many hops or jumps it takes back to the buggy.

You might like to keep a simple ‘mystery bag’ in the buggy; she only gets access to it when it is time to leave. Inside your mystery bag, you might have a cuddly toy, a book, something squishy, a child’s kaleidoscope, a small toy, or an item you know holds great interest for her.

You say: ‘When you are in your buggy you can open my special bag of treats and pick something to play with’.

With slightly older children, you can transition within an activity such as ‘Simon says’ and start with actions in the playground, building up to ‘Simon says, get into your buggy/get your scooter…Simon says let’s go to the corner” and keep going until you are home.

Essentially, make it fun to get it done. She may still protest, but if you can stay calm and consistent, she will learn through repetition that
playground time must end.

She is still very young, but I suggest persevering with some playful solutions and finding one that works rather than cutting out this fun playtime activity you share.

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