🌱 Pause. Exploring transitions and change through a BOUNCE® lens
As a BOUNCE® practitioner, you’re not here to hurry transitions —
you’re here to understand what the transition does to the body.
Difficulties with transitions are rarely about avoiding the next thing.
They are about avoiding the internal activation the change creates —
the surge of stress that pushes the nervous system outside the window of tolerance.
For many children, especially those with demand-avoidant profiles, it is the feeling of expectation, loss of control, or pressure that registers as threat — not the task itself.
Before choosing an activity, pause and ask:
- Body 🧘 – Does this transition trigger a spike in arousal that tips the body into stress?
- Openness 🔓 – Does the expectation feel like pressure rather than choice?
- Understanding sensory differences 👂👀 – Is the next environment increasing load before the child arrives?
- Navigating emotions 💭 – Is there fear, grief, anger, or loss of control attached to the shift?
- Connection 🤝 – Would shared movement or accompaniment reduce activation?
- Esteem 🌟 – Is fear of getting it wrong or being judged amplifying stress?
Your role is not to overcome avoidance —
it’s to reduce activation so the body can stay within its window of tolerance.
Start with curiosity 🌿
Then choose the intervention that meets the child where they are right now.
🖨️ Looking for Printables
Choose these when the child needs predictability and autonomy around what’s changing.
- Somatic Toolkit
- Communication Pack
- Therapeutic LEGO Activities
- Belief Systems (exploring thoughts linked to pressure and demand) – LEGO or Minecraft
- Body based activities
- Visual supports for now / next / later, endings, and choice-based transitions
These reduce anticipatory stress before the transition begins.
📘 Looking for Lesson Plans
Choose this when you want a structured sequence to help children understand activation and change over time.
- Emotional Literacy lesson plans, then explore this.
- Exploring the window of tolerance, so children learn that activation rises and falls — and is survivable
The focus is awareness, not endurance.
🧰 Looking for a Regulation Tool
Choose this when transitions consistently push the child into stress or shutdown.
- Somatic, body-based regulation strategies
- Music for regulation to support rhythm and pacing between activities
- Gentle movement or yoga to discharge activation safely
These support the body to complete activation rather than resist it.
🧱 Looking for a Creative Hands-on Activity
Choose this when the transition brings up strong internal responses that are hard to name.
- Creative and expressive activities to map activation and release
- Play-based or symbolic work: Sand Trays, Play-doh, Drawing
- Parts-based creative activities to notice protective parts that resist activation
This allows exploration of stress responses without reinforcing avoidance.
🎓 Further practitioner training
To deepen understanding of demand-avoidant responses and the role of activation in transitions, explore: Managing Demand Avoidance
💡 Did you Know?
These, along with every course, resources, activity and idea are all free to Annual Professional Members and Team Members of the Learning Portal?
