Turn off screens
A screen swallows the sense of time, so putting it down can feel like being cut off mid-moment. The pictures below turn the abrupt stop into an ending the child can see coming.
Turn off screens
A phone, a tablet and a monitor with a red cross over them, showing that the screens should be turned off.
About this visual support
Inside a film or a game there is no clock. The screen pulls attention in so completely that the minutes vanish, which is why the words stop now almost always land as a shock. What looks to an adult like defiance is often just a child being yanked out of a state it had no warning it would have to leave.
Visual support works here like a countdown you can see. When it is clear from the start what comes after the screen, a picture of toothbrush, pyjamas and bed, the child knows the shutdown is not a punishment but the next box in an evening that continues. The ending takes a shape, and a shape can be prepared for.
One concrete tip is to show the next picture a little while before, so the child can round things off calmly instead of tearing away. For many children, including those with ADHD who struggle with interruptions in particular, that warning makes all the difference. In Routined you can place the shutdown as a clear step with visual support and a timer counting down to the evening's next point.