The Mix-It-Up Jar — Practising Going With the Flow

A cheerful, low-stakes game where you deliberately introduce one tiny, safe change to a daily routine, so your child practises “going with the flow” before the real surprises arrive.

  1. Make the jar together. Fill it with 8–12 slips, each naming one tiny, harmless swap: “brush teeth before pyjamas tonight,” “take the other path to the park,” “Dad reads the bedtime story instead of Mum,” “wear odd socks on purpose.”
  2. Pick a calm moment to play — never when you’re rushed or someone’s already upset. Announce it warmly: “It’s Mix-It-Up time — let’s see what the jar picked!”
  3. Draw a slip and read it together, framing it as a flexibility game: “Ooh, a switch! Our brains get to bend like a tree in the wind.”
  4. Do the swapped routine together, narrating lightly: “Look at us going with the flow!”
  5. Name the feeling and the choice afterwards: “That felt a bit surprising — and we did it. Bendy brains are strong brains.”
  6. Celebrate small (a high-five or warm words) and keep the whole thing to a few minutes.
  7. Start with one swap a week; over time let your child draw the slip, then make up their own swaps.

Variation: skip the jar and simply announce a cheerful “Switch of the Week” (“this week, Tuesday is backwards- breakfast!”). Play the “spaghetti game” before a swap — be stiff dry spaghetti, then “cook” into soft, bendy noodles to feel flexible versus rigid. Or let your child invent a tiny swap for you, so flexibility gets modelled both ways.

Requirements

  • Space: Any home space — no dedicated area needed
  • Surface: None required (a table helps for decorating the jar)
  • Materials: A jar or box, paper slips, and a pen; optional crayons or stickers; otherwise just your existing daily routines
  • Participants: One child plus at least one caregiver; siblings can join
  • Supervision: Full caregiver involvement — the adult vets every change, sets the playful tone, and watches the child's response

Rationale & Objective

Cognitive flexibility — inhibiting a familiar response and shifting to a new one as circumstances change — is one of the three core executive functions and is, in Diamond’s words, “the opposite of rigidity” (Diamond, 2013). Because EF capacities grow only when demands are nudged up little by little (Diamond, 2013), rehearsing flexibility on a graded series of tiny, safe changes plausibly builds tolerance for the bigger, genuinely unexpected ones. Pairing a secure, predictable routine with small announced variations mirrors the NAEYC stance that good practice balances consistency with flexibility, and ZERO TO THREE’s guidance that transitions can be used on purpose to strengthen executive function, resilience, and independence. Framing a change as a positive game rather than a loss recruits the “reflection” pathway Zelazo describes — pausing and reappraising instead of reacting to change as a threat (Zelazo, 2015). The aim is a calmer, more adaptable stance toward change: smoother classroom transitions, fewer meltdowns when the schedule shifts, and more day-to-day resilience. This stays distinct from recovering after a wanted plan falls through (disappointment-coping) — here the change is benign and proactive, and the target is set-shifting and transition tolerance. Honest framing — direct evidence for this specific game is thin; it is extrapolated from EF-mechanism research and practice-based curricula (Tools of the Mind, NAEYC, ZERO TO THREE) rather than from trials of routine-swap play, and some children — especially highly routine-dependent or autistic children — need much gentler, smaller, fully pre-warned dosing, because predictability is genuinely protective for them.

Progress Indicators

  • Early: notices an introduced change and may protest, freeze, or insist on the usual order, but can do the swap with heavy adult support and reassurance
  • Developing: goes along with a small pre-announced swap with mild wobble; can be reminded of the “bendy brain” idea and recover within a minute or two
  • Proficient: accepts most planned small changes calmly, sometimes with curiosity or humour; names the feeling (“that’s a surprise — I can go with the flow”) and shifts without much coaxing
  • Advanced: tolerates a genuinely unannounced small change with little distress, proposes their own switch-ups, and carries the calm stance into real unexpected changes at home or school

Safety Notes

  • Emotional safety first — never spring a change that is distressing, embarrassing, or shaming; keep every stake tiny and the tone warm
  • Never swap away something genuinely precious or needed (a comfort object, a needed nap, a long-promised event); changes must be neutral, not losses
  • Pre-warn and shrink the dosing for sensitive, anxious, or autistic children — start with a clearly announced “one small switch,” allow a real opt-out, and consider a visual cue; predictability is protective and shouldn’t be deliberately destabilised
  • Back off at once if the game produces real anxiety or escalating rigidity; flexibility grows through felt safety, not through pushing past distress
  • Don’t play when your child is already stressed, tired, hungry, ill, or going through a bigger life change — add stability then, not novelty

Hints

  • Playfulness: make it an event, not a directive — a silly voice, a “surprise!” reveal from the jar, being soft bendy spaghetti or a tree swaying in the wind; the change is the fun, never a chore
  • Sustain interest: refresh the jar with new child-suggested slips, run a themed “Switch of the Week,” and let your child draw (and later read) the slip to keep a sense of ownership
  • Common mistake: forcing it, or using it as a test of obedience (“you HAVE to be flexible now”) — coercion teaches that change means losing control and breeds more rigidity; if there’s resistance, shrink the change or stop
  • Limited materials: no jar needed — just say one small swap aloud at a calm moment (“story before bath tonight!”), or flip a coin to decide a tiny order change; the routine itself is the only material
  • Cross-domain: builds emotional regulation (naming and riding out the surprised feeling), social skills (going along with others’ ideas), and self-care and adaptive skills (handling real transitions and new settings)
  • Progression: tiny pre-announced swaps → slightly bigger announced swaps → the odd spontaneous small change → child proposes a switch → staying calm with a genuinely unexpected real-life change

Sources

  • Diamond, A. (2013). “Executive Functions.” Annual Review of Psychology, 64, 135–168 (defines cognitive flexibility as the opposite of rigidity; EF demands must be increased incrementally)
  • Zelazo, P. D. (2015). “Executive function: Reflection, iterative reprocessing, complexity, and the developing brain.” Developmental Review, 38, 55–68
  • Diamond, A., Barnett, W. S., Thomas, J. & Munro, S. (2007). “Preschool Program Improves Cognitive Control.” Science, 318(5855), 1387–1388 (Tools of the Mind)
  • ZERO TO THREE — guidance on coping with change and using transitions to build executive function, resilience, and independence
  • NAEYC — Developmentally Appropriate Practice: predictable routines that stay flexible, with advance notice and playful transitions
  • Bodrova, E. & Leong, D. J. (2007). Tools of the Mind — play-based self-regulation curriculum building working memory, inhibition, and cognitive flexibility
  • Head Start ELOF — Approaches to Learning (P-ATL 9: child demonstrates flexibility in thinking and behavior)