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Areas › Focus, starting, and ADHD › Structure and routine
When the explanation runs on, the instruction gets buried somewhere in the middle of it and comes out the other side lost. A long justification also reads as an opening, and what was meant as an instruction quietly turns into a negotiation you did not intend to have. Save your reasons for a calm moment later, when there is nothing to be done right now and the child can actually take them in.
Do not be too loud in your prayer, or too quiet, but seek a middle way (Quran 17:110). Enough words to be understood, and then no more.
الإسراء
قُلِ ٱدۡعُواْ ٱللَّهَ أَوِ ٱدۡعُواْ ٱلرَّحۡمَٰنَۖ أَيࣰّ ا مَّا تَدۡعُواْ فَلَهُ ٱلۡأَسۡمَآءُ ٱلۡحُسۡنَىٰۚ وَلَا تَجۡهَرۡ بِصَلَاتِكَ وَلَا تُخَافِتۡ بِهَا وَٱبۡتَغِ بَيۡنَ ذَٰلِكَ سَبِيلࣰ ا
Say [to them], ‘Call on God, or on the Lord of Mercy- whatever names you call Him, the best names belong to Him.’ [Prophet], do not be too loud in your prayer, or too quiet, but seek a middle way
Qur’an 17:110read it in the library
Translation: M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, The Qur'an, Oxford University Press, 2004.
A waitlist controlled trial of behavioural parent training built specifically for fathers of children with ADHD aged six to twelve tested a whole programme, one part of which is how instructions are given. So the evidence backs the programme rather than this single habit pulled out of it. It also came from a group under represented in earlier trials, which is useful, and it is one trial.
Fabiano GA, Pelham WE, Cunningham CE, Yu J, Gangloff B, Buck M, Linke S, Gormley M, Gera S. (2012). A waitlist-controlled trial of behavioral parent training for fathers of children with ADHD.. Journal of clinical child and adolescent psychology : the official journal for the Society of Clinical Child and Adolescent Psychology, American Psychological Association, Division 53 doi
Strength of evidence: one line of research. A single study, or a theoretical account.
Long explanations bury the one sentence that needed to be heard, and invite an argument on top.
Anything with more than one step gets written down, and the child does the writing. Ten problems, check them against the answers, correct what is wrong: three lines in their own hand.
Attach a new habit to one you already do: after wudu, I read one page.
Unless the dentist works in your living room, dentist at one is only half an entry. Block the getting there, the parking and the walking in, and block the journey home as well.