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Areas › Focus, starting, and ADHD › Structure and routine
A rule that lives only in memory is not there in the second it is needed, which is the second something more interesting has just walked past. A card in the visual field is competing with that distraction at the exact moment the child has to hold back. Keep the card to two or three lines in their words, and change it when the difficulty changes rather than leaving last term's problem sitting there.
Keep up the prayer at both ends of the day, and during parts of the night (Quran 11:114). Practice gets pinned to visible points rather than left to whether anyone remembers.
هود
وَأَقِمِ ٱلصَّلَوٰةَ طَرَفَيِ ٱلنَّهَارِ وَزُلَفࣰ ا مِّنَ ٱلَّيۡلِۚ إِنَّ ٱلۡحَسَنَٰتِ يُذۡهِبۡنَ ٱلسَّيِّـَٔاتِۚ ذَٰلِكَ ذِكۡرَىٰ لِلذَّٰكِرِينَ
[Prophet], keep up the prayer at both ends of the day, and during parts of the night, for good things drive bad away- this is a reminder for those who are aware
Qur’an 11:114read it in the library
Translation: M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, The Qur'an, Oxford University Press, 2004.
An experimental study of if then plans found they weakened the pull of an existing habit, but the benefit was smallest exactly where the competing habit was strongest. That is an honest limit for visible reminders too. A card helps most with the behaviour that is not yet entrenched, and least with the one that has been running for years, which is where more than a card will be needed.
Webb TL, Sheeran P, Luszczynska A. (2009). Planning to break unwanted habits: habit strength moderates implementation intention effects on behaviour change.. The British journal of social psychology doi
Strength of evidence: one line of research. A single study, or a theoretical account.
A rule you can see is available at the moment of impulse, and a rule you have to recall usually is not.
Before planning anything, work out which date is actually true. Does Thursday mean Thursday, or does everybody know it means Friday, and is Thursday even possible?
A deadline you privately know is soft has no pull at all. If six o'clock really means midnight, then ten in the morning means nothing, and the whole day drifts until the panic arrives.
Some children need to move, and the choice is whether that movement is allowed for or whether it arrives as a disruption later on.