Loading practices
Loading practices
Areas › Focus, starting, and ADHD › Systems for daily life
A grade is weeks of work, a marking scheme and a bit of luck, and no child can decide on a Tuesday to have a better one. The behaviours underneath it are things they can actually do that day. That makes the arrangement fair, it makes success possible in the first week, and it happens to train the very skills that are thin.
God does not burden any soul with more than it can bear (Quran 2:286). A target set beyond what a child can actually manage on the day is a burden of that kind.
البقرة
لَا يُكَلِّفُ ٱللَّهُ نَفۡسًا إِلَّا وُسۡعَهَاۚ لَهَا مَا كَسَبَتۡ وَعَلَيۡهَا مَا ٱكۡتَسَبَتۡۗ رَبَّنَا لَا تُؤَاخِذۡنَآ إِن نَّسِينَآ أَوۡ أَخۡطَأۡنَاۚ رَبَّنَا وَلَا تَحۡمِلۡ عَلَيۡنَآ إِصۡرࣰ ا كَمَا حَمَلۡتَهُۥ عَلَى ٱلَّذِينَ مِن قَبۡلِنَاۚ رَبَّنَا وَلَا تُحَمِّلۡنَا مَا لَا طَاقَةَ لَنَا بِهِۦۖ وَٱعۡفُ عَنَّا وَٱغۡفِرۡ لَنَا وَٱرۡحَمۡنَآۚ أَنتَ مَوۡلَىٰنَا فَٱنصُرۡنَا عَلَى ٱلۡقَوۡمِ ٱلۡكَٰفِرِينَ
God does not burden any soul with more than it can bear: each gains whatever good it has done, and suffers its bad- ‘ Lord, do not take us to task if we forget or make mistakes. Lord, do not burden us as You burdened those before us. Lord, do not burden us with more than we have strength to bear. Pardon us, forgive us, and have mercy on us. You are our Protector, so help us against the disbelievers.’
Qur’an 2:286read it in the library
Translation: M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, The Qur'an, Oxford University Press, 2004.
A clinical review of monitoring treatment response in adults with ADHD sets out disorganisation, poor time management and procrastination as the associated features worth tracking, which is to say the tracked thing should be the behaviour rather than the eventual result of it. The same logic sits behind targeting handed-in homework rather than the report at the end of term. That review is about adults and about clinical monitoring, so it supports the principle and not the particular form.
Ramsay JR. (2017). Assessment and monitoring of treatment response in adult ADHD patients: current perspectives.. Neuropsychiatric disease and treatment doi
Strength of evidence: one line of research. A single study, or a theoretical account.
You can only work towards something you are able to do today, and a grade is not that.
Praise the sitting down at the desk, not only the finished piece. If recognition only shows up when something is completed, most weeks it never shows up at all.
Planning does not really happen in your head. Until the week is written somewhere you actually look, you are guessing, however sincere your intentions are.
When a young person is struggling to launch into adult life, it is usually two things at once: the practical scaffolding, and the social side. Work on one only and the other tends to pull it down.