Loading practices
Loading practices
Areas › Focus, starting, and ADHD › Feelings and focus
Make it clearly available rather than assigned. They go, they take their few minutes, they come back with a short hello and a nod at whatever they were doing. Notice the times they went on their own and mention it quietly, later. That is the actual skill growing, and it is worth more than a calm afternoon bought with instructions.
'Seek help with steadfastness and prayer' (Quran 2:45). The seeking is the child's own move, and the adults' job is making sure there is somewhere to go.
البقرة
وَٱسۡتَعِينُواْ بِٱلصَّبۡرِ وَٱلصَّلَوٰةِۚ وَإِنَّهَا لَكَبِيرَةٌ إِلَّا عَلَى ٱلۡخَٰشِعِينَ
Seek help with steadfastness and prayer- though this is hard indeed for anyone but the humble
Qur’an 2:45read it in the library
Translation: M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, The Qur'an, Oxford University Press, 2004.
In a study of people aged 10 to 23, age related differences appeared both in how strongly emotion was felt and in how well reappraisal could be used. Regulation looks like something that develops with time and practice rather than a switch that can be installed. The study compares age groups rather than following children as they learn, so it supports patience more than any particular classroom method.
Silvers JA, McRae K, Gabrieli JD, Gross JJ, Remy KA, Ochsner KN. (2012). Age-related differences in emotional reactivity, regulation, and rejection sensitivity in adolescence.. Emotion (Washington, D.C.) doi
Strength of evidence: one line of research. A single study, or a theoretical account.
Noticing your own state and acting on it is the thing being learned, and nobody else can do that part for you.
Whatever the correction is, teach it before you need it. A routine the child already knows can be started with two words instead of a negotiation in front of everybody.
You cannot ask anyone to work harder on your difficulty than you are working on it yourself. That is the condition attached to every adjustment you ask for.
When someone has gone flat, the question is not what they ought to be doing. It is what still has any life in it for them, however small or unimpressive, and then how to get more of that.