Practices

Every practice in the library, in one list. Narrow it by how long you have, who it is written for, and where you are right now.

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466 practices

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When the fear is about being seen, being asked, being judged, you can build the steps out of real moments: the doorway, the corridor, the dining hall, answering once in a lesson.

Fear of a whole building cannot be practised. Fear of walking into the dining hall at half past twelve can. Make each step small enough to be boring…

Twenty minutesThe cost of avoidingCBTQur’an 90:11One line of research

With an older teenager the pull is often not fear at all. The day at home is better: sleep, screens, and friends who are also not going.

Anxiety work goes nowhere against this, because there is little anxiety left to work on. What changes it is the shape of the day, with the good…

Twenty minutesThe cost of avoidingCBTQur’an 53:39One line of research

Whoever is standing in the hall at half past seven needs to understand the trap as well as the child does. A plan agreed on a Tuesday afternoon will not survive a Wednesday morning otherwise.

In the moment it is happening, a parent is not weighing up what gets learned over a term. They are trying to end the distress in front of them, and…

Twenty minutesThe cost of avoidingCBTQur’an 20:114One line of research

Where a child is not attending, the adults are often already cross with each other. That argument has to be parked before any plan will hold.

Home thinks the school did not act. The school thinks home is not firm. Both usually have a point, and neither point can be settled quickly enough to…

Twenty minutesThe cost of avoidingCBTQur’an 11:112One line of research

Looking for a whole subject rather than a single practice? Start from the nine areas.

The fear underneath anger

Shame

Tolerate distress

Facing it a step at a time

Shame and stigma

Breathing

Remembering to do it

Staying regulated in conflict

When everything feels flat

When you use something to cope

Righteous anger and perfectionism

Repair after rupture

Choosing your response

What worry does

Growing empathy

When anger turns to harm

Being seen and judged

Rituals of connection

Structure and routine

Practising under provocation

Anger, alcohol and the body

Equanimity and perspective

Obsessions and compulsions

Posture and how you carry yourself

Feeling from the inside

Letting it out safely

Answering bids

Listen to the body

What you are actually defending

Question the thought

Care for yourself in loss

Rest and pacing

Safety and grounding

Living with uncertainty

Treatment and medication

Keep the bond

Try saying it out loud: we can leave who was at fault for another day and both work on getting her back in. Most people accept that offer if nobody has to admit anything.

Grievances between families and schools rarely resolve on the timeline a child needs. Naming a goal that sits above the dispute lets everyone move…

Twenty minutesThe cost of avoidingCBTQur’an 2:197One line of research

A child coming back after weeks away is walking towards a mountain of missed work. Cut that mountain down before the return date, or it will punish them for coming.

Ask the school which pieces genuinely have to be made up and which can be written off, and get the answer in writing. What is left should be small…

Twenty minutesThe cost of avoidingCBTQur’an 94:7One line of research

Staff who think a child is playing them will respond in ways that make school worse. A short explanation of how avoidance actually works changes what happens in the corridor.

Explain the pattern rather than the pupil: the relief that follows getting out of something, and the way that relief quietly books the next absence.…

Twenty minutesThe cost of avoidingCBTQur’an 17:36One line of research

A shortened day, a pass on presenting to the class, a modified deadline, a quiet place at lunch: worth asking for when they let a child stay in the building rather than leave it.

The test for any adjustment is simple. Does it get them into the room and keep them there, or does it save them from the room? A shortened day that…

Twenty minutesThe cost of avoidingCBTQur’an 90:11One line of research

You cannot outbid a bedroom with unlimited gaming and a free afternoon. Free access has to shrink before an earned version means anything at all.

With an older teenager this goes better as a conversation about arrangements than about character: the wifi and the console sit behind the school…

Twenty minutesThe cost of avoidingCBTQur’an 6:35One line of research

A chart imposed on a fifteen year old will be beaten, ignored or fought. Agree the terms with them instead, in a conversation where they can genuinely change something.

Ask what they think would help, what they would want in return, and what feels unfair about the current version. You are not handing over the goal,…

Twenty minutesThe cost of avoidingCBTQur’an 53:28One line of research

Build the ladder from what you do now, not from what you think you should be managing. If phone calls are currently impossible, the first rung sits somewhere below a phone call.

Have an honest look first. Which apps you talk on, whether you send voice notes or only type, whether you have ordered anything out loud in the past…

Twenty minutesBeing seen and judgedCBTQur’an 20:26One line of research

Social fear usually has a first address. School corridors, a year when appearance decided everything, a group that made a project of you. Knowing where it began does not undo it, but it stops it feeling like a fact about your character.

What often keeps it alive is that the rules of that place travelled with you. The hierarchy ended at graduation and the watchfulness carried on.…

Twenty minutesBeing seen and judgedNarrativeQur’an 24:15One line of research

Sometimes the help you need is not insight. It is someone sitting with you while you sort out what actually happened this week and which bit of it mattered.

When anxiety is running at full speed, everything arrives at the same volume and nothing can be ranked. A bad week becomes one undifferentiated bad…

Twenty minutesBeing seen and judgedNarrativeQur’an 15:97One line of research

Sometimes a parent who seemed cold or impossible to please turns out to have been working with a different wiring altogether. Learning that can loosen something no amount of arguing with yourself would.

One young woman spent years reading her father's behaviour as a verdict on her, and later came to understand him as autistic, which she had never…

Twenty minutesBeing seen and judgedNarrativeQur’an 49:12One line of research

These practices are not only pleasant. They change things you could measure, which is worth knowing on the days when pleasant is not reason enough to bother.

Yoga and breath work tend to get filed under relaxation, and that undersells them. There are claims made about them shifting the chemistry involved…

Twenty minutesBreathingBody basedQur’an 32:9One line of research

A good instructor says light, moderate, heavy. A poor one says set the dial to three. Only one of those takes account of the body you actually brought with you.

Fixed settings guarantee that somebody in the room is working far too hard and somebody else is barely working at all. If you tend to go flat out and…

Twenty minutesBreathingBody basedQur’an 65:7One line of research

Heading towards the shape is the whole job. A perfect triangle is not what the pose is for, and nobody is marking it.

Perfectionism and going too hard tend to travel together, and between them they produce most of the injuries and most of the quitting. If you are…

Twenty minutesBreathingBody basedQur’an 20:26One line of research

Go slowly enough to learn something about yourself, rather than only a technique. What is worth keeping is knowing which breath does what in your body.

One round is rarely enough to tell. Try a breath for a minute or two, stop, and check what shifted: the chest, the shoulders, how loud your thoughts…

Twenty minutesBreathingBody basedQur’an 73:4One line of research

There are two skills here rather than one: letting your body move and settle in its own way, and being able to steer yourself deliberately towards rest or alertness. It is worth having both.

Most people are strong in one and shy of the other. If you always take charge, your body never gets to finish anything on its own. If you only ever…

Twenty minutesBreathingBody basedQur’an 2:153One line of research

There are two ways to make something get noticed: make it louder, or quieten everything around it. The second is usually the one nobody has tried.

It applies to a desk and to a phone screen alike. Adding one more reminder into a busy field mostly adds to the field. Taking six things off the desk…

Twenty minutesBringing the future closerADHD skillsQur’an 20:131One line of research