Areas › Focus, starting, and ADHD › Systems for daily life
Reading a room is a skill rather than a personality trait, and it can be broken into parts. Before you speak, take a second to look: who is here, what they are doing, how loud the place is.
Give yourself a short list to run through. How are people dressed and speaking, is this somewhere jokes land, is anybody clearly in a hurry. Then pick the version of yourself that suits the room, which is not the same as pretending to be someone else. What worked well in a school corridor can go badly wrong in a staff kitchen, and nobody announces that the rules have changed. When it does go wrong, ask someone you trust what they saw, rather than replaying it on your own for a fortnight.
Qur’an and Sunnah
Consult with them about matters, then, when you have decided on a course of action, put your trust in God (Quran 3:159). Checking your reading of a situation with someone else is part of deciding well, not a sign that you cannot judge.
فَبِمَا رَحۡمَةࣲ مِّنَ ٱللَّهِ لِنتَ لَهُمۡۖ وَلَوۡ كُنتَ فَظًّا غَلِيظَ ٱلۡقَلۡبِ لَٱنفَضُّواْ مِنۡ حَوۡلِكَۖ فَٱعۡفُ عَنۡهُمۡ وَٱسۡتَغۡفِرۡ لَهُمۡ وَشَاوِرۡهُمۡ فِي ٱلۡأَمۡرِۖ فَإِذَا عَزَمۡتَ فَتَوَكَّلۡ عَلَى ٱللَّهِۚ إِنَّ ٱللَّهَ يُحِبُّ ٱلۡمُتَوَكِّلِينَ
By an act of mercy from God, you [Prophet] were gentle in your dealings with them- had you been harsh, or hard-hearted, they would have dispersed and left you- so pardon them and ask forgiveness for them. Consult with them about matters, then, when you have decided on a course of action, put your trust in God: God loves those who put their trust in Him
Qur’an 3:159read it in the library
Translation: M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, The Qur'an, Oxford University Press, 2004.
What the research says
An updated systematic review of psychosocial treatments for children and adolescents with ADHD placed peer based work among the best supported, alongside parent training and classroom management. Social skill being taught rather than left to appear on its own has real backing behind it. The review covers younger people in structured programmes, not an adult reading a workplace, so the move across is reasonable rather than tested.
Steven W. Evans; Julie Sarno Owens; Nóra Bunford (2013). Evidence-Based Psychosocial Treatments for Children and Adolescents with Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder. Journal of Clinical Child & Adolescent Psychology doi
Strength of evidence: one line of research. A single study, or a theoretical account.
Why it works
Turning something vague like be appropriate into three things you can actually look at gives you a procedure instead of an instruction.
This one is still a draft. It is waiting on a scholar and a clinician to read it before it is published.
Near this one
Writing the list is the easy half. If twelve things are down on paper and you still cannot move, the missing skill is choosing, not capturing.
Put the schoolwork early in the day and let the screens come after it. For a teenager early means later than you would like, but the order stays the same.
Two to four targets is the usual advice and three is plenty. A longer list looks thorough and quietly stops working.