Areas › Focus, starting, and ADHD › Systems for daily life
When someone has shut down, pressure to get moving usually pushes them further in. Safety first and activity afterwards, even when the whole household is desperate for a sign of life.
Safety here is ordinary and physical. Food that turns up without being asked for. A room nobody is inspecting. Conversation that is not a progress review in disguise. Think in weeks rather than days. Somebody will have to hold that line with the rest of the family and explain it, because from outside it looks like letting the problem carry on. Usually it is not. Demands arrive as more evidence of failure when a person has nothing left to meet them with.
Qur’an and Sunnah
He has chosen you and placed no hardship in your religion (Quran 22:78). If even the demands of faith are set at a liveable level, a household's demands can be too.
وَجَٰهِدُواْ فِي ٱللَّهِ حَقَّ جِهَادِهِۦۚ هُوَ ٱجۡتَبَىٰكُمۡ وَمَا جَعَلَ عَلَيۡكُمۡ فِي ٱلدِّينِ مِنۡ حَرَجࣲۚ مِّلَّةَ أَبِيكُمۡ إِبۡرَٰهِيمَۚ هُوَ سَمَّىٰكُمُ ٱلۡمُسۡلِمِينَ مِن قَبۡلُ وَفِي هَٰذَا لِيَكُونَ ٱلرَّسُولُ شَهِيدًا عَلَيۡكُمۡ وَتَكُونُواْ شُهَدَآءَ عَلَى ٱلنَّاسِۚ فَأَقِيمُواْ ٱلصَّلَوٰةَ وَءَاتُواْ ٱلزَّكَوٰةَ وَٱعۡتَصِمُواْ بِٱللَّهِ هُوَ مَوۡلَىٰكُمۡۖ فَنِعۡمَ ٱلۡمَوۡلَىٰ وَنِعۡمَ ٱلنَّصِيرُ
Strive hard for God as is His due: He has chosen you and placed no hardship in your religion, the faith of your forefather Abraham. God has called you Muslims––both in the past and in this [message]––so that the Messenger can bear witness about you and so that you can bear witness about other people. So keep up the prayer, give the prescribed alms, and seek refuge in God: He is your protector––an excellent protector and an excellent helper
Qur’an 22:78read it in the library
Translation: M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, The Qur'an, Oxford University Press, 2004.
What the research says
A randomised trial tested a deliberate strategy for keeping families with high needs engaged in group behavioural parent training, because the long standing problem is that the families who most need these programmes stop attending. It is about attendance rather than about withdrawal into a bedroom. The lesson that carries is plain enough: when what is being asked exceeds what people can manage, they leave, and nothing further happens after that.
Chacko A, Wymbs BT, Chimiklis A, Wymbs FA, Pelham WE. (2012). Evaluating a comprehensive strategy to improve engagement to group-based behavioral parent training for high-risk families of children with ADHD.. Journal of abnormal child psychology doi
Strength of evidence: one line of research. A single study, or a theoretical account.
Why it works
Someone who does not feel safe spends everything they have on feeling safe, so there is nothing left over for doing.
When not to
Shutting down alongside hopelessness or talk of not being here needs a professional assessment, not more patience.
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
Read down a long to-do list and you will find things belonging to a person you were three years ago. Some of them were never good ideas. They got written down anyway.
Where there is a choice, take the class that meets at a fixed hour with other people in the room. Watch it whenever you like turns into never watched more often than anyone admits.
Start with less work than they can manage, not more, and add back slowly. Break the long jobs into pieces small enough that each one can be finished and noticed.