Areas › Focus, starting, and ADHD › Structure and routine
If a young person hears your suggestion of a planner as one more instruction, they will refuse it, and the refusal is about who is in charge rather than about diaries. Hand over the choice of format and the choice of what goes in.
It helps to be plain that this is theirs and not a monitoring device. That means not reading it over their shoulder and not producing it as evidence in an argument later. Offer to help set it up once, then step back. A system they built badly and use is worth far more than the one you built beautifully and they ignore.
Qur’an and Sunnah
He has placed no hardship in your religion (Quran 22:78). A practice meant to be kept is one designed to be liveable by the person keeping it.
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 controlled trial tested non violent resistance parent training for childhood ADHD, an approach built around parental presence, self regulation, structure and a support network, and developed because standard parent training often loses families. How structure is offered turns out to matter as much as what it contains. That trial was about parenting rather than planners, so the read across is about the offering rather than the tool.
Schorr-Sapir I, Gershy N, Apter A, Omer H. (2022). Parent training in non-violent resistance for children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder: a controlled outcome study.. European child & adolescent psychiatry doi
Strength of evidence: one line of research. A single study, or a theoretical account.
Why it works
Anything experienced as imposed becomes something to resist rather than something to use.
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
Get the child's eyes first, then give one instruction. The page, how much, and by when, and then stop.
While you are talking, have them writing. Notes give attention something to hold onto, and they let you see at a glance who has gone.
A three o'clock appointment half an hour away is a half past two appointment. Put the true start time in and let the calendar hold it, rather than asking yourself to work it out on the day.