Areas › Focus, starting, and ADHD › Feelings and focus
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.
Show them the table, the worksheets, what happens when they finish, and let them try it once while nothing is wrong. After that the instruction is short and undramatic, and it does not turn into a scene the whole class joins in with. Most of what turns a small correction into an incident is the public arguing about what it means.
Qur’an and Sunnah
'made His tranquillity descend into the hearts of the believers' (Quran 48:4). Calm arriving in a difficult moment usually rests on something prepared well before it.
هُوَ ٱلَّذِيٓ أَنزَلَ ٱلسَّكِينَةَ فِي قُلُوبِ ٱلۡمُؤۡمِنِينَ لِيَزۡدَادُوٓاْ إِيمَٰنࣰ ا مَّعَ إِيمَٰنِهِمۡۗ وَلِلَّهِ جُنُودُ ٱلسَّمَٰوَٰتِ وَٱلۡأَرۡضِۚ وَكَانَ ٱللَّهُ عَلِيمًا حَكِيمࣰ ا
It was He who made His tranquillity descend into the hearts of the believers, to add faith to their faith––the forces of the heavens and earth belong to God; He is all knowing and all wise––
Qur’an 48:4read it in the library
Translation: M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, The Qur'an, Oxford University Press, 2004.
What the research says
A multicentre trial in 120 adults with ADHD compared a structured mindfulness based programme added to usual treatment against usual treatment alone. Notice the shape of it: skills taught in a course, over weeks, before the situations they are for. The trial was single blind and in adults, so it is that structure which carries over here rather than the findings themselves.
Janssen L, Kan CC, Carpentier PJ, Sizoo B, Hepark S, Schellekens MPJ, Donders ART, Buitelaar JK, Speckens AEM. (2019). Mindfulness-based cognitive therapy v. treatment as usual in adults with ADHD: a multicentre, single-blind, randomised controlled trial.. Psychological medicine doi
Strength of evidence: one line of research. A single study, or a theoretical account.
Why it works
Something rehearsed in advance can be started with a couple of words, which keeps a small correction small.
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
If you tell people that company is part of their treatment, it is worth noticing whether it is part of yours. Sitting in a training room with colleagues is the same medicine, taken by you.
Instead of sending a child out to sit and stew, send them to a side table for three very easy worksheets, then straight back to whatever everyone else is doing.
The intensity that makes you exhausting on a bad day is the same intensity that makes you good company. Enthusiasm and impulsiveness run off one engine.