Posts Tagged Impulse control

Impulse Control for Kids

Teaching impulse control for kids can be a challenge. If you want to become a more effective adult when working with young people, then give up the desire to control. Instead, hand over to the young the responsibility of learning to control themselves. This is important for every child but especially important for those young people who have repeated discipline and impulse control challenges.

The key to fostering impulse control for kids is to use the Levels of Development all the time so that it isn’t associated with corrective discipline. In fact, the more you use the hierarchy, the more young people will understand the difference between external and internal motivation. They will also become open to using the hierarchy … >>>

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Impulse Control versus Intelligence

Did you know that kids who can control their impulses do better in school?

While most people believe that intelligence plays the key role in children’s academic achievement, a study by Pennsylvania State University researchers found that the ability to self-regulate—to pay attention to a task and inhibit impulse behavior—was more important than intelligence for early academic success.

The study focused on three-to-five-year-olds and showed that preschoolers’ capacity for self-control was the best predictor of their performance in math and reading in kindergarten. Scores on intelligence tests were not as closely correlated with academic achievement.

A child’s ability to monitor his or her thinking and behavior develops rapidly during preschool. The data gives concrete support to preschool programs that focus … >>>

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What Teachers Can Do to Promote Responsibility

I always say that responsibility is taken, never given or told. In other words, using outdated discipline techniques like imposed punishments and rewards won’t result in students acting responsibly. They must have the internal motivation to want to act a certain way.

With that said, there are things teachers can do to create an environment that fosters their students’ desire to be responsible. Here are a few:

  • When a student acts out, before resorting to the usual discipline techniques, remember that no one comes to school to get into trouble. Think of students as lacking skills to handle impulses—or that the behavior is the student’s best effort at the time to handle a frustration. Few students are maliciously disruptive.
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Choose Your Reactions

We’ve all been in situations that can put us in a bad mood: traffic jams, dealing with unruly children, interacting with rude co-workers … the list goes on. But have you developed the self-discipline to choose your reaction to the situation?

I admit that while in the midst of a stressful situation, it’s hard to consciously choose to stay positive or to not let something upset you. In that moment, negativity may surround you, and negativity is very contagious. That’s why I recommend everyone develop a procedure for dealing with stressful situations. My favorite is the Stop, Think, and Go procedure, which I explain here.

Whatever procedure you opt to use for yourself and to teach your children, the … >>>

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Breathing Techniques Help Youth Deal with Impulse Control

A new study from the University of California, Los Angeles, found that teens who went through a four-week program where they learned about yoga-based breathing techniques had better impulse control than teens who didn’t go through the program. The program, called “YES! for Schools,” was developed by the nonprofit International Association for Human Values.

Researchers had 524 Los Angeles area high school students go through the four-week program. They also recruited 264 teens to be in a control group that didn’t go through the program. After the four weeks, the students who went through the program reported feeling less impulsive than those who didn’t. The researchers noted that the findings are important because lack of impulse control is linked with … >>>

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Impulse Control and Reflective Questions

QUESTION:

I’d appreciate your advice on handling a few children who persist in behaving at Level B, even after I have “checked for understanding” and have proceeded with “guided choices.”

Today I told one of my students who hit another child, “I want you to stay in our classroom, but if you act on Level B again, you are telling me that you want to keep on making your own rules for the class.”

RESPONSE:

Next time, ASK the student if he would like to stay in the classroom. Then ASK him on what level he would need to behave to remain in the class.

Follow this up by ASKING him what he will do when he gets the same … >>>

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Using the Discipline without Stress Impulse Poster

First posted on the Teachers.net site. Permission was  granted from the author to re-post here:

6th and 7th graders are very impulsive creatures — they have been taught to be impulsive by adults. Don’t believe it? Just go to a teacher training session and observe how the teachers behave while the speakers are presenting!  As a society we have become more impulsive, less respectful and less willing to listen to others.  Just watch the adults, who come, presumably, to watch a student performance at school; they often talk right through it!

So, I guess my point is that until students are taught and learn self control, are disciplinary consequences really the answer? Is giving them Detention Hall going to … >>>

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