Managing Impulsivity
"Take your time! Thinking before acting; remaining calm, thoughtful, and deliberative" (Costa, A.L & Kallick, B, 2000, p.ix)
Introduction
Helping my students manage their impulsivity is crucial because my students are prime examples of impulsive students. “Often [my] students blurt the first answer that comes to mind. Sometimes the shout out an answer, start to work without fully understanding the directions, lack an organized plan or strategy for approaching a problem or make immediate value judgments about an idea-criticizing or praising it- before fully understanding it. They may take the first suggestion given or operate on the first idea that comes to mind rather than considering alternatives and consequences of several possible directions” (Costa, A.L & Kallick, B, 2000, p.3).
Additionally, their impulsivity, causes them to react quickly without thinking of the implications of their actions. My goal for my students’ is that they will stop and think before they act. To increase their independence with this habit and mindset, I first need to work with them on establishing what managing impulsivity looks like, what it feels like, and what it sounds like (Boys, K. & Watts, G., 2009). If my students can achieve this goal, they will be more inclined to embrace challenges and take on rigorous tasks because they understand that they can solve problems by first “gathering information, taking time to reflect on an answer before giving it, making sure they understand directions and listening to alternative points of view” (Costa, A.L & Kallick, B, 2000, p.3). If my students are more willing to embrace challenges, they are working towards a growth mindset because they know that challenges help them grow and become stronger (Richard, M. G., 2007).
Explicit Teaching
Due to the age of my scholars, it is developmentally appropriate to have lessons structured in similar ways so that they can access the content. Thus, my lesson plan for teaching managing impulsivity is very similar to the persistence lesson plan. To begin the lesson, I listed synonyms for managing impulsivity and encouraged students to guess what habit of mind we were learning about today. Although students were not able to correctly identify the habit of mind, this word work provided them with other examples of what managing impulsivity means. We then created a KWL for managing impulsivity. The KWL chart (seen below) demonstrated my students lack of knowledge with this habit of mind. For the K column, a student shared that their mom is a manager. Despite the synonyms shared a few minutes earlier, my students were still unsure of what managing impulsivity meant which is why the explicit lesson was crucial to forming this mindset.
After the KWL chart, I read The Angry Shark to my students. In the digital book, we are introduced to the Angry Shark who isn't able to control his anger. He gets mad easily and physically lashes out. Due to his anger and impulsive actions, his friend doesn't want to invite him to his birthday party unless he can learn to control his actions. The Angry Shark's friend gives him some magic fish that will help him control his impulsive actions. With the help of the magic fish, the Angry Shark begins to discover strategies that help him control his anger and his impulses. At the end of the book, the Angry Shark can attend his friend's birthday because of his new found strategies.
My students loved reading about the Angry Shark, and many of them could identify with the impulsive actions or angry feelings the shark had. After reading the digital book, we discussed what happened to the shark when he got angry, what were his impulse behaviors, and what were his coping skills. As we talked about the Angry Shark's different coping skills, we began to talk about the value of taking time to stop your action, think about what you're doing and then do something to calm yourself down. My students and I agreed that the words, stop, think, and do are good reminders of how to manage impulsivity. Students then partnered shared and shared with the whole group examples of what they could do to manage their impulses in and outside of the classroom.
After our reading and discussion, students completed a worksheet that reminded them of the stop, think, do strategy. Students were prompted to draw something that they cannot resist and then draw a picture of what they can do to resist. When students were done, they sat with a teacher and the teacher took dictation. Below are the materials from the lesson.
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Pictured Above: Lesson plan on managing impulsivity
Pictured Above: Managing impulsivity KWL chart.
Pictured Above: Class reading the digital book, The Angry Shark.
Pictured Above: Students completed Stop, Think, Do worksheet.
In response to the question, "What is something you cannot resist?" The kindergartener stated they have trouble remembering not to run. To answer the question, "What can you do to manage your impulsivity?" The student stated that they can stop and think about what they're doing.
Reinforcing Activities
To reinforce managing impulsivity and to make the content relevant, we watched a Sesame Street video with Sir Ian McKellen and Cookie Monster. In this video, Sir Ian is teaching Cookie Monster how to resist temptations (e.g., cookies) by not acting impulsively and thinking about his actions. As a class, we then discussed the strategies Cookie Monster could do to resist the cookies that Sir Ian had. What else could he do besides think about his actions? Students came up with walk away, wait patiently, and find something else to do. It was terrific to see them coming up with solutions. We also discussed things that we have trouble resisting and what we can do to manage our impulses.
Video Above: Sir Ian is teaching Cookie Monster about resisting something he wants.
Although discussions are significant to build student understanding, it is equally important to provide students with real strategies they can use when they are trying to manage their impulsivity. In the book, The Angry Shark, students learned about different coping skills the shark did when he was angry and wanted to react. One of those skills was to take deep breaths. Although this may seem like a natural and recognized way of calming down, it is important to remember that my students are only five- and six-years-old and do not have the same experiences as adults. Therefore, taking the time to teach them how to make deep breaths to calm down is an important step to take before they can utilize the strategy. Through Sesame Street's Belly Breathe video, my students and I learned how to make deep, belly breaths to help us calm our bodies and emotions down. The video is developmentally appropriate in teaching them this strategy because it incorporates a fun song and dance for students to follow along. We frequently use this video to remind our selves of this easy to use strategy, and we also use it for brain breaks. When we use the video for brain breaks, it is a fun way to integrate our strategy into our daily routine.
Video Above: Students practice belly breathing.
REFERENCES
Boys, K., & Watts, G. (2009). Action tool 1: Exploring the meaning of Habits of Mind with teachers. In Developing Habits of Mind in elementary schools (pp. 11–16). Retrieved from http://www.ascd.org/ASCD/pdf/books/boyesAT2009_exploring_the_meaning_of_habits_of_mind_with_teachers.pdf
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Costa, A. L., & Kallick, B. (2000). Describing 16 Habits of Mind. Retrieved from http://www.habitsofmind.org/sites/default/files/16HOM2.pdf
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Richard, M. G. (2007, April 15). Fixed mindset vs. growth mindset: Which one are you? [Blog post]. Retrieved from http://michaelgr.com/2007/04/15/fixed-mindset-vs-growth-mindset-which-one-are-you/
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