Tamara Griffith
Managing Impulsivity
Your life is the sum result of all the choices you make, both consciously and unconsciously. If you can control the process of choosing, you can take control of all aspects of your life. You can find the freedom that comes from being in charge of yourself. ”
~Robert F. Bennet, U.S. Senator
In order to be successful in today's society, it is imperative that students know how to control themselves, their actions, and their words in a variety of situations. When my students first come to me as sixth graders, most do not know how to control themselves or their emotions and often act impulsively. If students do not learn how to control their impulsive desires or emotions, they can potentially head down a self-destructive path.
Because managing impulsivity is not a skill that many children inherently possess, I sought to teach and reinforce this habit of mind in a variety of ways in order to facilitate students' academic success and character development.
Introducing the Managing Impulsivity Habit of Mind
There are many facets to managing impulsivity. Managing impulsive behaviors ranges from staying seated during instruction to not blurting out responses to controlling negative emotions. Since my students are middle-schoolers, many of whom are going through puberty, many of them ride a roller-coaster of emotions throughout the day. Learning how to practice self-control and employ strategies to recognize their emotions and avoid reacting to negative triggers can help students succeed academically and avoid drastic consequences.
I created the lesson plan below to explicitly teach my students about this Habit of Mind.
To explore the PowerPoint I created for this lesson, scroll through the PDF below.
While students were being presented with a broad understanding of what this Habit of Mind entailed, they were simultaneously being tasked with applying it. Students watched a video to consider the effects and consequences related to lacking self-control and completed a Frayer model to further explore what it means to be impulsive. During these activities, students were being tested as to whether or not they could practice self-control through delayed-gratification. I knew that the students who were unable to wait to eat their fruit snacks would need more practice and reinforcement in terms of managing their impulses.
Images of students engaging in this lesson are included in the slideshow below.
In the end, students who were able to manage their impulse to eat their gummy immediately were given the choice of a second fruit snack or a mechanical pencil. Afterwards, students completed reflections regarding their abilities (or inabilities) to manage their impulses. Samples of students' completed reflections are included below.
Some students were able to ignore the fruit snacks in plain sight.
Other students hid their fruit snacks inside their journals.
Students were given a second pack of fruit snacks as they completed their reflections if they delayed their gratification.
Some students were able to ignore the fruit snacks in plain sight.
Throughout this activity, students employed a variety of strategies to manage their impulse to eat their fruit snacks immediately:
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put it in their pocket
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hid it in their journals
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left it in plain sight
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hid it under the supply basket
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made a fort out of notebooks to hide it
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put it in their shoe
Students' methods of delaying gratification met with varying degrees of success. Some students ate their fruit snacks right away, others ate it during the middle of the lesson, and many were able to refrain from eating their gummy until the very end of the lesson.
Some students were distracted by their choice, torn between having immediate gratification and wanting to wait to see if there was a better prize in the end.
In reviewing students' reflections, I noticed that the students who were successful in delaying gratification were able to think about the consequences of their actions or were able to rationalize why they should wait. Some thought of their privilege, where they had access to treats such as the fruit snack, thereby allowing them to be grateful to have the snack at all. Students who were unable to delay gratification did not think about the consequences or the process; they merely reacted to their desire to eat the fruit snack right away. As a result, I was able to group students in ways that allowed me to work specifically with some students as to how to stop and think before acting or reacting.
To view samples of student-created anchor charts and Frayer models associated with this lesson plan, scroll through the PDF below.
Reinforcement: Blue Ticket System
Having dealt with a group of particularly impulsive sixth graders who incessantly blurted out, got out of their seats, and jumped to conclusions without stopping to think first, I developed a positive behavior intervention system to reinforce this habit by curbing impulsivity.
After having discussions about what managing impulses meant in the classroom, I told students that anytime they managed their impulses, I would give them a blue ticket. Positive behaviors that would be rewarded with a blue ticket included:
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Raising your hand and waiting to be called upon.
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Remaining seated unless you had permission.
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Adhering to achieving arrival procedures (resisting the impulse to socialize and instead getting started right away).
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Ask for clarifications on directions, assignments, or procedures.
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Volunteering to be a classroom helper.
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using resources, such as the dictionary, to look up answers.
The goal of implementing this system was to help students become more deliberate in their actions within the classroom and consider the consequences of impulsive actions and the effect those actions have upon the learning environment. The result: students are more engaged in their classwork, are willing to ask for help from their peers or myself rather than rushing through the assignment to get it done, students utilize their class time more productively, students engage in active listening more regularly since few to no students blurt out, and students are able to better focus on instruction because distractions are minimized. Consequently, students are able to better manage their impulsivity and academic achievement has increased as students are able to focus on the lesson and refrain from acting upon their impulses.
The reward system in place, depicted in the image to the left, for students to cash in their blue tickets also reinforces this habit. At first, students turn in their tickets as soon as they procure five tickets. Typically, students who are often in trouble and who particularly struggle with managing their impulses tend to ask for the positive phone call home. Few students save their tickets for the bigger prizes of a piece of candy and even fewer save up for a homework pass. As students develop their proficiency with this habit, they realize that by delaying their gratification and managing their impulses, they can receive a bigger reward.
As a class, we discuss how students' abilities to manage their impulse to spend their blue tickets immediately is similar to the paychecks they will receive as an adult. If they spend their tickets as fast as they make them, they will never develop a rainy day fund for emergencies -- such when/ if they forget to do their homework. Thus, students are able to better envision the long-term consequences and alternatives of their actions rather than acting immediately upon impulse.
The images below show students who have procured blue tickets.
In addition, students were asked to reflect upon how getting these blue tickets help them manage their impulsivity. Read through their reflections in the PDF below.
After reading through students' reflections, it is clear that this blue ticket system not only helps students learn to be patient and wait their turn, but it also validates students' for behaving appropriately in the classroom. At first, I was afraid that this system would be too elementary for my middle school students, but the abundance of positive student feedback assures me that this system is not only helping to curb students impulsive tendencies, but is also reinforcing students' skills and behaviors that will ensure their academic success in my class and beyond.
Reinforcement: Fidgets
Some of my students, especially my students with ADHD, truly struggle with sitting still. As a result, some of them struggled to manage their impulses even with the blue ticket system in place. They would still tap incessantly or get out of their seats. To help minimize distractions and to reinforce the habit of managing impulses, I brought in fidgets, also known as squishies, for students to fidget with while they completed their work. The images below depict students working while utilizing their fidgets to minimize classroom distractions and manage their impulses to tap and get out of their seat.
By allowing my students who struggle with impulsive behaviors, such as tapping and leaving their seat, to play with fidgets while they simultaneously complete their work, all students were able to remain focused and on task.
While some students utilized the fidgets to refrain from acting upon their impulse to tap, others used the fidgets as comforting devices, squishing the fidget while considering the answer to a question and taking the time to reflect upon the content -- actions which are key demonstrations of managing impulsivity.
All in all, fidgets have created a calming presence in my classroom. By utilizing fidgets, students are able to improve their self-regulation, which has minimized distractions and created a positive, peaceful learning environment.
Reinforcement: Class Point System
To reinforce the importance of a collective effort on a positive classroom culture, I also developed a system to award class points based upon students' collective ability to manage their impulses. At the end of each class, students and I assess how well the class as a whole followed our rules and procedures, of which managing impulsivity plays a key role. For example, if students do not collectively engage in achieving arrival and instead indulge their desire to socialize, precious class time is wasted. If students do not manage their impulses by remaining seated or remaining calm, instructional time is also lost, and many students are unable to concentrate in a chaotic environment. If students are unable to control the impulse to talk without permission or fail to follow instructions, there are similar consequences. As a result, students learn that when presented with an impulse, whether that impulse is an action, word choice, or emotional response, they need to consider how their choices impact others.
As each class reaches certain goal posts, they receive certain rewards, indicated below:
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25 - Sweet Treat
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50 - Kahoot or Quizizz Review
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75 - Listen to Earbuds While Working
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100 - Free Seating
Reinforcement: Refocus Form
Another way that I have reinforced managing impulsivity within my classroom is through the use of refocus forms. Refocus forms are given to students when they initially forget to manage their impulses as a gentle reminder to practice self-control. Completing a refocus form requires students to consider better, alternative behaviors and the consequences of their actions so that they can act more intentionally and productively within the classroom.
To view samples of students' completed refocus forms, scroll through the PDF below.
Reinforcement: Element of Mystery Lesson
In addition to established systems and individual reinforcements, students are also given the opportunity to reinforce this habit during instruction. For example, during a lesson on central idea, an envelope was placed in the center of students' desks, warning them to refrain from opening it until the appropriate time or else their group would be disqualified. Throughout the lesson, students received several reminders acknowledging the envelope and their inability to touch it. Students had to manage their impulse to open the envelope to see what was inside until the appropriate time. This provided students who were struggling with this impulse to consider the impact of their choices since a decision to open the envelope early would disqualify the entire team.
To view a more in-depth explanation as to how this habit of mind is reinforced throughout this element of mystery lesson, scroll through the annotated lesson plan below.
Students reading the envelope as they came into the classroom.
Students peacefully working together as a group.
Teacher Reflection
Being able to manage impulsivity is imperative for students' academic success and college and career readiness. As they progress throughout their lives, they will be presented with a variety of challenges and situations where they will need to stop and consider the appropriateness of their reactions and ponder the possible solutions to avoid making rash decisions and obtaining negative consequences. To this end, I developed a variety of class systems, individual and collective reinforcement, and lesson activities that required students to consider the consequences of their actions by helping them develop the frame of mind necessary to think through challenges, emotions, and impulses maturely. These opportunities and activities demonstrated for students that drastic and/or negative consequences can be avoided and positive outcomes achieved merely by stopping to think about the alternatives and consequences of a situation prior to acting upon impulses.
As my students completed these activities, many students struggled at first since they were not used to managing or regulating their behaviors and emotions. As my classroom systems and lesson activities became more routine, however, students were able to manage their impulses on their own with infrequent reminders. Throughout this process, students became more comfortable with working with a variety of people in the classroom.
