 Okay. Welcome, pairs of ESU8. We're glad to have you joining us again today. A couple things before we get started. For those of you who weren't here earlier, we're actually, we're supposed to be in a room today, but there's another group of people finishing up in the room we were supposed to be in. So we're actually out in the hallway, very familiar to probably most of you. So we just ask for your patience as people may be walking in and out of the room. We're actually at the Lifelong Learning Center. So we may have to pause at certain moments just to get quiet back, I guess. So again, thank you for your patience. And another thing is, if you guys wouldn't mind unmuting your video so that we could see faces, at the end of this little session today, we're going to ask you to kind of participate in a discussion with us so that we can get your feedback as well as kind of share out as a group. So be keeping that in mind as we go throughout the presentation. And we'd like to see your faces, but maybe you can leave your voices on mute until it's your turn to talk. Otherwise, we'd say that we get a lot of feedback. Yep. And we can also on our end unmute you. So we may manage it that way so that we don't have a lot of feedback. So, all right. All right. Well, thank you so much for joining us today. Again, I'm Steph. And we're going to talk a little bit about helping students with focusing attention, impulse control, and self-monitoring. And I'm sure that that's really not a problem with any of the students that you work with, right? What? Aha, you can laugh there. Especially this time of year when they really want to have Christmas and go outside. And they really have a hard time self-monitoring. Those words about Santa watching sometimes help. And they probably have ills in the classroom. I know that that's a popular one. So we have a great video that's not going to work for us today for this training. But if you go back to the presentation and look at it later, what you're going to see is this poor little dog just trying to drink it his water bowl and another dog just running laps. And every now and then the dog glances up like, Who is that? What is that? Where's that one going? I think that you can relate that to a lot of your students who seem to be running those laps all day long and have a hard time focusing their control. And in respect of the other students grabbing the other attention, the students' attention as well, which you're trying to get them focused on. So go back and watch the videos. We're really cute. Quietly if you are finished. So executive function is a new buzzword in education. And actually, we were just with a bunch of superintendents today. They were having something about what executive function is. This year, I offered three trainings with a lot of schools probably from your districts that attended. But actually, their brain processes that really drive our ability to focus, solve problems, organize ourselves, remember information, learn from mistakes. Okay, third grade you need to line up to think about kids who have trouble with learning. I bet you you could point at at least one of those spots there in that first bullet point that they have trouble with. And so oftentimes this learns leads to trouble learning efficiently and developing those social skills. And then if we can understand how they develop, it helps adults figure out our best responses to those academic problems. Oftentimes, I think these are the kids who are slipping through the cracks, the kids who might not be identified as a sped student, but they're having learning problems due to these functions. And sometimes it's just a matter of teaching them how and when to deal with those. And that's kind of where you guys come in. All right. All right, so these executive functions are actually controlled by the front part of your brain. And it's actually the brain's queuing system to higher level skills and thoughts. And so if you don't have those skills developed, you can't connect here at Lynch. So again, it's part of our neural circuits. And they directly control things like perceptions, thoughts, actions, and to some degree, even our emotions. So oftentimes kids who have troubles with these executive function skills, they get called careless and rigid and inflexible or slow to change. It's really easy to jump and put a label on those kids. But actually, they might have a skill that's missing that's not allowing them to do some of these things. And you know, I go back when I think of some of these things, I go back to teaching in the classroom and I myself made these assumptions about the child when there's something, I guess you say deeper going on that we're going to talk about today. So with poor attention and focusing skills, it might, as I read over this list of things that you might see in students really try to reflect on the students that you work with and that you see, are you seeing them exhibit some of these things? So are there students who have their mind wanders during conversations? They kind of might be described as a day dreamer. Do they overlook the details? And they you know, they just hear a main main point, but they don't hear the details. Maybe that's in following directions too. And they're unable to think on their feet and come up with a quick response or a quick idea to write about or something like that. And they usually have one speed, which makes them sometimes seem kind of oblivious, like I'm in slow mo here, and they don't know the answer. Sometimes they even have energy surges, which make them overact, overreact. So they just go to from from zero to 10 really fast and they get very hyper and overreact about something, maybe they're calm at one minute. And the next minute, they are enraged and to the point of not knowing how to control them. They could be confused about why they work so hard, but they don't get anything done. Like I seem to think I've been busy working on something, but I've always had tons of homework, I've never done with things. They might struggle to understand why they don't fit in and they can't make friends. They might come up to you on the playground and say, nobody likes me. I can't they never let me play. And I can think about times on the playground when I was there that that's oftentimes a complaint from some kids. Also, they're unaware of the things that they do that others find annoying. They don't know that, you know, that they're a piece of this puzzle. And they often struggle with reading comprehension, because if you think about it, when we're reading, we have to really give it a lot of attention and a lot of focus and we have to pay attention to those details. And these kids struggle with that. Especially when you're talking about the lower age groups, because again, like Stephanie said, that in order to read and to understand what you're reading, the focus has to be there. And otherwise, they're not going to get anything out of what they write because their mind's wandering. So real quick here, I want to address a chat going on. Do you guys are you guys okay with hearing us now? Some of you were having some trouble with background noise? Okay, we're good. Give me a thumbs up if we're good. Okay, wonderful. Thank you. We're seeing some thumbs now. Great. Thank you. Okay, so when we talk about kids with that poor attention and focus, oftentimes our kids can fall into about three main categories here. So the first category is the kid that doesn't even know what to focus on. Okay. So they're unable to relate to new things. You know, again, they might hear that main idea, but they couldn't tell you any details. And oftentimes that might be even a kid who comes home from school and the mom says, what do you learn today? And they say, I don't know. I don't know what I did. And I know that's way too many kids. So but some of these kids really focus on that. And so how we can help if the kids don't know what to focus on. It's things like having a highlighter there. And maybe we're going to go through a text and we're going to highlight some material. And of course, we're not going to write in books, but we can always make copies. And we might do something like underlining the main points and having kids go back and look at what they've underlined. And covering extra content or even highlighting different details about the content that they're trying to understand. And note taking practices teach them how to take notes or how to take notes that work best for them. There's lots of note taking systems. So that's something that I would refer to the teachers that you work with. Or if there are some that you want to know in particular, contact one of us later and we can get you a lot of different ways that kids can take notes. They might need to do a verbal summary of what they've read. So hey, we've just read one column of text. Let's go ahead and summarize what we've just read or we've read a part of the chapter. Let's go over it out loud and summarize it. If they do that along the way, it'll help them. And then we can activate prior knowledge and ask them, have you ever heard of this kind of thing before? Does it relate to something that you already know about the world or another book or another subject? And I think this one is an important one for your students because if you can do that in the beginning of a conversation or a beginning of a skill and get them to make that connection, then they're going to apply that connection throughout the lesson or throughout the reading, whatever it is that you're doing as you go throughout the rest of the lesson. So that one's important, I think, for a lot of students. It helps them relate. And then also to repeat the objective and what to focus on. So if the teacher has stated an objective for the lesson of the day, that might be something that you have to ask the kid about again and say, Hey, now, what are we really trying to focus on today? What are we really trying to learn and having them repeat that to use important? And you know, something I thought about when we talked about summaries, not just verbal, but also write little sticky notes and write like a sticky note a page and say, Okay, we're going to summarize this page on the sticky notes. And then we're going to put all of our sticky notes together and we should have a really nice summary of the chapter or I don't know the novel we're reading or whatever. And I think something as we go throughout these different examples too to keep in mind is you you should try you may have to go through all of these and try and only one will work for that kid. But these are all ones that you could try to help them out and then then they'll learn what works best for them. But you may not be able to just utilize one. You'll have to go through some different ones and see what works best for that student. And sometimes it takes using it a few times to get to know really what works best for that student. So don't give up fast. And I realize most of these examples were for a little bit older kid. If you're thinking about preschool something is if they're supposed to focus on something say in the story that teachers reading just ask them about that. Be very verbal with it where they don't have the writing skills quite yet in preschool or having them draw a picture of what it is that they think that they've read or what it is they think they've learned. Picture summary. Yeah. Okay. So our second kind of kid is that kid who can't sustain their focus. So they might get started. But they can't keep going. Okay. So that's oftentimes problem for some kids. In other words they have poor endurance. So if you have that kid who gets started and then loses focus. Sometimes we might even call that kid. You know that they have a short attention span or something. But we really need to focus on keeping them engaged. So one thing is you might add some movement and some of those are squirrelier kids who just need to move around. And so maybe every time that they're going to do part of the summary we're going to just take another step. Maybe we're going to do it standing up. Some boys they just need to stand instead of sit. Isn't it amazing. Yes. So if you stood up with a book and they could read part of it to you and then take a step. Or you know I even think you know I did this a couple of times with a student is hey let's have a conversation about this as we walk to the to the water fountain and get a drink and then come back. And I think sometimes just being able to to move their body and process while they're moving helps. Or it might be that you're reading a chapter and answering some questions. Read the chapter at their desk and then move to like a table in the room to answer the questions. It can be just that simple. Just that movement gets them up. Get some just breathing again and it's helpful. And there's brain studies like in the executive function that have proven that these are things that can work for students because they talk about the visual, auditory and kinesthetic movements and each student or each kid can learn differently through those avenues. I'm also setting some goals. I'm planning out the steps and telling the kids hey this is what we're going to do first. After that we're going to do this and after that we're going to do this. So it's important that we set that out and let kids kind of plan out their thoughts. And that might relate to a task chart. Okay so if there's something that you do say every day at a certain time kids could relate really well to having a little chart with those things in their desk and maybe making a check mark when they get something done. You know I feel really accomplished when I can check mark my to-do list and kids will too. And again for those kids that have a hard time seeing the end you know they feel lost in the middle and it really helps them. And the last one is brain breaks. I bet a lot of teachers that you work with are using brain breaks these days and when they are carefully planned out they can be really effective for kids. So just get up get breathing in some fresh oxygen move around a little bit and then refocus. Yeah and that's I mean if your teachers abuse like in the lower class in fact in the middle school teachers abuse the go noodle as a resource for that but there's there's a lot of tools out there that you could utilize as well to give them just those in the brain breaks don't have to be a long break. It's just a time to get their brain refocused in in three minutes really. Go noodles fun. In my classroom I would take a theme that we were going off of and you know have the kids ask something out for a few minutes and I'll never forget I had one student ask to go the restroom and we started in on a brain break and when he re-entered the kids were acting out different zoo animals walking across the floor and he looked at me this kid walks in from the bathroom looks at me and like what have I just walked into it's this Jumanji here so brain breaks can be a lot of fun and get you going but brain breaks can be simple as a walk to the water fountain a walk to the bathroom just a quick little let's do something else for a minute and we're going to talk about a little bit later identifying some of those cues where you'll identify when and when you need to do these or when the kids need to do this so. And then we have the kid that has a poor transition skills so they just can't get refocused on a new task that that lack of flexible thinking gets so locked into one thing when the situation changes and they need to work on something else it's really hard to get them to switch and I bet you've had some students like that over the years. So one thing is to start a timer and kids really respond well to being able to watch your clock count down and see okay my teacher says I have two minutes left to work on this and then they kind of just mentally prepare for that. Also they can have a written or picture schedule okay so written schedules obviously for older kids this is really important for high school kids think about how much their schedule changes during the day and so we kind of sometimes make assumptions that they're a high school kid they're a junior high kid they should know where they're supposed to go in. Well they probably need to write it down and I mean I was a kid who probably didn't my teachers wouldn't say I struggled with this but I always had to have a schedule written or I would forget things. So let's really teach those older kids the skill and then littler kids let's draw some pictures and let them follow through their day or through maybe a certain time of the day with some pictures and I think the picture schedule for those younger kids especially when we're talking pre-k if you can have the picture schedule where you can actually remove the picture when something's done that helps them really focus in on the idea that we're okay we're putting this task to rest and we're ready to move on to the next one. And triage is a kind of cool thing I was been telling Tina a little bit about but I used the best behavior model and one of my school districts and a component of that is called triage. So basically triage is catching the kid and helping them out before they run into trouble. So for instance I had a student with autism that I worked with and he was in my homeroom and we had a lot of structures and the day was really planned out so he always knew what to expect and we had such a successful year together but when he went to art class he really struggled he didn't have the fine motor skills to help him in art class and it just I think it was exacerbated there just really brought brought to attention because he had to cut and he had to color and he had to draw with a pencil and that was hard for him and so he acted out. So before he went to that situation where he might have some trouble I would pull him aside and I'd say hey now you're about to go to art class what are some things that you're going to remember in art class when you start to get frustrated and we'd walk through you know well I'm going to take a break well I'm just going to remind myself that my best is enough and things like that we talked through the problems and then he went in and his success rate really went up. We also did this with different kids maybe if they forgot to do their homework every night they would triage with a parent in the library or the secretary in the office before they went home and they talked through their homework showed them their planner and showed them that they have their homework in their book bag. Well this can really work for kids with poor attention and focus skills so you could triage and say hey you know what we're about to transition to this other activity it's going to be partner reading and I know that sometimes a partner reading you don't pay attention to the story or you know you have trouble paying attention or it's hard to focus on that story the whole time when a partner's reading what are some things that you're about to do and then Tina might say to me well I'm going to point with my finger I'm going to look with my eyes and I'm going to try to glue my mind to that story and I think that component right there is important for your kids to talk through and you just guide and you listen and I think for the they are the ones that need to come up with the what should this look like what needs to happen when I'm there and you know if you think level wise so I do this a lot with my children at home and I have younger children so for pre-k you know I say what is it that you know caused this thing to happen and how can it look different what do we need to do different to make to make the change if you're thinking of high school this is something that maybe if you're working with high school kids and you know they have a problem in this area the triage may be just suggesting to them to go through this process themselves if they don't want to do it with you but suggesting you know hey think about what this next process should look like for you to have the most success and they might not always have an adult with them as in those older grades to triage but maybe it's just a little checklist that they read over you know if they can have it maybe typed up and inside a notebook and they say hey I'm going to math class and I have a hard time in the different activities there these are the things I'm going to remember and it's just printed out just little reminders for them that can help and that way it's not so in their face and embarrassing as older kids get older and so as we've gone through this so far again I want to remind you be thinking about kids that you work with every day and kind of be thinking about some of these components as as far as not being able to focus on certain things cannot sustain their focus and has poor transitioning skills and try to identify someone that you work with that maybe have one of these areas that that is a concern for them so again we're going to have a conversation at the end and so this is going to lead into that conversation okay um and yes Cindy by the way that was a test to see if you guys were able to focus yes audio right no just kidding it wasn't but it's it's a good test okay so some of these kids um you know we can look at um more skills that they're lacking that lead to that main category so our first kids here that don't know what to focus on they might lack that clear purpose for the tax they need to hear why they're doing it um they um might um have troubles with um seeing that prior knowledge um they don't connecting the prior knowledge yeah they also they don't see the importance in doing it at all so we have to help them see that important um and um they can't inhibit direct distractors that means something's distracting them and they are pinned they're so in tune with that thing like there might be a noise in the room or have you ever had the kids who they see a spider on the wall or something and i try to just tell them it's charlotte but um they are just fixated on it um and those are the ones that you know i i think of my husband always says with our youngest that it's a squirrel you know think of a little squirrel and you're off right those are the kind of kids that we're referring to and also um they might have a trouble um focusing on stress and not just stress at school but stress in their life so we have to think about those kids who are going home and and there might not be separate and somebody might be fighting and um they don't know if mom or dad will be home or um that kind of thing so that kind of stress really affects the kids and makes them kind of um distract distractible that way so we have to help them try to reduce that stress focus on what's going on right now that's all we can control is right now um those kids that can't sustain their focus um and they can't break um that large task into little chunks so we have to help them see that sometimes even folding a worksheet folding a paper so they only see a few problems at a time yes and sometimes those are the kids that when you lay a whole worksheet in front of them without covering it prior it's like an instant panic for them um they're also overwhelmed when um too many skills are required maybe there's too many directions all at once those multi step directions so they're like just tell me it one step at a time so maybe you're going to write them all down and then they'll go back to them and follow them um they can't work for long periods without a break again those are the kids walk them to the water fountain that's how that's how simple it can be or or have them take a note to the office that kind of quick stuff um they lack variety in ways to approach the task so we might have to show them those new note-taking um steps or um a new way to do things and they lack enough support to keep their frustration manageable so we really have to help them manage that frustration we're going to talk about that in a little bit too and also they can't self monitor their on-task behavior and so kind of making them aware and then maybe even having that checklist that they um keep track of their those kids with the poor transition skills um they feel stressed uh from fear of failure or unknown consequences but what if i don't do it right but what if i you know that kind of thing have you seen that student before they won't covering up their paper too so that yes they won't even get started because they're afraid or yeah they won't let you see it because you might tell them it's wrong um they lack those clear goals and priorities and when we can help them focus on goals and priorities they will um get better with this they're unable to work without seeing a clear structure or pattern so again write out the steps that we're going to follow and let them keep track of where we're going yeah free school kids showing pictures of what we're going to do um they can't use self-talk to plan before acting okay so we have to let them talk with us and once they start talking with us they get better at the self-talk uh they have difficulty stopping one activity in order to start another and i see that one with little kids too i think if you're a preschool para you see this problem because they um they say no i'm not done yet i'm not done yet i don't want to move yet and then it's mass panic and it can kind of go back up to the top words like we're not done yet i'm not going to get it right um that kind of thing and a timer and things like that really do help with that um also they can't adjust to pace um or plan to fit a new situation so um i was doing this at a slow pace and now we have to do it quickly and i'm fine with my flash cards if i'm doing them on my own and i can count up but when we get to the time test i panic and i act out and i shut down no which is where you definitely don't want to go okay so first before we move on to impulse control i want to ask are there questions that you have about poor attention and focus skills who has a question for me if i had candy i'd throw them through the computer to you come on guys and if you have a question you can just raise your hand and we can unmute you if you'd like a lot of information nod your head if you have a student that you think lacks poor attention and focus skills oh now i see some responses okay i think we've all dealt with those and we've probably all been those at some point or another in our lives right oh absolutely okay well we'll move on here and we're going to start talking about those kids who also it's kind of related they have poor impulse control and self-monitoring skills so like ideally we want kids to monitor themselves we want them to be able to say whoa i'm getting a little bit out of hand here i need to calm it down and we know that some of our most successful students do that um but some of our kids can't and they react to everything that comes up so they might be overreacting or underreacting the situation okay so um they you know there might be some sort of impulse or something they can't even get amped up for it they can't even get motivated for something i think those are often the ones that are um you know kind of not even considered because they are sometimes they can be very quiet because they're sitting back taking them all in um they're tempted to fire off thoughts and often say things uh they wish they could take back and i remember a student i had who would oftentimes be alert during a game and i mean this kid was pretty severe in this and i mean he would yell names at other kids because it was just he was still caught up in the moment and he had that poor impulse control um they might do now and think later um so like i'm just gonna do it and then later on they regret and they think oh my gosh why did i do that you know um i took the uh last pizza piece piece of pizza at the party because i really wanted it even though i've already had three um and then later they might think really hard about oh my gosh i stole it away and this other kid only had one and they might feel really bad about that later and or about something that they've done later um but their impulse control just is not there to make them think of that consequence beforehand and they also over commit themselves in an effort to be helpful but cannot meet the obligations so i mean their impulse is to say yes to everything i'll do that i'll do that and i'll help with that and i'll do this other thing and then holy cow they don't get all that done because they physically can't and people are probably disappointed in them um i guess be pleasers yes pleasers they have a hard time calming themselves and we can think about that as people with road rage they get so worked up and take things personally um and they cannot talk themselves down they cannot calm down about something and sometimes we think about that as you know just really insignificant little things that just set them off we might say about those kids oh my gosh you just never know where the trigger is going to come for them um they also change their plans at a drop of a hat without considering the impact on others like yeah so just like you know her example with the pizza of course that you know if you put put yourself into the classroom that that's the student that you know going back up to the top they're shouting out answers or they're um basically have regard for the rest of the kids in the class only it's just that they don't take the time to process that or process the effects that it has on the rest of the kids and you might even think about that is when kids are working on group projects yes that kid who just says well i didn't get it done or well i'm not going to do that part now and they don't even think about how the group will be affected um also the kid who's they might have behavior or um friendship problems because they say well i told someone so that i play him play with him at recess he's been asking me for three days and so i told him i play with him but i didn't really want to play that so i went off to play this other thing and they don't think about that other kid being disappointed or that they had given their work the other students are kind of an afterthought so um they don't see them see themselves as others see them a lot of times they don't realize they're reacting so bad to others maybe and bring me out some answer or something with their impulse control and so we kind of have to have them see themselves in the eyes um also they're sometimes avoided by peers or picked on um have you ever had that kid who um he's so explosive or she's so explosive that everybody else just and away from them and then they might say nobody likes me i don't have any friends well they're just kind of a volcano explosion also the kids kind of that can kind of get right in your face right in the other students face and uncomfortable closeness because they feel like they have their voice heard or they're just so impulsive that that's how they respond or react to other kids and they um also some kids might pick on that kind of kid in that um you know they see they they try to set them off you know what i mean and so they can feel kind of picked on in that way that well they're just doing what's going to bother me they're doing it because it's going to get a rise out of me so um sometimes we have to um help the other kids and help that kid see themselves a little bit differently um they blame things um and i'm sure you see their faults on the playground right um i had a kid in my class well they didn't tell me all the rules well they're not nice to me they just call me out nobody else um they can't see trouble coming they can't see like oh gosh i'm walking down a rocky road here i better be careful or i better get out of this situation and i think um i see a lot of this with teenagers and i think that all the research about teenage brains tell us that kids can't uh attach a um a consequence to their behaviors and so you see that a lot those junior high age you know um they're unable to evaluate their own work and can't see ways to improve performance so sometimes if you're editing a writing piece with these kids and they have a hard time really objectively looking at their own work and their eyes is perfect and even when you pull out some of the errors and things that they're they're going to argue with you so they also don't ask for help because they don't even know what they need okay so sometimes um we you know i would say to a kid in my class oh gosh when you're having trouble on this come up and ask me i'm happy to help you they don't even understand it as they go through so we want them to kind of self monitor along and we can develop that so that they know when they're having trouble right we have to that's where you guys come into you have to teach them that because they're they're not processing it in their own brains they haven't learned that skill and the cool thing about Paris is that lots of times you have that quiet way of sitting beside them and they'll tell you things they will not tell their teacher so um that's a really awesome superpower to have that they will come to you and they might um break down that wall a little bit that they built up and you guys get the opportunity again as we've mentioned several times to work sometimes one-on-one with kids and know them better and know their um what makes them tick i guess yes okay so here's another one of our videos it's not going to work for us today but i know that you'll go back to the presentation on our website remember that bit dot lee slash pairs of the issue eight um and here's the marshmallow test um nod your head if you've ever heard about the marshmallow test so what they do is um uh they set a marshmallow in front of a kid and they say you know you can have this marshmallow right now or if you wait you can have two later when i come back and so it is so hilarious to watch these kids and some might be playing with their hands and one might start to lick the marshmallow and wouldn't you know they cannot wait to get to it's very few kids that wait to get to yeah so definitely go back and watch it because it does relate very well to what we've already talked about and that delayed gratification right that oh gosh things will be double for me if i can just wait so and it's a challenge for them obviously so um we think about our kids in about three categories here two so the first is that inability to delay gratification inability to wait um it's that kid who can't wait for the second marshmallow they react before thinking and so for those kids i really think about them as that and the blurter jumping out of their seats yes the next type of kid is that kid with an inability to oh you know we might just see one of these kids who have some impulse control right here in the hallway and but they have an inability to cope with frustration and anger so again they escalate quickly and then they don't know how to do anything with it and they feel really helpless they feel discouraged they are like i i don't even know how to the only thing they can focus on is their frustration there is nothing else that they can focus on and so those are the ones that really are they're zero to ten in two seconds and um can kind of rage all right and then we have a kid who is uh unable to adjust their behavior to a situation so for me this was the student in my classroom that i'd say well gosh they never do that in my classroom why would they do that for you when they go to music class why are they bugging everyone around them or maybe um gosh in the classroom this kid's really good but we go to a program and he acts like a show-off to everyone else and or he starts pestering everyone around him so and you guys probably see that with your students a lot maybe out at recess or the lunchroom kind of those unstructured times too can bring that a lot but there are no behaviors in the lunchroom right right or the way no reaction so um okay so we can start looking at some of those um more deeply so they have that uh inability to lay gratification they they can't put it off so they can't distinguish um feelings from actions or wants from needs so it's it's all in need okay um i have to have it and i'm going to have it right now and um you know it's like those kids that you say you know we're not going to um do this part until the end and they're on that part immediately you know um also um the kids who um they need attention or a higher level stimulation they're the class clown really um they might be that class clown or that one that wants to be a show-off um they're unable to slow down and use self-talk to calm down um that's one that we might really have to focus on with kids um and if you have an elementary guidance counselor or even a guidance counselor that higher age ages the upper grades you know this is something that guidance counselors are really good at doing with kids but if not we just say hey i understand that you're getting really stressed out at these times how can we talk you through it they might also have trouble internalizing different rules and procedures right there's our playground kid that has a hard time um there they have a limited repertoire for appropriate um options for responding like hey when somebody says something i don't like um i could give these five responses they can't do that they all they have to just say it's your mean and you're always mean to me and i hate you so um we have to really help them talk through and say you know i really don't appreciate when you say that kind of thing to me or you know i don't think you have all the facts on that actually this is how it should go right and i think the triage idea comes back into play here quite a bit and in teaching them how to triage and with them can help with some of this process for the kids so these kids really need some structure and routine and we um so giving them that and having situations be kind of the same for them helps but they're also unsure of how their actions affect others so we have to help them see that and i think some of the strategies that we talked about prior to this go back and relate to this as well so keep those in mind as we we talk about these different components so those kids that um can't cope with frustration or anger and they feel that discourage or helplessness um they really can't articulate their problem um or their feelings um so we have to help them talk it out and help them see what the problem the root of it might have been um they avoid situations that are too difficult or boring um and so we have to push them to that point that might be frustrating it might be frustrating to be in um learning something difficult um also i think um boys with writing sometimes um some of my even most intelligent boys had a hard time with writing and they would panic in it so i had to help them see how they could get through that this test taking um applies here and so again um kind of helping them predict what's about to happen and see a schedule helps um they retaliate for perceived mistreatment well i hit him because he hit me or i hit him because i didn't like what they said so it's kind of like everything that they do is a reaction to something else they can't identify what triggers them so we have to help them identify the trigger and yeah talking through that what are their triggers and what else instead can they do as a reaction um they also i can't reframe things to see that new perspective um so we have to turn the tables help them see through somebody else's glass is what's going on and they don't know how to gain power attention or control appropriately oftentimes this kid feels very mistreated by others and they have to feel a little success and feel like hey somebody else might like me in this world so when we can facilitate that and have them have a time to shine it is really big i had a student in my class who you know what he was just really good at organizing all of our pillows into a cupboard after reading time and we just let him do it and then we just cheered him on and um actually that was probably a frustrating experience for me to try to do the bill so for him to do it was awesome and he just felt great and this this is one of those situations where you can talk to them and process with them about how to get positive attention rather than negative attention because a lot of times when these kids um react or do something it's it's usually seen as a negative or um they're seeking that negative attention and and so this is a way that you can process with them to um to come up with ideas that that in fact will get them positive attention rather than negative and then again we have those kids who have that inability to adjust their behavior so um uh they're unaware of how other how their behavior affects others sorry it's getting loud here for just a minute um so that clear that kid is unclear about their expectations or goals we have to help them vocalize those or write those down um uh they don't pick up on feedback that indicates a need to alter the plan or behavior like oops this came up in the middle and we now need to switch what we're doing um and um it's really hard for them to adjust that with peers and um with other students and teachers so and it might just be hey we're researching something and we found out this bad piece of information we realized we need to switch our topic oops we have to adjust but um they might really have a hard time with that they need practice for appropriate behavior and responses okay so let's let them let's say hey okay you're about to do this with your friends role play will you pretend that you're doing it with me first and then also uh they can't accurately predict any kind of consequences um so um they don't know hey i'm i'm doing this one thing and this is what's going to happen to me in the end and that's where you can talk to them about okay so if you react this way what's going to happen so what else could we do again that goes back to some of the conversation on triage um and sorry sorry about that if you just um and also this is where the they need a corrective feedback um for improvement and reinforcement so so we have to show them right when it happens what's happened and how it needs to change in the future and if we can get them to start vocalizing that um that's all the better if we don't have to always point it out but we have to say let's pause and they say oh in the moment yes in the moment um and then also um they're unable to use past experiences to self correct okay they have a hard time learning from the lesson that happened last time so we just have to keep on pointing out over and over again this is where you help connect that prior knowledge and if we can correct the behavior right away then that'll help them connect to that past experience that will really help them so um we need to build and we're kind of running short on time so we're going to go through this a little bit quickly but we need to build that language for managing emotions and teach them how to de-escalate how to calm down um some of them don't see this at home at all they might have a parent that kind of explodes and then they model that behavior so let's teach them how to do that and over and over and over and consistency with that and i know sometimes you might think you know we we've gone over this we've gone over this don't say that to them because again they're not going to be seeing that in their real life yet so you've got to make that um connection i guess in in just keep practicing and we might be so frustrated with them but they're frustrated too so don't put that out on them don't say haven't we done this enough times um just really give them a lot of grace there and help them out um also um reading body signals is hard for these kids they don't attach emotions um to facial expression sometimes or they don't know um one kid i had to say you know um when you're in trouble and you're smiling at me i think you think it's funny and that isn't what the kids thought at all but we had to learn the emotion to go along with the situation so you know um i've even worked with some kids in abuse settings who um had to learn facial expressions with emotions so we really had to show picture cards and facial expressions and for them to be able to um uh attach those and we guys hear us would you give us a thumbs up if you can hear us okay good we realized too that you know you guys aren't going to be able to to do practice things like that like the behavior cards and things um in that manner because you are limited on time but if you take a few minutes to um to process with them even just like what Stephanie talked about with the you know not smiling when um you know here's the perception of what we see when you're smiling just talking that through just take a couple minutes to talk that through and then we um if we can help kids identify emotional triggers maybe it's a student that they have a trigger with in high school um maybe it's or i don't i shouldn't send high school i just mean that high school kids see more teachers but maybe it's a teacher maybe the kid and the teacher lock horns um maybe it's a situation or a kind of assignment that they're um assigned like like i said boys in riding that can be kind of hard but it's also not our job to say okay well you don't get along with this teacher so you just don't have to take their class right it's more of identifying how the triggered the triggers that they get and how to actually process those in them in a more positive light yeah um and anchoring that positive and negative stimulus that that can really help um learning self calming techniques maybe they're going to walk to the water fountain and count to 25 as they do it and and count down from 25 as they come back and be ready um maybe it's a breathing maybe it's going to sit in the corner um sensory kids might like to just feel something squishy in their hand or something soft in their hand or a piece of velcro mike i had students over the years who just needed a piece of velcro to rub their thumb over and that would really calm them down and again with those types of things that you're going to have to try a lot of things before you're going to find something that that works with them and ask your teacher yeah work with your teachers absolutely to say hey this is the part that this kid is getting hung up on and and is a trigger for them um teachers need to know that from you so they will value your help there and they may even because of time restraints not been able to communicate to you some things that may have worked for them in the past without student with the same behavior so it's always important to go back and talk with them these kids also need some reframing so um they might have something like the story i created in my head or the way i saw it through my lens of viewing life this is how i saw it that those kids were picking on me but actually when i was getting in their face and screaming that's why they tried to avoid me or that's why they told me to go away and not play with them so think of and that's the where somebody else's shoes yes type of thing and um you can have some prompts like the students can uh illustrate some like if this happened what would you do or in this situation what are you going to do um we need to teach these kids the weight to be called on these are the blurters these are the oo oo oo's and it's not fair to all the other kids in the class right for them to blurt out so we need to teach them you are not called on until uh or you you do not blurt or say an answer until you're called on and you know something as simple as and i've i've done this for several of my students in the past is is when a questions us you sit on your hands because those are the way if you've noticed those kids are always pushing something with their hand is moving and so if they're sitting on their hands that's a good cue for them just something as simple as that and then some kids have um charts to help them self monitor um and really that discussion and reflection is so important there so they might have a little behavior chart that they get to make a happy face or a sad face on but really talking them through it and say now what made that go so well today what what did you struggle with was there a time that it was hard but you did good anyway um and really have that discussion and also um those routines i you know sometimes people think routines are boring but really kids need the routine they need predictability um and accountability and being held accountable to hey this is the way we're going to do it and this is what the consequence if we don't so um we doing those types of things over and over and over again in following the same routine so and if then chart is really good like if i um hit someone on the playground then i blah blah blah if i react positively with my hands on the playground then i make friends if i get mad then i so a coping coping mechanism so um we have about three minutes for you to think of a student that has poor focusing uh self monitoring or impulse control skills and think about two things that you might do with that student to help them and we're going to ask that we're going to try to ask all of you to share out one as best as we can here in our environment or at least one from each school so actually let's take three minutes to talk and then we're just we'll take the the so go ahead talk talk talk we're going to call on you i only see one group conversing a couple groups we are going to call on you no i can't you can yeah you can you should be able to oh should we just go down from the top yep okay cindy's site i'm going to guess that that's up in butte that's okay i'll get to hold on cindy just a second here okay nice and loud for us who is describe your student and and two strategies that you would use and by describing your student maybe use some of the components that we talked about like with impulse control and and focusing because trouble focusing i just can't have a situation we take a break and go for a walk when you go for a walk with that student are you still processing the information or do you just completely take a break from the information and come back we have to take a break okay okay good all right i'm in a i'm going to shut my video off for just a second because we actually well i'm just going to pause the video so i don't make them dizzy when i walk in there so give me just a second here and then we'll finish up with our conversation maybe i won't i'm just going to block so i apologize here give me just a second there okay guys now we have some quiet sorry about that okay we were just with cindy and cindy thank you for sharing good job um how about lynch uh be it says bc lynch that's us yep can you hear us yes yes can you hear us yes what i do like in a reading if they're one particular student if they're not focusing i keep telling them looking at me and we'll go over the material i also tell them if we get through this material and they'll get some extra free time otherwise we just keep repeating until we get it over right when they're not focused and want to go around this time of year it's getting harder yes yes absolutely do you have any of your students who tried to or have you tried to cover some of the extra information or use a like a postcard or anything to highlight what the reading have you have they tried that at all for highlighting it highlight or underline or cover up some of the extra i know you you mentioned i'm talking yeah we've done that but usually what i'm talking about is when we're doing the verbal part oh they start on their workbook or anything okay all right keep them focused there sometimes it's hard yeah that's great okay thanks for sharing let's move on to it says herrera there's so long to explain yeah herrera are you guys there we un-muted you okay that's okay let's let's move on because we're short on time here but how about spencer do you guys have anything you'd like to share your student or some processes they're looking at me all we have one student that has trouble focusing if the teachers let him do it all he will absorb the entire lecture if they take that away then he's repetitive noises he's in and out of the seat disruptive yeah and you think and you think they're messing around drawing but they really need it so strategy testers in the build you know in this class so full disclosure here that was me as a child i can't wait thank you for sharing all right moving on to roue rye i'm not sure are you there all right that's okay i don't see any faces there so if i'm i miss you need to come back let me know how about norfolk do you have something you'd like to share or could share with us um we can hear me yep okay we have several students that we work with that have the inability to focus in class and we came up with some ideas that we use we break down their directions for them so that it's not so much at once not so overwhelming yep yes um give a lot of short breaks in between you know longer class periods some some of these kids here have a language arts class that goes maybe two periods long so that becomes too much so we'll give them breaks and a lot of fresh air if we can get them outside or even just a quick walk around the building outside absolutely fresh air there's something about it yep great thank you um oh go ahead consequences and just make sure you follow through with those consequences absolutely otherwise they learn really quickly that you're all talking no action okay thank you for sharing norfolk and how about stewart go ahead okay i have a student that um if he starts getting on task what i just do is i set the timer like for two minutes and then he can play with whatever he wants he usually uh loves trains no like two minutes he'll get to play the train and as soon as the timer goes off then we got to get back to doing what he was like now for whatever we were doing that's right is he able to refocus pretty well then if because you're really giving him a brain break that timer when it goes off he knows it's time if i didn't have a timer he probably wouldn't yeah yeah i like that cue that's an auditory cue for him or for them to come back that's a great great share thank you thanks so much everybody for sharing out so well today that's awesome yeah we can do a little long yes we have kept your line but we just want to say um thanks so much for joining us this whole year on this para adventure and we hope that you have just a wonderful holiday season we are one of those lucky professions that gets a holiday break and so use it as a time to recharge do something just for you um and you know this time of year it does get to be that frustration point for all of us um in the field and so um you know really do something to calm yourself and relax and come back recharged in january this is your brain break time so enjoy it and i hope that each of the kids um families and teachers that you work with let you know how much they appreciate you at this time of year because really you are the superheroes in the school you helped so much and i know we feel as former classroom teachers we couldn't have made it without you so you do something so important every day absolutely absolutely agree so thank you guys and have a great holiday okay thanks guys bye