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Ability to keep track of information and things

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It can be hard to motivate middle-schoolers with reading issues to pick up a book. One way to engage them is to find books with themes they can relate to at a time when they're trying to figure out who they are.

Here are nine great titles to explore with your reluctant middle school reader.

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6 Simple Tools to Help Your Grade-Schooler Get Organized

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It can be hard to motivate middle-schoolers with reading issues to pick up a book. One way to engage them is to find books with themes they can relate to at a time when they're trying to figure out who they are. Here are nine great titles to explore with your reluctant middle school reader.

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Ability to keep track of information and things

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Ability to get started

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Task Initiation | Behavior & SEL IEP Goal - Goalbook Toolkit

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Goalbook develops resources for teachers to differentiate instruction aligned to Common Core using UDL. Our toolkit contains Common Core IEP goals in Reading, Writing, and Math, as well as non-academic goals in Behavior and Autism.

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Ability to get started

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Determine steps needed to reach agoal and decide their order of importance

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Determine steps needed to reach a goal and decide their order of importance

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First, let's review why teachers are critically positioned to provide students' brains with guided experiences that activate neural networks of executive functions. During children's school years, their brains become more streamlined and efficient. Neuroplasticity, the process that rapidly prunes disused circuits and strengthens most-used circuits, means that when you give students ways to activate their executive functions, these highest control networks become stronger.

Activities to Support Developing Circuits for Prioritizing

Students should be explicitly taught and given opportunities to practice the executive function skill sets of prioritizing. In planning instruction, use the following guidelines to help students develop their awareness of what prioritizing is, and the practices that build their prioritizing power.

Prioritizing Relevance

1. Recognize skills that they already have.
Prioritizing is essential for students in all subjects. They use it when planning an essay, selecting which information to include in notes, or evaluating word problems in math for the relevant data. Start by having them reflect on which of these they already do successfully, and have a class discussion for sharing strategies and making students aware of the skills they already possess. Prompts include:

How do you select what to write down as you take class or textbook notes?

When you were successful on a test for which you studied, how did you decide which information was the most important to learn and study?

2. Experience prioritizing without fear of being "wrong."
Show students a variety of photos, paintings, or video clips and invite their opinions about what they found to be the most important detail or big idea. Remind them that, with most art, the viewer is encouraged to relate and take away ideas that are personal and not necessarily those of the creator.

3. Prioritize the "best."
Show students the systems that they already use for prioritizing quality. This helps them become conscious of the criteria by which they can prioritize relevance, validity, and quality throughout the curriculum and beyond. Here is a sample task:

Students select three print advertisements that they think are "good."

They put the ads in order of best, second best, and third best.

After this ranking, ask them to think about and list the qualities that they used to prioritize the "best."

4. Work with redacted notes.
This is a great scaffolding to guide students in prioritizing which information from lectures or texts they should be writing down and later reviewing.

Create an exemplary outline, or use inclusive student notes from previous years that clearly designate prioritized main topics and lesser subtopics.

Create three different versions of this outline.

Block out only a small amount of the content for students beginning to build note-taking skills. For more advanced students, remove more text. For example, if the outline is about types of clouds and the scaffolded outline lists three different types, block out one type of clouds for the student who is just building her note-taking skills.

Prioritizing Goals in Planning

Prioritizing for planning is what guides students to evaluate the order in which they'll approach parts of a larger task, and which parts should get the most time and planning.

Give students opportunities to make their own prioritizing choices and experience the consequences of not meeting goals by the deadlines they set. Follow this with guidance through metacognition and an opportunity for revision to learn from their miscalculations. Scaffold their construction of prioritizing networks by having them estimate, keep records of their progress, and revise their plans when they're not meeting their interval goalposts.

Here's a sample of scaffolded prioritizing in planning:

Give an assignment with clear expectations of the outcome and an analytic rubric of requirements, each with a point value.

Students make individual lists of what they see as the separate tasks and a sequence for following them to completion.

Provide a template that students will use for planning, setting dates for each steps en route to the goal.

Students give a percentage of value to each task. For example, if the rubric indicates that the concluding paragraph is valued at 15% and the cover page at 5% of the book report grade, they should use that as a guide to prioritize the amount of time allotted to each task.

As they progress through their plan, students record actual time spent (and later the outcome in points received for each aspect of the project).

Set aside class time for students to evaluate progress and revise plans as needed.

When the assignment is completed, offer a metacognition opportunity for students to record which tasks need to be reprioritized to add more time, and to reflect on the strategies that they found most useful to their successful plans.

Time Well Spent

Planning instruction and teaching units that activate executive function processing takes teacher and student time -- and it's time that's already severely taxed. However, that time is a powerful investment as students build their executive functions to become self-directed learners who can prioritize, plan, and persevere with foresight as they achieve long-term goals.

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Prioritizing: A Critical Executive Function | Edutopia

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First, let's review why teachers are critically positioned to provide students' brains with guided experiences that activate neural networks of executive functions. During children's school years, their brains become more streamlined and efficient. Neuroplasticity, the process that rapidly prunes disused circuits and strengthens most-used circuits, means that when you give students ways to activate their executive functions, these highest control networks become stronger.

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Keep track and evaluate performance

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Self-monitoring is a fancy name for a skill you use all the time to keep track what you're doing. It's a series of assessments you make along the way: How is the activity going? What's working and what's not? Should I make adjustments?

For example, when you make breakfast, you check to see if the butter has melted in the pan before adding the eggs. If the eggs were runny last time, you might think, What do I need to do differently this time?

That same skill applies to learning, too. Here are four ways kids use self-monitoring to help with learning.

1. Self-Monitoring and Basic Learning

Kids use self-monitoring to help them learn skills like math and reading. They also use it for more basic things, like understanding directions, keeping track of due dates and checking work.

If your child has weak self-monitoring skills, she may not recognize mistakes when proofreading a writing assignment or checking math for errors. She may also have a hard time determining whether she's following directions correctly. This can make it difficult to know when she needs to ask for help.

2. Self-Monitoring and Math

When it comes to math, kids use self-monitoring to figure out the best way to tackle a problem and determine whether their answer seems reasonable. Younger kids use it to decide which operation (or operations) to use for a word problem. If your child struggles with this skill, you might notice she has a hard time understanding clue words (such as in addition to or how much less than) or knowing whether to use the + or - sign when she writes the problem.

Self-monitoring helps older kids check answers by using the reverse operation, such as using multiplication to check a division problem. Self-monitoring is also the skill kids use to make sure they've gone through all the steps of a problem and that each piece was done correctly.

If your child struggles with self-monitoring, she might get one or all of the steps wrong and not be able to see it. She may not realize the answer doesn't make sense.

3. Self-Monitoring and Learning to Read

A beginning reader uses self-monitoring to determine whether the sounds she's using for the letters make sense together to create a word she recognizes-a skill known as decoding. Self-checking is what helps kids go back and rethink the word when it doesn't sound right.

If your child struggles with self-monitoring and decodes the word boat as bow-AT, she may not realize it doesn't make sense. As she moves on and begins to read sentences, she may have a similar problem recognizing that a word in that context doesn't make sense and figuring out which one would.

Kids use self-monitoring to become better, more effective readers. When kids first start to read for meaning, parents and teachers help them get information from what they're reading and understand what it means. As they become better readers, kids replace those outside monitors with self-monitoring. They can ask themselves questions like:

Why am I reading this and what will I learn from it?

Do I understand the way information is presented? (Such as a list, an alphabet book or a chapter book.)

Can I connect this to anything I already know?

Do I understand the ideas and words or do I need to stop to look them up or ask for help?

The Good News: There Are Ways to Help

If your child has trouble with self-monitoring, it doesn't mean she won't be able to learn. But she might need some extra support. There are accommodations your child's teacher can make to help her in the classroom, as well as strategies and technology you can use at home to make things easier.

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4 Ways Kids Use Self-Monitoring to Learn

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Self-monitoring is a fancy name for a skill you use all the time to keep track what you're doing. It's a series of assessments you make along the way: How is the activity going? What's working and what's not? Should I make adjustments?

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Keep track and evaluate performance

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Self Monitoring - Polk Elementary School

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Hold information in your mind and use it to complete a task

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Working memory is the ability to hold information in mind while performing complex tasks. A young child is able to execute simple tasks - sharpen his pencil when asked - while one in middle school can remember the expectations of multiple teachers. Many kids with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) have weak working memory because distraction prevents them from taking in the information they have to remember. Parents and teachers can help students with ADHD develop strategies for training their working memory, remembering more, and - most importantly - routinely using the strategies they came up with.

Improve Working Memory at School

Put homework assignments in writing. Write each assignment on the blackboard in the same place every day, so that students know where to find it. Kids with ADHD may not be listening or paying attention when you give them oral instructions - and you can't rely on them to always remember instructions.

Find out what they heard. Have students with weak working memory repeat assignment instructions and clarify any parts that they may have forgotten.
[Self-Test: Does Your Child Have a Working Memory Deficit?]
Make time at the end of class for students to write down homework in their assignment books. Make sure the kids with ADHD are doing what you've asked.

Make eye contact with a child before giving him a classroom assignment.

Keep homework assignments on the school website up-to-date. Parents of kids with ADHD depend on this information to make sure their kids know what to do.

Speak slowly and provide information in small units. Given too much information at once, a child with weak working memory quickly loses track. She may still be working through the first few minutes of the lesson after you've moved on.
[Fun Memory Games to Play at Home]
Make lectures interactive. To get kids with weak working memory to remember something important, structure the lecture to include responses from them. For instance, when teaching a math lesson, you might encourage students to volunteer to share what they learned about fractions, division, or whatever material was covered that day. Repeating a key point will help anchor it in their memories.

Have a routine for handing in homework assignments. Some teachers ask students to place their completed work on their desk as soon as they sit down for class - and then check off in their grade books that the homework was done. Another idea: Make handing in homework the "ticket to get out of class" at the end of the day. Stand by the door and collect it as the students leave. As you can imagine, kids will comply when the alternative is having to stay in school one minute longer.

Talk with students about what to do if they forget something. Assign - or ask students to select - a study buddy they can talk with if they've forgotten what they're supposed to do for homework or can't remember what to do in class.

Use an analog clock during lessons to help your students with time management. They will be able to keep track of how much time has passed and how much remains.
[9 Apps and Tools That Build Better Retention]
Call close attention to due dates. Post them, refer to them frequently, and remind parents and students in notes home, newsletters, or school voicemail.

Ask students to design their own "tickler systems" - ways to remind themselves of things they must remember (permission slips, lunch money, gym clothes). This could lead to a class discussion, to give students a chance to share the strategies that work for them.

Improve Working Memory at Home

Assign a designated place for your child to put important stuff - house keys, wallet, sports equipment. As soon as he gets home from school, make sure he puts those things where they belong. A reward for following through - or a penalty for not - will reinforce the habit of staying organized.

Create a reminder checklist to make sure your child has everything she needs to bring to school. In the beginning, watch as she goes through the checklist, to make sure she's putting every item in her backpack. Do not repeat what's on the list, but ask her to tell you (this helps to transfer the information from your working memory to hers). Have your child use the checklist when she finishes her homework the night before, to avoid rushing around in the morning.

Make, and use, to-do lists yourself, so that your child sees this is a lifelong coping strategy. Life is too complicated to expect kids to commit everything to memory!

Brainstorm with your child about ways he can remember important things. Can he write it on the back of his hand, program his smartphone to remind him, ask friends with better memories to prompt him?

Homework Routines to Improve Working Memory

Get permission from teachers for your child to e-mail her assignments. This is easy for kids who do homework on the computer. Some families scan the homework on a scanner and e-mail it to the teacher. This tip won't strengthen working memory, but it's a good coping strategy for students with weak executive function.

Reward your child for remembering. E-mail teachers once a week to make sure all the homework was handed in. Give your child five points for all homework turned in, four points for missing only one assignment, and no points if he misses more than one. Create a menu of rewards the child can earn. Allot more points for more complex assignments.

Give your child a homework routine to follow. Homework is a complex series of subtasks that must be completed in sequential order. It requires plenty of working memory. Teach your child that, in order to complete a homework assignment, he must:

Know what the assignment is

Bring the required materials home

Return the homework to his bookbag or backpack

Bring the completed homework to school.

Morning Routines to Improve Working Memory

Have your child tape-record the steps of his morning routine. Listening to his own voice on playback creates less tension than your nagging him about what to do. If he forgets a step, he can just rewind the tape to figure out what he missed.

Rehearse with your child what you expect him to remember right before the situation. For example, if he needs to ask the teacher for a study guide or one-on-one help, prep him by asking, "So, what do you need to say to your teacher when you go up to her desk?"

Use digital reminders. With children in middle school, use cell phones, text messages, or instant messages to remind them of things they have to do.

Keep external distractions to a minimum - turn off the TV or turn down the volume if you want your child's full attention when you're saying something important.

Follow through. Children with weak working memory will indicate that they did something - put their homework in their backpack, say - when you ask, but will proceed to forget. Until the child gets used to taking action when prompted, check on him to make sure he did what he told you.

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Working memory is the ability to hold information in mind while performing complex tasks. A young child is able to execute simple tasks - sharpen his pencil when asked - while one in middle school can remember the expectations of multiple teachers.

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Hold information in your mind and use it to complete a task

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At a glance

Working memory refers to how we hold on to and work with information stored in short-term memory.

Kids use working memory to learn and follow directions.

You can build working memory games into your child's daily life.

Does your child have a hard time keeping one bit of information in mind while doing something else? For example, you're making spaghetti together, and your child's in charge of the sauce. But your child leaves to answer a text and forgets to come back and stir. Working memory challenges can cause trouble with tasks like these.

Working memory refers to how we hold on to and work with information that short-term memory stores. (In the past, the term working memory was used interchangeably with short-term memory.) It's part of a group of skills called executive function.

Kids use working memory all the time to learn. It's needed for things like following multi-step directions or solving a math problem in your head. You can help your child improve working memory by building simple strategies into everyday life.

1. Work on visualization skills.

Encourage kids to create a picture in their mind of what they've just read or heard. For example, say you've asked your child to set the table for five people. Have your child imagine what the table should look like, and then draw it. As kids get better at visualizing, they can describe the image instead of drawing it.

2. Have your child teach you.

Being able to explain how to do something involves making sense of information and mentally filing it. Maybe your child is learning a skill, like how to dribble a basketball. Ask your child to teach you this skill. Teachers do something similar by pairing up students in class. This lets them start working with the information right away rather than waiting to be called on.

3. Try games that use visual memory.

There are lots of matching games that can help kids work on visual memory, like the classic game Concentration (or Memory). You can also do things like give kids a magazine page and ask them to circle all instances of the word the or the letter a. License plates can also be a lot of fun. Take turns reciting the letters and numbers on a license plate and then saying them backwards, too.

Simple card games like Crazy Eights, Uno, Go Fish, and War can improve working memory in two ways. Kids have to keep the rules of the game in mind. They also have to remember what cards they have and which ones other people have played.

5. Encourage active reading.

There's a reason highlighters and sticky notes are so popular: Jotting down notes and underlining or highlighting text can help kids keep the information in mind long enough to answer questions about it. Talking out loud and asking questions about the reading material can also help with working memory. Active reading strategies like these can help with forming long-term memories, too.

6. Chunk information into smaller bites.

Ever wonder why phone numbers and social security numbers have hyphens in them? Because it's easier to remember a few small groups of numbers than it is to remember one long string of numbers. Keep this in mind when you need to give your child multi-step directions. Write them down or give them one at a time. You can also use graphic organizers to help break writing assignments into smaller pieces.

Using multiple senses to process information can help with working memory and long-term memory. Write tasks down so your child can look at them. Say them out loud so your child can hear them. Walk through the house as you discuss the family chores your child needs to complete. Using multisensory strategies can help kids keep information in mind long enough to use it.

8. Help make connections.

Help your child form associations that connect different details and make them more memorable. One way is to grab your child's interest with fun mnemonics. (For instance, the made-up name "Roy G. Biv" can help kids remember the order of the colors in the rainbow - red, orange, yellow, and so on.) Finding ways to connect information helps with forming and retrieving long-term memory. It also helps with working memory, which is what we use to hold and compare new and old memories.

Key takeaways

Teaching kids ways to visualize thoughts can help improve their working memory.

Card games and other fun activities can help build working memory.

Finding ways to connect information can help your child with long-term memory as well as working memory.

About the author

About the author

Amanda Morin is the author of "The Everything Parent's Guide to Special Education" and the former director of thought leadership at Understood. As an expert and writer, she helped build Understood from its earliest days.

Reviewed by

Reviewed by

Thomas E. Brown, PhD is a clinical psychologist and clinical associate professor of psychiatry at the Keck School of Medicine of USC.

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How to Improve Working Memory in Kids | Understood

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Working memory refers to how we hold on to and work with information stored in short-term memory. Kids use working memory to learn and follow directions. You can build working memory games into your child's daily life. Does your child have a hard time keeping one bit of information in mind while doing something else?

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Come up with new approaches when a plan fails

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You should be proud if you speak two languages. It's a good thing.

That might sound obvious to some people, but for a long time, bilingualism was seen as a drawback.

That's part of the reason many kids in the United States start learning foreign languages in middle school instead of in elementary school. Educators thought learning two languages at once would hurt kids.

See Also: The Benefits of Being Bilingual

But more and more researchers are finding out that it's actually the opposite.

The latest: researchers from Penn State have found that fluent bilinguals probably have greater levels of mental flexibility than people who speak just one language.

The researchers found that fluent bilinguals have both languages active at all times, regardless of whether they're consciously using both. That holds true even if they speak just one of the languages for days on end. The other still remains active.

And people rarely say anything in an unintended language, meaning they are able to control the parallel activity of both languages and select which one they want to use without actually consciously thinking about it, hence the mental flexibility.

"In the past, bilinguals were looked down upon," Judith F. Kroll, distinguished professor of Psychology, Linguistics and Women's Studies, said in a statement. "Not only is bilingualism not bad for you, it may be really good. When you're switching languages all the time it strengthens your mental muscle and your executive function becomes enhanced."

The United States is just now exploring the benefits of bilingualism, but it's an idea that many Europeans have supported for a long time. More than half of Europeans speak at least two languages and in some places, like Luxembourg and Latvia, almost everybody is bilingual.

And many of them learn multiple languages early on, as young children. Studies show it's more difficult to pick up a new language after puberty, about the time most American kids end up in foreign language classes. It's no surprise then that few of them become fluent.

The findings about bilingualism and mental flexibility give us one more reason to get behind learning a new language.

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You should be proud if you speak two languages. It's a good thing. That might sound obvious to some people, but for a long time, bilingualism was seen as a drawback. That's part of the reason many kids in the United States start learning foreign languages in middle school instead of in elementary school.

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Come up with new approaches when a plan fails

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Imagine you're driving somewhere, and discover that a street you were planning to turn onto is blocked off for construction. Your initial plan for reaching your destination obviously isn't going to work. So you instantly come up with a new way to get there.

That's what flexible thinking is about-being able to quickly switch gears and find new approaches to solve problems.

Many children with learning and attention issues struggle with flexible thinking, which plays an important role in how kids learn and adapt to new information in many areas. Here are six ways kids use this skill for learning.

1. Flexible Thinking and Real-Life Learning

Doctors have a term to describe the ability to think about things in a different way. They call it "cognitive flexibility." It uses two skills-flexible thinking and set shifting. Flexible thinking is when kids are able to think about something in a new way. Set shifting is when they can let go of the old way of doing something in order to use a new way.

Here's an example of how those skills work together. Kids often start out learning to tie shoes using the "Bunny Ears" method (making each lace into a loop). They then often progress to the "Squirrel and the Tree" method (making one loop and wrapping the other lace around it). Flexible thinking enables kids to consider this new squirrelly approach. Set shifting helps them "unlearn" the old bunny-ears way in order to use the new method.

Kids who are rigid in their thinking have difficulty moving beyond the more basic ways of doing things. If your child has weak flexible thinking skills, taking on new tasks and responsibilities as she gets older may be tough.

2. Flexible Thinking and Reading

Kids use flexible thinking both for learning to read and for reading to learn. When they're starting out, flexible thinking enables them to understand how the same letter combination can make different sounds (such as the "ough" in words like enough and dough). It's also the skill that helps kids understand how words can be used in more than one way (such as "Don't slip on the banana peel" and "Sign the permission slip ").

As kids start reading books to get information, they use flexible thinking to understand what information is important and what details are just used to add to a description. Flexible thinking is also what helps them understand the perspectives of different characters in a story. Flexible thinkers have an easier time understanding idioms (such as "keep your ear to the ground") and puns (such as "the joke about the duck quacked me up").

If your child is rigid in her thinking, you may see that she has trouble identifying the correct pronunciation for words and interprets what she reads much too literally.

3. Flexible Thinking and Writing

Writing is a complicated process for kids. They have to organize their thoughts and choose the words for the sentences. They have to add supporting details while keeping track of the main idea. On top of that, they need to be able to check for grammar and spelling mistakes. All of that requires the use of flexible thinking. Kids who are more rigid thinkers can have a hard time shifting among all these things.

If your child has trouble thinking flexibly, her writing may not have enough supporting details. Or it might have lots of errors in it.

4. Flexible Thinking and Language Learning

Flexible thinking is the skill kids use to learn the rules of language. It helps them to know, for instance, that the way to put most words into the past tense is to add "-ed" to the end. Flexible thinkers also understand there are exceptions to those rules. It makes sense to them that the past tense of go is went. These kids can easily use both rules and exceptions of language.

Flexible thinking also plays a role in learning foreign languages. In other languages, letters can have different sounds. Sentences aren't put together the way they are in English.

If your child is not a flexible thinker, it may be hard for her to learn the rules and the exceptions that make up languages. She may learn better by listening to how people speak the language than by sitting down and reading the rules in a textbook.

5. Flexible Thinking and Math

Flexible thinking is a key skill in math. Kids use it to find ways to solve word problems and to understand that a phrase like "how many in all" means that addition is being used. Flexible thinking also helps kids understand that there's more than one way to solve a math problem. They can see how a new type of problem can be solved using a formula they already know.

Without strong flexible thinking skills, your child may struggle with math that requires her to do more than just solve the equation on the page. "Cheat sheets" that connect words or phrases to math operations can be helpful tools for your child. So can checklists of the different things she needs to look at to solve a problem.

6. Flexible Thinking and Studying

Doing homework and studying for a test require flexible thinking, too. Knowing how to switch between different subjects during homework time becomes increasingly important as kids get older and have more work to juggle. Doing math problems requires a very different strategy than doing a writing assignment. Kids need to be able to change their thinking to handle both.

When it comes to studying, kids use flexible thinking to figure out what kind of information they need to pay the most attention to. Do they need to memorize facts and information, such as for a multiple-choice quiz? Or do they need to learn the basic ideas so they can retell the story, such as for an essay test?

If your child has poor flexible thinking skills, switching strategies will not come naturally. This can make homework time a source of frustration. Teaching her note-taking strategies and providing homework planners can ease the stress on both of you.

The Good News: There Are Ways to Help

If your child has trouble with flexible thinking, she's likely to have some problems learning. There are ways to help, though. Your child's teacher can use strategies in the classroom to teach your child in ways that make more sense to her.

You and your child can also play games at home to build flexible thinking skills and come up with ways to make homework more manageable. One of the best things you can do is to help your child learn to make a list of pros and cons, first on paper and then in her head, to determine the best choice.

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6 Ways Kids Use Flexible Thinking to Learn

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Imagine you're driving somewhere, and discover that a street you were planning to turn onto is blocked off for construction. Your initial plan for reaching your destination obviously isn't going to work. So you instantly come up with a new way to get there.

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Manage feelings by focusing on the end result or goal

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Find and save recipes, parenting hacks, style inspiration and other ideas to try.

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Manage feelings by focusing on the end result or goal

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In this nine-part series, we will look at important factors that influence the happiness and social and emotional learning of elementary school age children. These are very useful in helping students learn, manage emotions better and increase empathy. Each blog features one letter of the acronym HAPPINESS:

1. H = Happiness

2. A = Appreciation

3. P = Passions and Strengths

4. P = Perspective

5. I = Inner Meanie/Inner Friend

6. N = Ninja Mastery

7. E = Empathy

8. S = So Similar

9. S = Share Your Gifts

In this post, we will explore Ninja Mastery, a.k.a. learning emotional management.

What if your kids could learn that managing their emotions gives them a real advantage in school, in relationships and in life in general? Like ninja masters, they can train themselves to harness their inner resources and redirect their energy to successfully deal with the challenges that come their way. In this article we'll explore some approaches that can help.

When Emotions Take Over

Most people would agree that emotions are a tricky thing. On one hand, they are guideposts to let us know how we are feeling. They direct our attention, and we rely on them to help us make good decisions. When emotions are in gear, " Upstairs Brain" the pre-frontal cortex, the more evolved part of the brain that helps with good decision-making and emotional management, hums along. On the other hand, when emotions escalate, the " Downstairs Brain," the amygdala, the more primitive part of the brain, surges into action, especially when its alarm bell senses danger. During those episodes, the pre-frontal cortex doesn't even have a chance. It can feel like our emotions (and amygdala) are taking over our bodies and hijacking our minds. What to do?

Recognize That Emotions Come and Go

The great thing about emotions is that they are fleeting. Feelings are temporary states rather than permanent traits (I feel really upset, mad, glad or sad right now -- not forever more). Like clouds, some feelings are wispy, while others are dark and gusty. But even the intense feelings do pass. Neuroscientist Dan Siegel recommends that kids "let the clouds of emotions roll by."

Remember the Ocean, Not Just the Waves

Another analogy is that emotions can be like turbulent waves thrashing about on the surface of the ocean. It's good to know that, although it may be a stormy day on top, there is a huge calm reservoir in the ocean below. Ninja masters learn to use their powers to tap into those calm depths even if there are challenges at the surface.

Six Ninja Strategies

Here are some ways that may help to deal with a strong emotion, like sadness:

1. Focus your mind on something more positive that helps you connect with happier feelings.

2. Take ten deep breaths.

3. Run, jump, sing or dance your way into a better mood.

4. Appreciate something good about yourself and your life. A gratitude journal is a great tool.

5. Reach out to someone who cares about you, and talk about what's going on.

6. Remember you are in charge of how you respond; your emotions do not have to run the show.

The Trouble with Anger

Depending on the situation, some emotions can be more challenging than others. Anger can be daunting! Though feelings of anger are natural, okay and part of being human, when anger takes control of the mind, it can make us react in ways we may regret. To deal with this emotion, it's important to:

Understand your anger

Work through your anger

Resolve your anger

Understanding What Causes Anger

One way to help students understand anger is by listing on the board circumstances that may cause it. Examples could include when someone hurts you physically, when someone puts you down, when you cannot say how you feel, when you believe someone wasn't fair, if someone breaks something of yours, or if you did not get your way. Poll students and list which ones affect them the most.

Working Through Anger

Anger is a powerful force, and we must learn to disengage when it wants to hijack our mind. As students learn to recognize that they are getting angry, they can either continue to interact and let the emotions escalate, or separate from the situation and talk about it later. By physically removing themselves from the anger trigger, they create an opportunity to come back to a calmer place.

How You Deal with Anger is a Choice

Consider starting a discussion about ways to resolve anger. (Find lesson plans and additional resources at projecthappiness.org to learn more about this.) Some examples might be: talking and listening to the person you feel angry with, talk to a friend or an adult you trust, accept that you can't change things, apologize, etc. You can also have the class come up with some negative examples like hitting, blaming, arguing back even harder or breaking something. Engage students to discuss the consequences for both positive and negative choices. All ninja masters know that you have the power to choose how to respond to any situation.

Have you noticed that emotional outbursts or conflicts are on the rise? How do you deal with an escalation of emotion in the classroom?

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Building Social and Emotional Skills in Elementary Students: Emotional Management | Edutopia

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In this nine-part series, we will look at important factors that influence the happiness and social and emotional learning of elementary school age children. These are very useful in helping students learn, manage emotions better and increase empathy.

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Stop and think before acting

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Stop and think before acting

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Why do kids with ADHD call out in class or push in line? Poor impulse control. The solution? Clear expectations, positive incentives, and predictable consequences for good or bad school behavior.

For children with attention deficit disorder ( ADHD or ADD) who are ruled by their impulses, calling out in class or pushing to the front of the line comes naturally. These kids live in the moment, undeterred by rules or consequences.

Lack of impulse control may be the most difficult ADHD symptom to change. Medication can help, but kids also need effective behavior management strategies in place - clear expectations, positive incentives, and predictable consequences - if they are to learn to regulate their behavior.

Enforce Discipline at School

Lead your students in compiling a list of class rules. Include some that are difficult for kids with ADHD, such as "Always raise your hand to ask for help." Be sure to define each rule: What does it mean to "Use materials appropriately"?
In general, discipline should be immediate.
If one student pushes another on the playground, for example, have him sit out part of recess. A delayed consequence - such as after-school detention - doesn't work for kids who have trouble anticipating outcomes.
[Self-Test: Could Your Child Have a Working Memory Deficit?] Provide visual reminders to keep kids on track.
To spare a child the embarrassment of frequent reprimands, agree upon a secret gesture you'll use to signal her to stay in her seat or to stop calling out. Some children benefit from a reminder taped to the desk. That, too, can be private; no one else has to know that "N.I." stands for "No Interrupting."
Encourage appropriate behavior with recognition and rewards.
This is especially important for children with ADHD, who get a lot of negative attention for misconduct. Acknowledge good behavior with specific praise, such as: "Edward, I appreciate how quickly and quietly you cleared your desk."

Some older children are embarrassed by compliments, so give a thumbs-up or a pat on the back instead.

Clear, Enforceable Expectations
Write the day's schedule on the blackboard, and erase items as they're completed.
This gives kids with ADHD a sense of being in control of their day. Provide advance notice of any changes to the usual routine.
Issue frequent alerts as the end of an activity draws near.
Give the class a five-minute warning, and then a two-minute warning, to ease the transition from one activity to the next. Devise a plan for students for whom change is especially difficult. Assign them to a special task, like collecting classmates' papers, to help them maintain self-control.
Use a daily report card.
This tool allows a child's teacher and parents to monitor academic and behavioral goals - and gives the child a chance to earn rewards. Each day, the teacher records whether the goals were met, and the child takes the report card home to show his parents.
[Free Download: The Daily Report Card for Better Classroom Behavior]
So what can parents do at home to enforce the appropriate behaviors learned at school?

Rewarding Positive Behavior
Be explicit about how your child is to behave.
Instead of telling her to "be good" at the playground, tell her to "wait in line for the slide, and don't push."
Hold your child accountable for his actions.
Keep punishments short and appropriate, but let them remind your child that he is responsible for his own behavior. A good rule of thumb for time-outs is one minute for each year of a child's age.
Discourage a problem behavior by "charging" for each infraction.
This strategy rewards your child for not engaging in an inappropriate behavior, such as interrupting your phone calls.
How it works:
Determine, roughly, how many times a week your child interrupts you during a phone call, and fill a jar with slightly fewer quarters.
Tell your child that these are hers to keep at the end of the week, but that you will remove one each time she interrupts a call.
As the behavior begins to diminish, reduce the number of quarters you put in the jar at the beginning of the week.
[9 ADHD Strategies Every Teacher Should Know]
Special Rules for Special Occasions
Go easy on minor missteps.
If your child spills milk because he's pouring it quickly, help him clean the mess, talk to him about the importance of being careful, and move on.
Anticipate potentially explosive situations.
Children with ADHD need consistency and routine, but the unpredictable will sometimes happen.

Prepare your child for special occasions: Explain where you're going, who will be there, what activities are planned, and how he should behave. Plan a way for him to signal you if he's becoming overwhelmed, such as putting his hand in yours. (You can do the same if you sense a meltdown in the making.)

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Impulse-Control Strategies for Students with ADHD

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Why do kids with ADHD call out in class or push in line? Poor impulse control. The solution? Clear expectations, positive incentives, and predictable consequences for good or bad school behavior. For children with attention deficit disorder ( ADHD or ADD) who are ruled by their impulses, calling out in class or pushing to the front of the line comes naturally.