In the kitchen
You want the cup on the high shelf. You can nearly reach it if you stand on the chair.
What do you do?
Step 1: What Would You Do?
There is often more than one good answer. Pick one and see what happens.
In the playground
Somebody takes the ball you were playing with. You feel hot and cross.
What do you do first?
Step 2: What That Was
The name for what you just worked out.
Some things you do fast. Your body moves before you think.
You can stop first
You can wait one breath. That is long enough to think.
The wait has a job
In the wait, say what happens next. Then pick.
Step 3: Quick Check
Two questions, then you are done.
Question 1 of 1
What do you do in the tiny wait?
Step 4: Your Life Mission
Something to do away from the screen. Nobody is checking.
One breath, out loud
- Pick one moment today when you nearly did something fast.
- Take one breath.
- Say what happens next, out loud, so somebody hears it.
Why: Saying it out loud is what makes the pause real instead of imaginary.
For a grown-up: Say yours out loud too, in front of them — "I am cross, so I am going to wait a second". Modeled once is worth explained five times.
Step 5: What You Learned
- You can wait one breath before you act.
- In the wait, say what happens next.
For the grown-up
Impulse control at this age is a body skill before it is a thinking skill, which is why the lesson attaches the pause to a breath rather than to a rule. A rule has to be remembered; a breath can be done.
The phrase that helps most is "what happens next?" asked as a real question with a real pause for an answer. Asked rhetorically — "and what do you think will happen?" — it is heard as telling off, and children stop answering it.
Expect this to work in calm moments long before it works in heated ones. That is normal and not a sign it has not landed.