With Parent-Teacher Conferences fast approaching, we anticipate both casual and serious questions such as, “How’s my child doing?” — even though the first PT Conference is really more for you to share with us things you feel we need to know to better teach your child.
Our answer will likely be something like, “Your child is a delightful, happy, 100% developmentally normal impulsive 2Ger.”
So a quick word about impulses and impulsiveness seems in order!
Can adults really understand impulsiveness?
Adults, who for the most part control their impulses, sometimes find it hard to empathize with the child who doesn’t. Adults forget what life was like before their frontal lobes kicked in and their neurons got their thick myelin sheathes (thus massively speeding up brain messaging and self control).
That’s the odd thing about brain development. Once the brain grows and reconfigures, we can no longer (really) recall what it was like to inhabit a less-developed brain.
So try this.
Think back to the last time you were in a heated argument with a significant other or close family member — be honest, we’ve all been there — and four nanoseconds after you said something that really hurt the other person you instantly DEEPLY REGRETTED opening your mouth.
Be honest! (I know I’ve done this… um… more than once or twice…. : )
Put yourself back in that moment.
That’s what it’s like to BE your impulse (to be in the grips of your impulse) rather than HAVE your impulse (when you can feel it, but choose not to act on it).
You just said what you said.
At the time of saying it your control mechanisms were offline — perhaps you watched yourself, horrified, perhaps you “instantly” saw what you’d done (past tense) — and you were “not yourself.”
As adults, we are thankful these moments are few and far between, but for a young child, the press of impulses is constant. When her/his frontal lobes are fully populated with neurons and fully operational s/he will be (far) better able to control her/himself.
Before then, impulse control will follow the level of frontal-lobe development.
You can’t make brain cells grow and connect any faster than DNA prescribes!
Sadly, there are a lot of impulsive adults around
Sadly, many adult models seem to celebrate impulsiveness.
Sadly, too, news coverage just loves to trot out examples of adult impulsive behavior — it grabs eyeballs and draws advertising dollars — rewarding those who go wild and act crazy, show off and zing others with fab soundbytes.
I once spoke to a police officer about why the police pull over speeders, but not the far more dangerous aggressive swerving-in-and-out drivers who are everywhere these days. “They’re hard to catch, the speeders are easy.” At least this officer was honest.
The airline industry is dealing with boatloads — har, har— of out of control passengers these days.
So—
So our children are getting plenty of messages that letting rip is just fine, regardless of what mum and dad say.
All of this only makes our job helping young people learn to master their impulses harder.
Oh yes — running with wolves FEELS SO GOOD!
Another empathy reflection exercise.
Think back to a time when you were 100% in the right, the other person was clearly, 100% negligently in the wrong, and the right thing to do was let ‘em have it with both barrels. Bam! Bam!
Felt good, didn’t it?
Righteous anger is… a natural high.
Here’s the thing to take from this: your child doesn’t feel bad when s/he’s run by her/his impulses. In fact, it might just feel mighty fine and be its own reward!
On the other hand, the early days of reigning in your impulsive horses, even when you’ve got a good million or so new front-lobe neurons online, isn’t that much fun.
So—
Impulse control will rarely appear in a young student overnight.
Impulse control is a long process, extending well into young adulthood.
Confession
As a young person, before I started in British boarding schools at the age of 10, I was an impulsive terror.
• My cousin recently sent me this. I was very impulsive at this age…
My parents threatened me with Juvenile Detention. (I’d visited a Juvenile Detention site to sing with my Sunday school so… had a very real sense of what they were threatening!)
Happily, my British school masters* put me to rights quick as lightening!
Anyways, I was far worse than any of my four boys, and far worse than 99.7% of the students I’ve ever taught.
Part of me well recalls the joys — and it was such fun — of running with my impulses (until I was caught and suffered the consequences).
A bigger part of me is eternally grateful that I learned “to hold my horses” as my mother would have put it. I don’t think I’d have done well in prison, juvenile or adult!
* Yes, very “colonial” language but… we did call our teachers “masters” and to do otherwise would be to distort history!
2G impulses
Today was a day of Typical Impulsiveness, one that required a whole-class meeting to address.
Truth be told, Dr. Cat was feeling like a piece of bread floating down a stream with dozens of minnows — or were they guppies? — nibbling away. Peck, peck, peck. (If minnows/guppies peck!!)
2G students—
Called out for help — or to make comments — without raising their hands, or even thinking of raising their hands
If I was helping a student, students who wanted help right now would barge in and start talking at me (even when I asked them not to!)
If I was helping a student and a small line had formed of those also needing help right now the line would slip out of Just Right for Learning Gear and flow towards Too Hot!
Students “forgot” what they were to do if finished, but waiting for math help or their next phonics lesson (Answer: read, write, draw or do a doodle card) and played around instead
Etc., etc.
Running on concrete was popular today too.
A student or two “forgot” about safely descending the stairs so they might mess around a bit.
One student, despite numerous requests not too, just couldn’t keep bumping and pawing the plexiglass dividers in the classroom…
All of which is 100% normal and to be expected!
BEING your impulses vs. HAVING your impulses
Hopefully the discussion above is helpful in feeling the difference between BEING my impulses (and perhaps having very little say in whether the impulses run you) and HAVING my impulses (when you can feel the impulse to do something — throw a rock, punch a kid in the nose, shout out an answer, push to the front of the line — but choose not to).
The transition from BEING my impulses to HAVING my impulses is one of the major developmental tasks of the 6, 7, 8 year old, a.k.a. the 2Ger.
In conclusion
To expect a 6, 7, 8 year old to be in full command of her/his horses (i.e., impulses) is developmentally unrealistic: 6, 7, 8 year olds are impulsive, as they should be.
(And so were you when you were 6, 7, an 8 — and you turned out just fine!)
Our (joint) task: to help our children/students begin to get a little distance between their in-the-process-of-becoming “new, more mature selves” and their impulses, then strengthening the divide between impulse and their new, more mature self.
Our (joint) goal: to get our students to the point where they can CHOOSE their actions under the pressure of strong impulses.
Of course, this isn’t the end of development…
Just wait for the teenage years when young people ARE their relationships and don’t yet HAVE their relationships. (That’s why teenagers — and way too many adults — have such difficulty with peer pressure.)
But… that’s a different story set in the distant future…
…for you
…been there, done that — four times over!
🤪
