← ADHD Experts Podcast
ADHD Experts Podcast
573- Social Emotional Learning Techniques for Students with ADHD
01:00:19
Social-emotional learning (SEL) teaches five core competencies: self-awareness, self-regulation, social awareness, relationship skills, and problem-solving. Steven Tobias, Psy.D., explains how to teach SEL skills to students with ADHD....
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- [00:04]
Podcast Host
Welcome to the Attention Deficit Disorder Expert.
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Dr. Steven Tobias
Podcast series by Attitude Magazine.
- [00:13]
Carol Fleck
Everyone. I'm Carol Fleck, and on behalf of the Attitude team, I'm delighted to welcome you to today's ADHD Experts presentation titled Social Emotional Learning Techniques for students with ADHD. Leading today's presentation is Dr. Steven Tobias. Dr. Tobias is the director of the center for Child and Family Development in New Jersey. He has more than 25 years experience working with children, parents, families, and schools. Dr. Tobias consults with schools as a way of reaching many children, including those with unmet social and emotional needs. He has co authored several books with Dr. Morris Elias, including Emotionally Intelligent Parenting and Raising Emotionally Intelligent Teenagers. For children with ADHD and the core traits of inattention and impulsivity, social emotional learning skills can be difficult to master and use consistently. This webinar will provide strategies to help children learn and use these skills skills at home and in peer settings. So, without further ado, I'm so pleased to welcome Dr. Steven Tobias. Thank you so much for joining us today and leading this discussion.
- [01:35]
Dr. Steven Tobias
Thanks. It's my pleasure. I guess I start with disclosures, and I have nothing to disclose. I don't have any financial sponsorship for this. Also, I'm not trying to sell anything. As a matter of fact, I'm trying to give all this stuff away. So please, you know, take any of the materials, adapt them, you know, use them, you know, in whatever settings you have. And please, you don't have to give me credit for any of this because I'm sure I took it from other people anyway. Okay, so we're gonna. Oh, let me start with. By saying, I was told you're already familiar with adhd. So actually, I'm glad I don't have to define ADHD or give an explanation of it, because after having worked in this field for about 40 years, I'm actually less and less sure of what it is. You know, sometimes I think that everybody has it, especially if you listen to influencers on social media. Sometimes I think that nobody has it and the whole issue is exaggerated, especially introducing influencers on social media. Sometimes I think medication is over prescribed. Sometimes I think it's underutilized. Sometimes I think ADHD is a strength and sometimes I think it's a disability. But most of the time, I'm just trying to figure out the person in front of me in my office and what their individual needs are. But for my talk today, the good news is that everybody needs social emotional skills, and we don't have to label anybody to recognize the importance of these skills in order for them to function in life. Also, as a matter of fact, these skills are more related to success and happiness than academic or any other skills. But yes, it's also true that individuals with inattention and poor impulse control tend to have more difficulty in this area than others. And that's her two main reasons that Carol just touched on. One is that emotions are very strong impulses. When you have difficulty with impulse control, you have difficulty coping with emotions. One of the confusing things about diagnosing ADHD is whether the intense emotional responses are due to a lack of impulse control associated with ADHD or it's the intensity emotion due to an emotional difficulty such as bipolar disorder. So in terms of medication, this distinction really matters. It's very significant. But in terms of social emotional development, I just want to say that etiology doesn't matter, because what we're going to do is we're going to focus on skill development, really, not the why of the problem. The second difficulty that people with ADHD have with social emotional skills has to do with inattention to subtle social cues. You know, often people with ADHD find themselves in trouble and don't know how they got there. You know, all of a sudden people are, you know, upset, you know, mad at them, and, you know, they don't know why. Also, it can seem that people are insensitive to others, but that's because of their inattention to the social and emotional cues of others. And when in reality, they can be quite sensitive or even oversensitive, you know, because of the intense emotional responses to things. It's interesting to note, by the way, that the more sensitive you are to your own feelings, the more sensitive you are to other people's feelings. For example, somebody with ADHD might be talking to someone and going on and on, not realizing that the other person is absolutely no interest in knowing what they're saying or stopped listening several minutes ago. You know, this sets up feelings of rejection from others because the person with ADHD doesn't moderate their own behavior relative to the behavior of the person because they're not attending to and reading their social and emotional cues. And again, it's not because they don't care about the person, the other person, it's just that they're not tuning in to the other person. So I know the real question for today is what to do about these kinds of problems, and I do wish I had quick and easy answers for you. But unfortunately, teaching these skills, you know, takes a lot of time and deliberate effort. It's not rocket science. You know, it's not that complicated in terms of what we're trying to do. A lot of it I think is common sense. Also, I'm sure that a lot of what I'm going to talk about today are things that you're already familiar with. Really the hard part about teaching, parenting or living with people with adhd, maybe sometimes anybody really, is to be able to do it in a self aware manner. Now my job as a psychologist is based on the fact that people do what they feel like. In other words, people respond emotionally and not necessarily rationally in situations. And usually if you respond emotionally to a problem, you're going to make the problem worse. For example, if you're anxious about something and avoid it, whatever the thing that's making you anxious doesn't go away and, and not dealing with it also tends to make the problem and the anxiety worse. The key to working with people with adhd, either at home or in school, is to do what you think like rather than what you feel like. I know that do what you think like isn't even an expression, which I think shows you how rare it is. So when facilitating social emotional development, you can't respond emotionally. You can't afford to just react, act in the situation, nor can you just rationally explain, you know, what the problem is and you know, kind of like how to deal with it or what, what to do about it. You have to work on these skills in a very deliberate, organized, systematic and consistent manner, which I also think is generally contrary to human nature. I don't know if anybody really behaves this way in a, you know, deliberate and consistent manner, but, and it's certainly much more difficult to do this in stressful situations. And I'm sure I don't have to tell you that people with ADHD can cause a lot of stress in their environments. So today I'm going to give you some specific strategies to use. And what I'd like you to do after this talk is to think about which strategy to use when. This is really what I mean by do what you think like that you've got to think about what you're going to do rather than just responding. The first thing we're going to start with are the key social and emotional principles. I'll try not to rustle my papers. These are the guiding principles. These are the basic overall skills that when we're talking about social emotional development, these are the skills that we're talking about. Different researchers organize them differently. You know, some have longer lists, but I. I really think these are the. The core ones to deal with. So the first is to be aware of one's own feelings and those of others. You know, feelings are difficult to things. Difficult things to be aware of, you know, even though we all know, you know, what it is. You know, it's like poets, philosophers, scientists have all tried to define it, you know, because it seems very ethereal, you know, I also think that all the time people ask you, you know, how are you? You know, and you say, fine, thanks. How are you? And then say, you know, and they say, fine. And, you know, this is probably not true for either of, you know, So I think when was the last time, you know, somebody asked you how you were and you answered truthfully? Okay? I know that when I go to a restaurant and the waiter comes over and says, how are you? My response usually is hungry. Or when I'm in the checkout line and the checkout person asks, you know, how are you today, sir? You know, I start talking about, you know, kind of overwhelmed and tired and, you know, when my wife or kids are with me, they're, you know, rolling their eyes. But I think this is very important. It's a very important question. How are you? You know, so next time somebody casually asks you, take a minute, think about it, and maybe give a real answer. You know, a lot of times your response gets ignored because the person didn't really want to know. But also, sometimes this can lead to a very meaningful interpersonal exchange, you know, because how are you? Is an important question, even if you only answer to yourself. You know, I think that this is basically maybe a basic question that embodies the purpose of life. You know, if somebody says, how are you? And, you know, you can answer content or good enough, you know, I think, you know, you're doing okay and you're pretty lucky. Another reason it's important to know how are you? Is because it's going to influence what you do. You know, if you're sad, you're likely to withdraw, and if you're happy, you're likely to spread your cheer to others. Now, the difference between humans and animals is that humans can be aware of their feelings and thus control them. You know, it's like you can reason with a dog all you want, you know, they shouldn't be angry and attack you, but if a dog feels threatened, they're going to bark and bite. However, if people are aware of their feelings, they can learn to express them appropriately and control them. So this is the first step, is to be aware of your feelings. Now, not only do you have to be aware of your feelings in general, you have to be aware of what that feeling is. You have to learn how to differentiate those feelings. Unfortunately, anger tends to be a default negative emotion. In other words, when you get a bad feeling but you don't know what it is, you're going to act like you're angry. Now, there are two other feelings that often get confused with anger. And so what we have to do is help kids develop a feelings vocabulary, help them be able to define these feelings, and as I said, differentiate them. All right, so technically, anger comes from hurt. It's like first you get hurt, then you get angry. Because what do you do when you're angry? You lash out. You want to hurt something or someone else. A common feeling that gets confused with anger is frustration. Frustration technically means you're doing something that's hard to do. And so what do you do when you're frustrated? If you're labeling that appropriately, if you're doing something that's hard to do, you know, they keep trying, take a break or ask for help. So wouldn't it be great? You know, if a kid is, you know, doing their homework and they're starting to get very frustrated with the homework, that instead of, you know, crumbling up the paper, throwing the book, or, you know, walking away, you know, they're able to identify that feeling of frustration and realize, you know, that they should kind of keep trying, take a short break, a couple of deep breaths, or maybe ask for help. The other feeling that gets confused with anger is disappointment. Disappointment means you don't get what you want. And what do you do when you're disappointed? You just kind of shrug, go, oh, well, that stinks. And you move on. A lot of times kids with ADHD have difficulty identifying or differentiating that feeling of disappointment. And so they keep trying and trying and trying until they annoy everyone around them and end up in trouble. So if we can help kids learn to identify these feelings and the different direction, behavioral direction it leads to, everybody's better off.
- [13:26]
Podcast Host
If you've got adhd, you probably know what it's like to have racing thoughts, intense emotions, and trouble focusing. But did you know those symptoms aren't only signs of adhd? Sometimes they can be related to ocd, like when you find yourself hyper focused on a disturbing thought you had, or a fear that's consuming your mind, or when you're spending hours checking and rechecking your work, not because you're struggling to concentrate, but because your brain won't let you move on until it feels just right or when the self criticism, guilt and shame that can accompany ADHD feel especially overwhelming. ADHD and OCD can have similar symptoms and it's common for them to show up together. Both conditions can involve unwanted thoughts, but with ocd, these thoughts tend to feel especially distressing and hard to move on from. This may drive you to do certain actions to try to get rid of the distress, like analyze the same thought over and over, constantly ask for reassurance, or repeat specific behaviors. OCD can be brutal on its own, but when you're also dealing with adhd, it can feel even more debilitating. Fortunately, OCD is highly treatable, but you need specialized therapy from a therapist trained to truly understand the condition and how it can interact with adhd. That's where NOCD comes in. NOCD is the world's leading provider of specialized OCD treatment. Their licensed therapists are all trained in erp, or Exposure and Response Prevention therapy, the most effective for treatment for ocd. NOCD therapists understand how ADHD and OCD can interact, so they'll tailor treatment to work with your brain, not against it. Therapy with no CD is 100% virtual and it's covered by insurance for more than 155 million Americans. They also provide support between sessions so you're never alone. If you think you might be struggling with OCD along with ADHD, visit nocd.com to book a free 15 minute call and learn how they can help. That's n o c d.com.
- [15:57]
Dr. Steven Tobias
Now. Awareness of other people's feelings is also crucial. You know, a lot of times if you ask a child in a conflict situation how somebody else felt, you know, they say I don't know and why should I care? But they should care because if you know how somebody else feels, you have a better chance of getting what you want. You know. For example, if you want to raise from your boss, it might be helpful to, you know, read her mood and know when to ask or when to avoid her. You know. Also, by the way, the student who is able to read the teacher's feelings is likely to get a better grade regardless of their knowledge of the coursework itself. The next principle is to show empathy and understand others points of view. Empathy is the capacity to share in another's feelings. Now, in order to do this, first you have to be aware of both your own feelings and the other person's feelings. As I just noted, it's also interesting to note the better you are at knowing your own feelings the better you are at knowing another person's feelings. The skill of knowing another's feelings. It's important to develop sensitivity towards others. You know, I think for example, when siblings fight, they're really not aware of each other's feelings, you know, and I think if they're made to be aware that the other child also feels sad and hurt, this can maybe temper their anger towards them. Really few children will say that they want to make, you know, their sibling or anyone else feel sad. And so if we can get kids to empathize with other people's feelings, you know, this in itself will I think, moderate their reaction towards the others. It's important to note that this capacity for empathy extends through the lifespan. And even one year old children can read other people's feelings and empathize with them. I love this experiment that they once did where they had a researcher holding a notepad and a pencil and they would drop the pencil and go, oh no, okay. And the one year old would come over, you know, pick up the pencil and offer it to the researcher. And if the researcher took the pencil and deliberately threw it down with an angry face, the one year olds didn't come over and help out. So like I said, this is something that happens naturally. Even one year olds, you know, tune into other people's feelings and have the capacity for empathy. Now knowing somebody else's feelings and empathizes, you have to read those feelings. So this involves not only listening, but reading non verbal cues as well. A lot of times it's a nonverbal body language and the tone of voice that conveys the emotion more than the words. And I think this ability to read others feelings is crucial for the parent in dealing with the child, the teacher in dealing with the student, as well as for the child to learn as a positive social skill. Okay. And overall, by the way, having the capacity for empathy or expressing being in tune with empathy and expressing it makes you better adjusted emotionally and also more popular with others, especially in terms of romantic relationships. Now understanding others points of view requires a level of cognitive abstraction that develops later in childhood, but needs to be introduced at all levels. Young children and immature adults, by the way, are egocentric. You know, they view the world in terms of themselves. And this is a very limited view which closes you off to values such as understanding, tolerance, compromise, you know. So again, I think we need to teach children how to take different perspectives. Another reason this is important is that people are able to see things from different perspectives, are usually more creative and also effective in their Problem solving because they're able to generate a broader variety of solutions. The next principle is to regulate and cope positively with emotional behavioral impulses. I'm sure this is very important to all of you because this refers to self control. One aspect of self control is the ability to moderate one's emotional reaction to a situation. And by the way, whether that reaction is positive or negative. In other words, does one get angry and lose control quickly? Do you become excited and overstimulated? Kids need to be taught how to govern their feelings and express them appropriately. Unfortunately, sometimes it feels good to let it all out. It's hard and doesn't feel good to have to inhibit or control your emotional responses in a situation. But after you've inappropriately expressed your feelings, the reactions of others usually isn't so positive. I always feel bad for the child who never gets invited to a birthday party. They finally get invited and they're so excited that they can't inhibit or control their excitement and they end up annoying all the other kids and never get invited again. Also, there's something that I call the yelling reflex, you know, and that's when somebody's angry and yells at you, you know, what do you want? Usually you want them to stop, but when you have a yelling reflex, what that does is cause you to yell back, which then causes them to yell more. So self control is difficult, but usually the only way to solve the problem or to, you know, effectively get what it is that you want. Another component of coping with behavioral impulses is delay of gratification. You know, the ability to wait for something. I think this concept is difficult for adults to master the age of credit cards and next day delivery. But also it doesn't come naturally to children without the ability to delay gratification. Usually we end up with less. If you work hard for something, you tend to achieve more, but also have the satisfaction of having worked for it. Now, children who are insecure have an especially difficult time with this because they're not sure that the satisfaction is going to come, no matter how hard they try or how long that they wait. Next, we have be goal and plan oriented. Now we have goals. No matter what we're doing, we just might not be aware of them. Behavior is always goal oriented, in other words, directed towards achieving a specific end. Now, not all goals can be positive. However, a child might have a goal of revenge for a real or perceived slight. Now, this will usually not really get them what they want, which is probably to be left alone. So it's important that we help Kids conceptualize goals and get them see what is it that you really want, what's really the desired outcome in the situation. And being aware of one's goal will usually help you developing an appropriate plan. A planning skill often relates to the things I was just talking about in terms of regulating impulses and delaying gratification. Now goals are also important because it gives us a sense of hope and optimism. It gives a vision of what it is that we want to achieve. And this also can be a problem for some kids. They don't have a sense of hope and therefore they don't set goals for themselves. You know, they're saying to themselves, gee, why should I study? I'm going to get a bad grade anyway. And so if a child doesn't expect to achieve, then obviously they won't try. And this becomes a whole self fulfilling prophecy. So we need to help children establish goals, no matter how small, to have some sense of hope, to have direction in their lives, to begin to experience success and develop a positive outlook on themselves and on life. Then finally, we have used positive social skills in handling relationships. In addition to awareness of feelings, empathy, self control and goal orientation, it's necessary to know how to deal effectively with others. This entails social skills such as communication, problem solving. And this can be complicated stuff. For example, in order to communicate, you have to make eye contact, be able to express oneself in clear manner, be aware of body language, know how to listen, and maybe sometimes know how to, you know, accept criticism from others. Problem solving also involves a whole complex set of skills, not only awareness, civilians and goal setting, but being able to think of different options. And I'll talk about this more later. And also I'm thankful that you also have a lot of resources for these kinds of specific social skills. Next I'm going to talk about strategies for dealing with social emotional learning. And overall, actually I'd like to give you some advice about teaching sel and that's to don't give advice, okay? Most people don't want to hear it. And even if it's the best advice in the world, if people don't have ownership of it, they're likely not going to do it. Also in teaching these social emotional skills, we're not telling kids what to do. We're teaching them how to figure out what to do, how to deal with, you know, different, you know, situations. You know, it's the kind of, you know, teach them to fish instead of, you know, giving, giving them the, the fish. Okay, so the first strategy is to model these skills Yourselves. This is the, you know, do what I do approach. This occurred to me one day when I was yelling at my daughter to stop yelling. You know, this just didn't seem quite right. So if you want somebody to use good self control skills, you know, it's usually good to use them yourself, you know, so other things you might want to self consciously model are expressing feelings with words. You know, say what you're feeling, label it. Okay. Another thing is, you know, having respect for others and how you communicate not only to the person you're communicating, but I think even, you know, showing respect, you know, when you're talking about somebody else, you know, we want to listen patiently. Certainly if we expect, you know, the child to listen patiently to us. And even thinking is something that you can, you can model for kids by verbalizing your thought process. You know, for example, if your child, you know, asks you for something, instead of just saying yes or no, let them in on your thought process. You know, so the kid wants ice cream, you know, you might verbalize yourself, gee, I'd really like to let you have ice cream. I like ice cream too. Well, it's kind of close to dinner time. I want to make sure that you have a healthy meal. I know you've been eating a lot of sweets lately, so, you know, maybe we'll have ice cream another day, you know, so this can probably go through your mind in a quick second, but saying to the child, not today, you know, it doesn't help the child understand what's behind it. You know, your whole thought, thought reasoning and problem solving process. And also, I just want to note that if you're doing this, if you're modeling this kind of internal dialogue with a child, you're not lecturing them or explaining something in the child. You're just thinking out loud. By doing this, the next thing you want to do is to greet and focus on children individually and especially with eye contact. Now look, I think this is obvious, but I mentioned this because this is the age of hecticness and distraction, I think, for all of us, whether you have ADHD or not. And I won't even get started on the damage that cell phones do to social, emotional development, relationships. But look, there are a million simultaneous demands on you and your time, but we all need to be seen. So just a simple act of greeting with eye contact can establish a connection and facilitates relationship and communication. Also, I want to state that attention deficit doesn't mean that the child doesn't get enough attention, although I know often they act like it Because a lot of times they have very attention seeking behavior. So when a child enters a classroom or when you see a child after a busy day, stop, look at them, greet them by name, and then also certainly have them stop and look at you as well. Also, I want to point out that multitasking is a myth. The brain cannot process two things at once. It switches from task to task, which also by the way, is not very efficient in terms of processing. So you can't look at your phone and talk to someone else at the same time. I know personally that I've tried doing this, but for some reason my wife actually didn't respond very positively when I do it. Next is to use experiential exercises. I'm sure you know this, that people with ADHD are generally active learners. Sitting in passive listening aren't their strengths. You can't just talk to them or explain a skill. You know, when teaching SEL at home or in school, it's better to act things out with role plays and multi sensory learning. You know, for example, if you're teaching about feelings, you can play feelings charades where somebody acts out of feeling and then the other people have to try to guess what it is. The next strategy is to ask questions and then ask more questions because really what we're trying to do is to facilitate their thinking. Now also I want to point out that there's an inverse relationship between the amount of talking that an adult does and the amount of listening a child with ADHD does. In other words, the more you talk, the less they listen. Interestingly, the more they talk, the more they're also going to listen. And so by asking questions encourages them to think and to talk, which also makes them more available for listening. And you also want to try to use open ended questions, you know, such as what happened? You know, how did that make you feel? How did other people feel when you did that? What could you do? What are some other things that you could have done? You want to avoid why questions? Why questions tend to be an accusation. Early in my marriage, my wife once asked me, you know, why didn't you take out the garbage? You know, And I explained to her that it was, you know, some of the best garbage we ever had. It was really classic garbage, you know, you know, I don't want to throw it away, you know, so obviously she didn't appreciate my sarcasm, but, but she did stop asking me why, okay? Also, if you ask a child with ADHD why did you do that? The correct answer is because I have poor impulse Control and don't anticipate the consequences of my actions. So I've heard lots of adults ask that question, but actually I've never heard a child give the right answer. The next thing, next strategy is to paraphrase back what they're saying. This is a couple of things. One, it reinforces the child for talking to you, because we all need to feel seen, as I mentioned before, but we also all need to feel heard. So by reflecting back to the child what they're saying, they really know that you're listening. Another thing this does is give you an opportunity to check for understanding. Because kids aren't always so clear about what happened, what the situation was. So, for example, kid might be talking about how they had no one to play with at recess, and after asking a series of questions, you get an idea what really happened and you might reflect back to them. So, gee, it seems like you're saying that you're upset because the game started without you and then you thought you couldn't join in. So that's maybe, you know, really the reality what happened, but the kid is just focused on the fact that, you know, they had known to play with. Okay. Another thing that paraphrasing back is it gives you an opportunity to model appropriate language, you know, so if you ask a child, how did that make you feel? And they respond, I wanted to punch them, you can reflect back, gee, it sounds like you're feeling really angry or really hurt, you know, in that situation, you know, because the question was about feelings, not possible solutions. Then we also want to use specific vocabulary and cues. As I mentioned before, you want help kids to develop a feelings vocabulary and make sure they're using the correct feelings for words. Because as I was mentioning before, things like the word frustration should be a cue to keep trying, take a break or ask for help, not lash out or quit. So that word frustration, in and of itself, you know, is a specific vocabulary and cue to engage in a certain set of behaviors. Also, when you teach a skill, you want to have a label for it. So you can use the child. You can, sorry, cue the child to use the skill. You know, if you tell somebody to calm down, that's usually taken of criticism as criticism and often makes them more upset. So if you remind a child to use self control with the breathing strategy, which I'm going to go over in a little bit, this can usually make them more receptive. Some additional strategies, One is to use sharing circles and have class or family meetings. A sharing circle is a simple exercise we just Ask a question, everyone goes around and answers it. You know, the question can be benign, such as, what's your favorite pizza topping? Or it can be related to a social emotional skill you're working on. You know, something like, you know, what's something that makes you feel sad? This is a very simple exercise, but a lot of skills can be worked on when you do it, you know, because kids have to first process the. The question. They have to then express themselves appropriately. They have to delay gratification by waiting for their turn. And they also have to listen to others and maybe even sometimes remember what it they're going to say. So I would say that if you're only going to do one thing after my talk today, I would do a sharing circle on a regular basis at home and in school, because, as I said, it's a simple exercise and you get to work on a lot of skills this way. Class and family meetings are also important when teaching social emotional skills, because you don't teach the skill during the test when the emotional level is high or there's a problem situation, that's the test. So we want to teach kids how to deal with these things and then prompt the skills when the problem occurs. You know, it's both in school, at home, these are hectic times, you know, look, I know teachers have a lot to deal with, and parents certainly do, too. And in order to teach social emotional skills, you really have to carve out the time to do it. And I said before, you need to do it in a deliberate manner. So formal meeting time is the best way to do it. You know, I know the argument always is that we don't have enough time, you know, at home or in school. But the research shows that in school, if teachers take the time to teach and reinforce SEL on a regular basis, it makes the students more available for learning and teaching, more efficient. Also, at home, going from problem to problem tends to not be very time efficient either. So investing the time at least weekly to have formal meetings where you can focus on specific skills and problem solving, this yields, you know, significant time dividends in the long run. Really? I promise. Okay. All right. So when you're. If you're doing a meeting, class meeting, or family meeting, it's good to start with a sharing circle. You can review old business you do, like any kind of business meeting, you know, things that you've worked on before, then introduce the skill or topic or problem that you want to work on. Then a lot of things that I'm going to talk about a little Bit, you know, are, you know, topics that can be used also for school and family meetings. Okay, next, we want to reinforce skills taught previously. Like any skill acquisition, you need to review and practice. You know, you can't just present it once and move on. So in addition to prompting the use of these skills, you need to reteach and reinforce them. Look, we also recognize that these skills come more naturally to some kids than to others. Even kids with adhd, some can actually be quite skilled in these kinds of social, emotional skills naturally, others, it takes a lot more work, but as I keep saying, everybody benefits from it. Next, we want to make sure that you're establishing class and family rules. Now, believe it or not, kids like rules. Rules and limits make a child feel more secure. It makes the world more predictable. Kids know what to expect, what's going to happen, you know, good or bad. Also, you know, you already have rules. You know, you've told kids a thousand times, you know, what they should be doing or not doing, you know, so really what I'm talking about again is making them more explicit, formal, and deliberate. You know, write them down. Writing them down also gives kids a visual cue as to what's expected when developing the rules. It's good to include kids in the process. Now, this doesn't mean giving them control, but when somebody has input into developing something, usually there's more buy in and willingness to do it. Also, by the way, I've often found that when families are coming up with rules, the kids tend to be a lot more strict than the parents are. Next is to be patient, because these skills take a long time to learn and to use independently. If you're doing a formal SEL program in school, it usually takes about three years before you see significant impact at home. I think you can see some impact in a couple of months, but obviously ongoing work is going to be necessary, you know, and this is the reason that childhood lasts a long time, okay? Because these skills, you know, can be hard to learn. Now, the good news is that you have the time. You know, the brain doesn't fully mature until the, you know, kids are in their 20s. And actually, research has shown that you can still learn SEL skills throughout the lifespan, even though there is less brain plasticity after the age of 30. So be patient with your children and also with yourselves. Finally, last strategy is to have fun. It's hard to teach these skills without a relationship with a child. And the basis of fun, believe it or not, is the basis of any loving relationship. You know, I can prove this to you, you know, for those of you, you know, who are in a relationship, okay. Did you ever date somebody that wasn't fun? The answer should be not for long, okay? Because having fun with the person is what establishes that. That loving relationship between people. You know, I would also argue that the major cause of divorce is lack of fun. You know, once. Once couples have careers, children and other responsibilities, you know, there doesn't seem to be a lot of time for, you know, for fun. So now I'm going to go over three important skills for sel. These are kind of core skills that you know, that you can be using if, again, if you're only doing one thing, do this sharing circle. If you're going to do some other things, focus on these three skills. The verses keep calm. This is a strategy for self control. It's a simple, you know, breathing strategy because emotions are in the body as much as in the mind. You know, when a strong emotion is triggered, positive or negative, the body produces adrenaline and the adrenaline prepares you a fighter for a fight or flight response. And, you know, neither one tends to be helpful. Okay? So what you need to do is you need to calm the body down because the adrenaline gives a lot of energy to the muscles, which causes tightness in the chest muscles, which cause you to take short, shallow breaths, which actually then causes the body to make more adrenaline. So you want to teach them this simple breathing strategy that, you know, helps them calm down, helps them relax. And when you prompt a child to keep calm rather than calm down, because calming down, you know, sounds like criticism, you know, I often, you know, recommend that you do it with the child. Say, you know, let's do it. Keep calm together, all right? It makes it seem less like criticism. And also I think both of you are going to benefit, you know, this breathing strategy, you know, it's a very common technique. Some of you might, you know, who do yoga, you know, find it familiar. Lamaze also does it. But it also comes from sports psychology. And I usually introduce it as coming from board psychology because kids, you know, kind of like are more likely to do it for now that athletes do it rather than not just their moms, you know, when they were in the labor with them. I'm also frustrated, I have to say, with, with coaches who never teach keep calm. All professional athletes know how to do this. And I think the, you know, if, if you, any of your coaches or, you know, you want to teach this strategy to the coach and they could teach it to the whole team, you know, everybody's going to benefit, but also be aware, you know, that this is difficult to do. All right? And it takes a lot of practice, a lot of reinforcement before kids are going to do it independently. Okay, so again, simple technique. You breathe in through your nose to a count of three. Some people hold at that point, but you then breathe out to a slow count of five. You want the exhale needs to be longer than the inhale. And then repeat, repeat, you know, repeat until calm. You know, repeat as necessary. And there are a lot of variations on this, and I want to emphasize that I think they're all good. They all work. So if you're familiar with something else, you know, definitely, definitely use it. Okay, Next strategy is be your best. This is kind of like a mini assertiveness training course, you know, as, you know, as opposed to being aggressive or passive, you know, so when you want to communicate with others effectively, you want to be your best. You want to be aware of your body language, because the body language often conveys, you know, meaning, you know, in terms of your posture and movement. You know, unfortunately, kids with ADHD are very fidgety, restless, and that can make it hard for them to. For other people to listen to them when they're, you know, kind of like moving all around. But also, by the way, if you tell a kid to stand still, all their attention has to go to controlling their body, and it's going to be a lot harder for them to listen. So we got to find a happy medium here where they can fidget, but in a way that's not the distracting to others. You also want to teach kids to make comfortable eye contact with others, you know, not staring or also not avoiding it. You know, there are also cultural differences in terms of what's appropriate eye contact. So, you know, you have to be sensitive to this issue, too. You want to say appropriate things, you know, because if you say mean things, you know, other people aren't going to listen to you. You know, if, you know, you tell somebody to shut up, that usually guarantees that the other person is going to talk more and louder. And then also being aware of your tone of voice, because this conveys the emotion even more than the words. You know, sarcasm is in your tone of voice. Mocking someone is in the tone of voice. Expressing concern for someone also is in the tone of voice. You can also use the best, the violin jack saying appropriate things in tone of voice to read somebody else's feelings. You know, have kids tune into what's their body language saying, you know, what's their eye contact saying? Listen to the words they're saying, you know, and also paying to pay attention to their tone of voice. This helps them read some of those subtle social cues. Okay, then next we have using ESP to problem solve. Okay. And this might be, you know, one of the most important skills for coping with social, social and emotional situations because it's how to respond to challenging situations. You know, we call it esp. It might be good to have extra sensory perception, but this ESP is evaluate, select, and proceed. Okay, you want to use this, you know, to guide them through a problem solving situation. First, evaluate the problem and what feelings and thoughts are associ with it. Because the better you understand the problem, your reaction to it, the better chance you have in solving it. You know, for example, if you're sitting home alone and bored because you have nothing to do, you might reflect on some other feelings and thoughts that you have, such as maybe you're feeling sad or feeling rejected by others. Maybe you're thinking you never have any fun because your parents said you play video games too much, or maybe, you know, you don't have any friends to play with. So evaluate involves assessing the situation, your feelings, and your thoughts accurately. Also, by the way, bored is another one of those default emotions that often, you know, masks sadness or anxiety. You know, so in this situation, you know, with the video games, you know, kind of like, what's the real problem? You know, is it that your parents, when you play games right now, you're stuck about thinking of what you can do or that you are really socially isolated. How you define the problem is going to lead to how you define the solution. Make sure you're dealing with a real problem or problems. Then we want to select a goal and how to achieve it. I talked about goals before, so it's important to think about what you really want and what you can do to get there. Also, the broader your goal is, the better your chance you have of getting it. So your goal is to play video games right now for the rest of the day. That's less likely to be achieved than focusing on how to get more video games in general. Also, as I talked about, goals give the sense of direction for your behavior and feelings of optimism about it. We also have to help kids learn how to brainstorm. Kids with ADHD tend to be very quick at thinking solutions to problems, but we want them to take a step back and to think and to think a little more. You know, what else could they do? What else could they do? What else could they do? Okay, and then, Pete Proceed with a plan. You know, once you know what you want and have an idea about what you can do to get it, you need a plan, you know, so rather than responding impulsively, we need to break it down, okay? So you can do the who, what, when, where, and how questions to facilitate it, you know, so let's say a kid, you know, wants to get better grades so they get more video. Video game time. Okay? So who, who are you going to talk to about this? Mom, dad, Your teacher? What do you need, you know, to get better grades? Maybe an assignment pad to keep track of your. Your assignments. But when are you going to do this? You're going to do this every day? Doing homework? You're going to study just before a test? Where are you going to do this? In school? Maybe at home? How will you do this? Put more time to schoolwork, get a tutor, ask a teacher for help. So these would all need to be components of the plan. Next, and I'll try to hurry up, is I want to talk about discipline. But when I'm talking about discipline, I'm referring to the Latin meaning of the word as it relates to instruction and learning rather than punishment. Also, discipline is related to self control to achieve a goal. So you can see that how you're using discipline can be an important component of teaching sel. And here are some of the important discipline strategies. The first is to empathize. I talked before about the importance of empathy as a SEL skill, but parents don't usually conceptualize it as a discipline strategy, even though we all do it naturally with kids. It's human nature. All right, now let me give you an example of empathy. So you know, you know what I'm talking about. It's like, let's say you go to a funeral, you know, at the funeral, you want to be empathetic. So, you know, you're in the receiving line, you know, you say it in the morning. You know, I'm very sorry for your loss, you know, but they were old. Everybody dies. You know, you still have other relatives. You know, this really isn't the tragedy. All right? Hopefully you wouldn't say that, okay? Because everything after the bud, you know, takes away from the empathy. Also, the opposite of empathy is reasoning, okay? And literally different parts of the brain are involved. When you're empathizing with somebody, you're talking to the amygdala, which is deep inside the brain. When you're reasoning with somebody, you're talking to the prefrontal cortex of the brain, okay? And you know, when the emotional level is high, when the emotional is up here, the kid's not available for reasoning. You have to wait till the emotional level comes down before, you know, you can actually start reasoning or even, you know, problem solving with the child. So one of the things that makes, you know, prudence so awkward is that after you say, you know, I'm very certain print loss, you know, what else is there to say? And really, there isn't. You know, that's where, you know, you just want to be emotionally supportive, you know, by, you know, expressing something, but then listening and really just being there for them. Next, we want to praise specific, targeted behaviors. You want to focus on three or four behaviors to target consistently. People tend to praise, like, 100 different behaviors. And kids with ADHD, again, they don't focus on things. So you're much better off appraising four behaviors 25 times each rather than 100 different behaviors. It helps them focus on these very specific behaviors. And look, we all like praise. We're all suckers for, you know, for praise. So, you know, we just need to be, you know, targeted and specific and deliberate about it. A couple of rules about praise. You want to praise at the initiation of an act, not at the end. If you want to, for example, work on table manners, praise them for coming to the table, don't praise them. Act after the meal. You're never going to get there. Okay? You can also target behaviors that are the opposite of what you want to decrease. If you want to decrease sibling conflict, you want to praise getting along with others, you want to improve grades, you want to focus on bringing home assignments. Next, you want to ignore. This is don't sweat the small stuff, pick your battles kind of thing. One of the problems with kids with ADHD is because of their impulsive and inattentive behavior, they get a lot of negative feedback from others. And what we need to do through ignoring is bring this back into balance between the positive and negative feedback. Now, if you're ignoring a behavior, you're not condoning it, just postponing it. You're not saying, it's okay, the kid's doing it. You know, you're just not ready to deal with it. Next, we want to use natural, logical consequences. And because this is the way the world works, okay, you go outside without a coat, you get cold, you play nicely with others, you have friends, you put things away, you know where to find them. Them all right? So with a natural, logical consequence, it's not you against the child. What it is is that you're on the same side as the child, warning them about the potential, you know, consequences that can happen. Now sometimes it's hard to think of natural, logical consequences in the heat of battle. And you know, sometimes yeah, you do control the consequence. Like for example, if a kid rides their bike without a helmet, you know, and you lock the bike up. Yeah, that's you're doing that. But you know, it's basically under the child's control. They can choose to ride the bike without a helmet and get it locked up or they could choose to remember their helmet and be able to continue to have access to the bike. Timeout. Unfortunately it's gotten a bad rap for some reason. But if you use timeout properly it really, it just gives the child the time and space to calm down and regain self control. All right, so you know, you give time out for a rule violation or non compliance of the command and then if they, you know, break the rule, they go to timeout, they don't listen. You get one warning and then in timeout and they sit there for two minutes, quietly for two minutes. If they don't go to timeout immediately, you can increase the time or you know, take things away to motivate them or just wait them out, you know, until they are ready to go to timeout. But as I said, timeout gives them the time and space to calm down and regain self control. And if you use it properly, use it like an astrological consequence, if they're out of control, they have to go to timeout to get back in control. Then charts are very helpful because it increases self awareness and can motivate the child. A chart is very simple. It's a grid. At the top you have the time frame. Morning, afternoon, evening. In school it could be by subject area and then on the left hand side you have goals, the things that you want to work on. It could be a social goal, you know, getting along with others, an academical or behavioral, a goal of, you know, being responsible, getting your work done. You know, you could monitor self control, things like that. You can use a incidence interval, you know, or like a rating system. Generally charts are helpful because it gives the kid feedback and makes them well sourced, self worried, more self conscious. Especially in school. It can serve as a communication between school and home and it's actually more efficient, time efficient for the teacher rather than trying to do a narrative or an email. And then also you can use charts to monitor progress. You sort of like lay them out and see if there's any change in the chart. It's important that the kid is getting feedback throughout the day. Okay. The last thing that I want to go over is a social emotional lesson format. There are a lot of curriculum materials out there that, you know, you could use, but you can also plug in any kind of social emotional skill that you want to work on into this learning format. You know, we start with a sharing circle that can be led by the teacher or the student if the student's leading it there. You're working on leadership skills also, you know, that, you know, because the students got to, you know, calling on the other kids, get the kids, you know, moving, you know, moving along, you know, even decide on the question. Then, you know, like the meeting, we want to review previous skills. Then you want to provide a rationale for the skill, which is usually that it's good for them, you know, so whether, you know, the skill, you know, is, let's say, you know, being kind to others, you know, why is that good for you? Because if you're kind to others, you know, people are more likely to like you and, and to do what you want. You know, give examples of what this looks like, you know, model, you know, speaking kindly to others, being your best, you know, role playing it, you know, with other kids in terms of being kind. And then you also have to plan for generalization, you know, have a prompt, have a label for it. You know, in school you can, you know, follow it up with academic lessons, especially, you know, in literature, you know, helping note when people are kind or not, and then reinforce, practicing.
- [56:34]
Carol Fleck
Okay. Dr. Tobias, thank you so much for that wonderful presentation. Before we start the Q and A, I'd like to thank Jornae for sponsoring this webinar. So now to your questions. Someone asked, how can we help preschoolers calm down when they experience separation anxiety?
- [56:56]
Dr. Steven Tobias
Well, you know, as I said, you know, always lead with empathy. You know, validate, you know, the kid's feelings. You know, you can't tell somebody how to feel. So I would validate, you know, that they're scared, you know, worried, upset, you know, whatever, you know, whatever it is that the child's experiencing. You know, I would give them, you know, time, you know, to calm down and regain self care, control. That's where the, you know, the patience, you know, is necessary. You know, depending on the situation and depending on the kid. Some kids, you know, it's better ripping off the band aid, you know, just, you know, handing off the child. But I would say that if you do that and the child doesn't calm down quickly once they're separated from the parent, then I would use a more. A more gradual approach where if the school's willing, the parent, let's say, goes in with the child, waits for the child to calm down, be more engaged, and other things, by the way. And also, if the parent is going in, it's very important that the parent is boring. The parent can't do anything because can't interact with the child in any way. Because one of the things you can always count on, especially with kids with adhd, is they get bored quickly. So if the parent's just standing there not doing anything, the kid's going to want to look for something fun to do eventually. Okay. And then also I would have the parent, you know, go out briefly, come back, go out for longer periods of time, gradually remove themselves.
- [58:30]
Carol Fleck
Okay. And how do you handle a teen who thinks they don't need to listen to a teacher, but they don't know how to advocate for themselves?
- [58:40]
Dr. Steven Tobias
Well, I would try to point out the natural and logical consequences. You know, what happens when they don't listen to the teacher? You know, do they get in trouble or, you know, are their grades, you know, impacted by this? I would also, you know, try to explore with the teenager, what are the feelings that are underlying that, you know, there might be a feeling of inadequacy. Some teens, you know, because they don't feel good about themselves, can be very sensitive to criticism and therefore take everything as criticism. And so, you know, you might have to address some of those underlying feelings or, you know, or thoughts about their own inadequacy as well. So I would try to get at what behavior is this serving? Okay. You know, again, is this covering up, you know, for feelings of inadequacy, but also pointing out the natural, logical consequences to this, because on my business cards, it also says, never underestimate the power of denial. Okay? That people just avoid dealing with the consequences. So it's important. Sometimes it does get pointed out.
- [59:52]
Carol Fleck
And how do you help the student who is very intelligent and can pass all the tests but doesn't want to do the homework?
- [59:59]
Dr. Steven Tobias
Well, unfortunately, they have to be consequences for the homework. I remember I'm pretty old, so I remember in high school, if I didn't do my homework, they'd make me stay after school. Okay? And I hate to say this, but I hated school. So the last thing in the world I wanted was to have to spend longer periods of time there. You know, so I made sure I got all my homework done and got out of there as quick as possible. So if there are no consequences for the kid, obviously the kid's not intrinsically motivated to do the homework. You know, they don't see any reason for it, which also might be true, you know, so then there have to be consequences. Now, one of the things I would also emphasize to kids, you know, Mary said before, they have low tolerance for boredom, well, you've got to learn how to do the boring stuff. I don't care what job you have in real life, there are going to be boring aspects of it. And if you don't have to, if you don't know how to do the boring stuff, you never get to go to do the good stuff and the really interesting stuff. You know, everybody starts out at an entry level position and has to work their way up. All right, so the goal for the kid in terms of doing homework isn't it's going to help them learn, it's because one, it can avoid whatever consequences might occur, but two, it's also going to teach them how to deal with boredom, how to do basically meaningless things that they still have to do.
- [61:29]
Carol Fleck
Unfortunately, we're out of time. That has to be our last question. Dr. Tobias, thank you so much for joining us today and sharing your expertise with our ADHD community. We appreciate it.
- [61:41]
Dr. Steven Tobias
My pleasure. Thank you.
- [61:43]
Carol Fleck
And thank you to today's listeners for being here. If you would like to access the event resources, visit attitudemag.com and search podcast 572. The slides and recording are posted a few hours after each live webinar. If you're listening in replay mode, simply click on the episode description. Please know that our full library of Attitude webinars is available as a podcast. It's called the ADHD Experts Podcast and it's available on most streaming platforms. Make sure you don't miss future Attitude webinars updates or webinars articles or research updates by signing up to receive our free email newsletters@attitudemag.com newsletters. Thank you. Thanks everyone. Have a great day.
- [62:31]
Dr. Steven Tobias
For more Attitude Podcast and information on living well with attention deficit, visit attitudemag.com that's a D D I T U D e m a g.com AI agents are everywhere, automating tasks and making decisions at machine speed. But agents make mistakes. Just one rogue agent can do big damage before you even notice. Rubrik Agent Cloud is the only platform.
- [63:06]
Carol Fleck
That helps you monitor agents, set guardrails and rewind mistakes so you can unleash agents, not risk. Accelerate your AI transformation@rubrik.com that's R U B R-I K.com.