Teaching impulse control

What is your number one pet peeve? Is it kids shouting out? Is it kids pushing or talking in the hallway? Is it kids leaving their working space a mess? Not turning in homework?

What do all of these things have in common? Are they actually all symptoms of one problem or are they different problems.

I used to think that these were all separate problems. If I could solve the shouting out, I would focus on the action - shouting out and not on the cause of the problem. This is like trying to fix an escalator by walking backwards on it. You are going to wear yourself out, but you are not going to fix the escalator. You actually have to get off the escalator and turn off the engine.

Ok - so if these all are symptoms of one problem, there are two questions. What problem(s) are these all symptoms of? And. . . Are there solutions to that problem, if it exists?

I think these are symptoms of a few select problems. The first problem is a lack of impulse control among students.

A lack of impulse control causes the following: students shouting out, pushing, getting distracted while starting a task, not putting away materials properly, not really listening and following the steps in directions and so much more.

If you work on impulse control, you start to solve all of those problems at the same time. Treat the problem, not all of the individual symptoms. 

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