Focus and Calm - Juniors (Grades 3 to 5)

Ten parts testing focus techniques on yourself and keeping only the ones that actually work. Skills language throughout, not wellness language.

Who it is for

Grades 3 to 5. For the child who sits down to work and somehow forty minutes have gone, the one who goes blank before something stressful, or the one old enough to notice their attention is being pulled and interested in doing something about it.

The ten parts

• Where Does It Go? Tracking one work session honestly, because guessing does not help
• The First Two Minutes Three ways to start something you are avoiding
• Working In Chunks Testing three lengths and finding your own number
• Setting Up To Succeed Changing three things about the space and measuring the difference
• The Phone Problem Why these apps are hard to put down, explained honestly
• Settling Down Five techniques rated before and after, keeping two
• Before Something Hard Building a ten minute routine and rehearsing it
• When You Get Stuck Three kinds of stuck and a different response for each
• Making It Stick Why good intentions fail and what makes a routine survive
• Your Toolkit One page in their own words, presented out loud

What makes it different

Nothing is handed down as a rule to follow. Every technique gets tested on the child and rated, and the ones that do nothing for them get dropped with no guilt attached. There is a page for what they tried and abandoned, and why, because that is a real result.

A note on what this is

It treats everyday distraction and everyday nerves as skills to practise. It is not an assessment and it is not treatment, and the book says so to the adult on the first page, along with when to raise something with a doctor or teacher.

The details

• 46 pages, instant PDF download
• Letter size, prints clearly in black and white
• A pencil and a timer, and somewhere they usually work
• A one page focus toolkit they build as they go, plus a certificate