Brain differences make it hard for a child to control their behavior. Understanding your child’s impulsive behaviors can help you identify the strategies that work best for your child. Here’s our robust list of Things You Could Do.
Do
Impulse control requires a child to: 1) stop and think prior to an action; and 2) be aware of how that action impacts themself or others. In general, to strengthen impulse control, the following can help:
- Play games with frequent “stops and starts” where a child must self-regulate their impulse to play how they want and follow your direction instead.
- Play turn-taking games that tolerate waiting and losing (or unintended outcomes).
- Reinforce how behaviors can influence the feelings of others.
- Reduce the pace at which activities and transitions occur in the day.
What You Could Do
| Ages 2 – 4 | Ages 4 – 6+ | |
| Set expectations and be consistent with consequences. (Although executive functioning skills are still developing in the young brain, it does not mean that all behaviors should be tolerated.) |
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| Have your child wait for things and wait for their turn. |
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| Actively talk about empathy and feelings, specifically talk about how feelings arise. Model, model, model! |
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| Play games. |
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| Read books. Expose your child to literary characters who are also working on controlling their impulses. |