You have probably got a couple of kids in your class that have got ants in their pants, I’m willing to put money on it that almost always they are boys. One of the realities in classrooms is that we have always got kids that have a lot more energy than the rest of the class.

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I’m going to teach you four ways that you can manage hyper or highly active children in your classroom. They find it hard to sit still or do quiet activities, it feels like perhaps you spend most of your time managing these very hyperactive or very energetic kids. 

Whether they have been diagnosed with ADHD or whether they’re just energetic kids. I’m going to give you a few strategies on how you can support them and hopefully get them to be a lot more settled in the classroom.

1. Teach Them How To Self Regulate

One of the first things you’ve got to do is teach highly active children, children that have a natural inclination for movement or activity, you’ve got to spend time teaching them how to self-regulate. One of the downfalls of the technological aids that we have is because so many children spend their recreational activity being entertained or enthralled by some kind of technology with a screen, television, iPad or computer, although it can settle them down in the moment it doesn’t teach them how to self-regulate. It settles them down because it draws their attention to an activity. It activates certain parts of the brain that calms them down movement-wise.

As a result, their ability to quiet themselves is significantly diminished. This is why so many kids are coming into classrooms now with the inability to sit still or focus for long periods. What you’ve got to do is teach quiet self-regulation. One of the things that I do in my classes is to have times during the day where they have to do quiet activities. This is usually at the start of every session. When they first come into the classroom at the beginning of the day and when they first come into the classroom after lunch or after morning tea. I have 5 to 10 minutes where they have to do a quiet individual activity, whether it’s reading, drawing or some kind of mental math.

Whatever it is it has to be a simple individual activity. What it’s doing is teaching them self-regulation, it’s teaching them that they can do activities that are not energetic. They can do activities that don’t require any talking at all and the more you do this the more they will learn to self-regulate. They will learn to be okay with the un-comfortableness of silence. That’s a big thing, a lot of kids are very uncomfortable silence or boredom. We have to teach them so that they will build their capacity for self-regulation.

2. Manage Attention Spans

The second thing that you need to do is you need to manage attention spans in your classroom. Often when we teach we design lessons and activities that stretch out over long periods. One of the things you have to recognize is that most children have an attention span of their age, plus 3 minutes. So for a prep class, you’ve got an attention span of five plus three minutes. So the longest you can expect them to focus for is eight minutes.

Some of you are trying to do lessons that will span for twenty to thirty minutes long and you’re wondering why they get restless. What you have to do is break it into segments of eight minutes. Then change the activity, the pace, the focus or the location. If you constantly change with their attention span, you will keep them engaged for longer periods. As soon as you change the mode of learning you reset the clock and you get another eight minutes. If you ask them to do one mode of learning for a stretched-out period of 30-40 minutes, you’re going to find it becomes harder and harder.

Kids who have ADHD or kids that have some kind of learning difficulty or lack a significant amount of self-regulation find that their attention span is their age minus three minutes. For some of our preps and grade ones, they’ve got three minutes that they can concentrate before they start to lose focus. You’ve got to be aware of this. Be able to adapt and differentiate for that and help them to increase their capacity over time. Many of them will not be able to concentrate and even your teenagers, You might have a thirteen-year-old who can only concentrate for ten minutes sometimes. So you’ve got to adapt your lesson and your modes of learning to account for their attention span.

3. Give Them Opportunity to Move

The third thing that we need to do for active kids or highly active kids is allowing them to move. Give them breaks in which they can be physical, where they can interact kinesthetically. If you are asking them to sit still and work quietly all of the time they’re gonna get restless. 

I have an ADHD son myself and I’ve worked with a lot of kids that have ADHD. One of the things they describe is they feel like they need to jump out of their skin, there is this buzz inside of them that they can’t control or contain. They need to move because they don’t know how else to cope with this energy that’s inside of them. We need to recognize that and we need to give them opportunities to move. So if they’re getting restless or if their active kids, send them for a toilet break or a drink break. If you can see them getting restless don’t wait for them to get off task, just say hey it looks like you need a toilet break, go quickly you’ve got 60 seconds then come back. 

Start your lessons with a run around the Oval. Get your class active or moving because they have to sit for such long periods of time. Have a point in your lesson where they can get up and move. Use things like a ball if you’ve got Q&A time, throw a ball to them where they have to catch it before they answer, it’s physical activity. Use activities where they get to stand, sit and move from the carpet or move to the table. Lots of physical motion will help these energetic kids to deal with the struggle that they have of keeping their energy under control.

4. Teach Them Mindfulness

Fourthly you need to teach them to be mindful. The act of mindfulness or the act of meditation. Quiet time or quieting yourself is something that needs to be learned. It needs to be practiced, most adults are not good at mindfulness let alone kids. So we need to create opportunities where they can practice that in the classroom. I like to finish my days with a quiet routine which calms them down. It might be that I’m reading a story to them and they’re just sitting on the floor practicing silence. 

I get them to do things like clasping their fingers. Clasping your fingers and crossing your legs helps them to quiet thier body. Teach them breathing exercises if they’re particularly energetic. We do exercises in the classroom, breathe in through your nose, hold it and then breathe out through your mouth. Teach them mindfulness activities that will help them to learn self-regulation over the long term. 

Remember we are teaching adults. We’re teaching future adults. If we don’t teach them how to manage the restlessness inside of themselves, be mindful, and self-regulate then they will grow up into adults and teenagers that don’t know how to do it. That can be more damaging and more detrimental to their future. So don’t scold, don’t reprimand kids that are energetic or find it hard to sit still. Understand that many of them struggle with an internal energy that’s very hard to regulate. They need your support. They need your help to understand themselves. To be able to manage themselves and to be able to get through the day with as much focus and attention as they can muster. 

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