Róisín is a Fidget. She is on the go from morning to night. Even in her sleep, she squirms in the bed, kicking off the covers and sometimes ending up on the floor! Her need to move can often result in her getting into trouble at school. She isn’t being disruptive on purpose; she is simply a fidgety kid that needs sensory input in order to focus.
The trick is to find ways that allow the child to fidget, without disrupting the entire class or annoying the hell out of the teacher.
When children come to us at Hummingbird Learning Centre, their parents stay for the session as well. Thinking that it must annoy me, parents will often interject when their child fidgets, telling the child to put things down or to sit still. The truth is; I’m never bothered by it, in fact, I will often give a child something to fidget with. You see, it’s not the child fidgeting that is the problem. It is the way the observer reacts to the fidgeting that is the issue.
There was a time when it would have driven me crazy, but now I realise that it is simply fulfilling a physical need and not a sign of disinterest. I know that fidgeting actually helps many children to focus so I made a conscious decision to change my reaction to it. I cannot control how any child fidgets, but I can control how I react to those actions. By choosing to see a fidget as a positive, it no longer bothers me. When it no longer bothers me, the kids can only use it to help themselves get focused rather than attempt to distract me with it.
Fidgeting is a real issue. It is not bad behaviour, rather a strong indicator that children are not getting enough movement throughout the day. Ideally, they would be playing outside a lot more but that can be difficult in the modern world. So in order to counteract that, allow those kids, who need to fidget to focus, fidget.
It is not bad behaviour, rather a strong indicator that children are not getting enough movement throughout the day. Ideally, they would be playing outside a lot more but that can be difficult in the modern world. So in order to counteract that, allow those kids, who need to fidget to focus, fidget.