HEALTH PSYCHOLOGY
During the implementation, the students at the student care corner had troubles following instructions that were given at that point in time. Therefore, our group decided to focus on controlling their impulses through the three sessions. The students displayed disruptive behaviours such as having difficulties remaining seated, fidgeting and squirming around during inappropriate moments. All of the above are signs of hyperactivity and impulsivity (American Psychiatric Association, 2013). According to Singh, Yeh, Verma and Das (2015), Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) is characterised by symptoms of inattention, impulsivity or hyperactivity. Hence, we believe that the students in our group had mild symptoms of ADHD even though they are not officially diagnosed with that disorder. Therefore, our group created sessions directly linked to impulse control to help them manage their impulsiveness, which was effective as they had lesser disruptive behaviour across the three sessions.
I would like to recommend to conduct impulse control workshops targeted to teachers of various elementary schools, to cater to a larger portion of students who might have similar backgrounds to the students at the student care corner. By targeting the teachers, they will be able to learn information carried out during the impulse control workshops and implement useful tips into their school curriculum. We are targeting teachers instead of parents because students of poor financial backgrounds might require both parents to go out and work, not leaving any spare time for the parents to teach their child the importance of impulse control. Additionally, a study done by Blazar and Kraft (2016), showed that a student’s attitude and behaviour during and outside of lessons
are affected by teaching practices including the teacher’s own emotional support and classroom management. Therefore, it would be good to target the teachers to help instil good practices of impulse control to the students.
The reason of having a workshop on impulse control emphasises the importance and needs of self-control strategies, to help students reduce their disruptive behaviour due to impulsivity and hyperactivity. By knowing the different self-control strategies will enable the students to control their own social behaviour and maintain appropriate classroom behaviour (Rosenbaum & Drabman, 1979). This recommendation made to help spread the knowledge of impulse control to students is under educational appeal, where the teachers are receiving information during the workshop to help spread the benefits that could be gained to the students (Chen, 2019).
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A possible venue to conduct such workshops would be at the respective teachers’ schools. This way, we will be able to reach out to a large population of young children via the help of their teachers, allowing them cultivate good habits and ideas on impulse control from a young age (Corcoran, 2007). Another possible platform that can encourage habit modification would be mass media. According to Corcoran (2007), mass media will be effective in bringing awareness of what impulse control is to the general public. Allowing a wide coverage of the importance of impulse control, enabling the general public to also know simple information on self-control strategies. Therefore, I highly recommend carrying this suggestion to open up the impulse control workshop to the teachers of various elementary schools as well as to the public.
References
American Psychiatric Association. (2013). Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders (5th ed.). Washington, WA: American Psychiatric Publishing.
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Blazar, D., & Kraft, M. A. (2017). Teacher and Teaching Effects on Students' Attitudes and Behaviors. Educational evaluation and policy analysis, 39(1), 146–170. doi:10.3102/0162373716670260
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Chen, N. (2019). Week 3 lecture: Health Behaviours [Powerpoint slides]. Retrieved from Ngee Ann Polytechnic: Blackboard Online: https://mel.np.edu.sg/ultra/courses/_36349_l/cl/outline
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Corcoran, N. (2007). Communicating Health: Strategies for Health Promotion. London: SAGE Publications
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Rosenbaum, M. S., & Drabman, R. S. (1979). Self-control training in the classroom: a review and critique. Journal of applied behavior analysis, 12(3), 467–485. doi:10.1901/jaba.1979.12-467
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Singh, A., Yeh, C. J., Verma, N., & Das, A. K. (2015). Overview of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder in Young Children. Health psychology research, 3(2), 2115. doi:10.4081/hpr.2015.2115