Why do some students with ADHD struggle with impulse control?
In this video, Dr. Lucas Harrington explains that students with ADHD may struggle with impulse control due to emotional overload, limited braking on a fast-moving brain, or actions that bypass conscious thought altogether.
Transcript
What are some reasons that students with ADHD might struggle with impulse control? So when I think about a neurodivergent person having trouble with impulse control, there are three main scenarios that come to mind for me. One is an emotion dysregulation issue where it just genuinely feels like a life and death situation.
You know, if you ever had an itch that you aren't supposed to scratch, like a mosquito bite, and it just takes over more and more of your focus until nothing else matters, besides getting some relief from that feeling. And looking back, someone may be able to recognize it was a false alarm, but in the moment the brain is just slamming that "you need to fix this, right this instant" button.
If the person does have insight in the moment that their impulse is not ideal, you may be dealing with what Dr. Ned Hallowell calls a Ferrari engine with bicycle brakes. So at best, you know, hitting that emergency brake might stop you, but the landing is gonna be rough. And for many people, especially kids, once the impulse gets rolling, they are basically just getting carried with it to the end, no matter how badly they want to stop.
And then third category is when the decision got made without your higher level thinking even getting a chance to weigh in. I was about 19 when I got formally diagnosed with ADHD and 100% true story from my evaluation: At one point, the evaluator called my name and said something like, "I just told you that that was a special pen!" and I looked down at my hands and the pen was disassembled into pieces, presumably by me, but I was not at any point consciously involved in that decision. So kids with ADHD often hear phrases like, "What were you thinking?," and they end up at a loss for how to answer, because the honest answer can be nothing. The body just bypass the thinking brain entirely.
So if these difficulties sound like your students, you can learn support strategies through Social Cipher's professional development. Go to socialcipher.com to learn more.
Follow us @socialcipher on TikTok and YouTube for more educator-focused videos about neurodivergence!
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