Attentional Control to Self Awareness, to Self Compassion, to Other Compassion

I wrote a note to a mom this morning about her 10 yr old son who ended up in tears during a task today. Great family with wonderful children. Yet, he ended up in tears, overwhelmed by his own thoughts (ANTs - automatic negative thoughts). He quietly kept clapping and trying to hide his emotion, hoping no one would notice the tears, but internally he was beating himself up, feeling HORRIBLE. Here's the post I wrote to this mom. I thought it was worth sharing with others.

Brad and I share his story at the National IM conference... what an honor! 

Metacognition - thinking about one's own thinking

I see the process of metacognition come on line frequently in IM. This week, a mom of an 8 yr old going through IM a second time commented that her son was beginning to get some 'insight into himself.' I understood this comment to mean that his ability to think about his own thoughts had started to come on line more, metacognition. Dr. McGrew recently posted about metacognition and linked to an entire book about to be published about that mental process.

Amazingly low IM Scores

The scores you make on IM are huge indicators of your basic mental functioning, but they fall short in telling the whole picture. Yes, if a child comes in averaging over 100 ms, I know this child is working far harder than they need to in this world. Basic timing is a huge issue. But on the other end of the spectrum, some students can have AMAZINGLY low numbers and can still be lacking in some very basic mental processes. More IM can lead to significant mental processes still coming on line. The numbers don't tell the entire picture.