15. Give Them Distractions
Giving a student a distraction is key to reducing anxiety. On top of that, it helps students with other mental differences such as ADHD. One of my better teachers brought in adult coloring pages and offered them to us. While some of the students did not use them, or they didn’t need them, it was a life saver for me. By splitting my brain into two separate focuses – listening to the lesson and coloring boring geometric shapes – I was able to absorb what the teacher was teaching while also keeping my mind off my anxiety.
Ground rules are important here though. Make sure the distractions are fair for the students and those that start to struggle should know that they will lose the privilege. Also, whatever distraction you offer needs to be boring. If you have them color, only offer one or two colors and make sure the page is something simple and gives no real mental distraction other than a need to fill in simple shapes. If you offer anything that requires focus, you are defeating the whole point and will see each student suffer. This is an area I would highly recommend you take extra time in researching and make sure you are offering the right type of distraction.