We developed our Foundations for Wellbeing mental health and wellbeing curriculum for primary schools with the University of York over two years. And this partnership saw us working closely with academics to translate and apply top-level psychological research — making it developmentally appropriate and useful for children and schools.
Here, we take a look at one of the core topics from Foundations for Wellbeing — managing distractions — and go behind the scenes to explore how this approach worked in practice during the development of the curriculum.
If you’ve used one of our posters, or taught any of the Foundations for Wellbeing lessons, please tell us what you think. Your feedback will help us understand your experiences and inform future updates.
Everyone gets distracted. And distractions can be useful, but they can also cause problems when they make it difficult for us to focus on things that are important, necessary or enjoyable. For instance, when distractions make it difficult to learn, build friendships and enjoy pleasant everyday experiences, they have the potential to undermine our mental health and wellbeing.
Distractions can also cause problems when they frequently prompt us to worry or ruminate1.
When can distractions be useful?Not all distractions are problematic, and there are many ways in which distractions can be helpful. For instance, distractions can help us to pass time (e.g. on a long journey), replenish our cognitive resources (‘brain fuel’) and come up with creative ideas. They can also help us to manage unpleasant, uncomfortable or strong emotions, which can be especially helpful for young children, but it is important for distractions to be used as part of a wider repertoire of self-regulation strategies. |
The process model of self-control2, developed by Professors James Gross (Stanford University) and Angela Duckworth (University of Pennsylvania), offers a useful multi-stage framework for proactively managing distractions.
The stages include: avoiding places which might be distracting (situation selection), changing places to make them less distracting (situation modification), thinking differently about situations to help us focus (cognitive change), redirecting attention away from distractions (attentional deployment), and using attention and emotion regulation strategies to manage strong feelings and emotions, such as temptation and excitement (response modulation).
There is evidence from a number of studies to suggest that children may find this model empowering. For instance, in several studies involving students in the USA, it was found that participants who were introduced to this model — and encouraged to focus on avoiding (situation selection) or changing (situation modification) certain situations to make them less distracting — experienced fewer distractions over the course of a week than participants who were shown motivational quotes3.
Recognising that this model could be helpful for older children, especially ahead of secondary school, we renamed the stages and introduced them to pupils during the Year 6 lessons on managing distractions in our Foundations for Wellbeing curriculum:
'Situation selection' became Choosing to be in a quieter or less distracting place
'Situation modification' became Changing spaces to make them less distracting
'Attentional deployment' became Focusing attention away from the distraction
'Cognitive change' became Remembering why the task or activity matters
'Response modulation' became Responding to feelings and emotions
What response modulation strategies can be used to manage feelings and emotions?There are many strategies that can help us to manage distracting feelings and emotions, such as temptation and excitement. For instance, picturing distracting thoughts as passing clouds, taking a few slow breaths and redirecting attention away from distractions by looking around for three things of the same colour — a ‘trick’ that can help us to refocus to our attention4. |
Take a look at our free classroom poster, Our strategies for managing distractions, to see these stages — and several useful strategies — in action. You can display this poster in your school for the whole community to view and use to develop shared language and practices.
In the next blog post, we will peel the curtain back further to reveal more about the team effort behind Foundations for Wellbeing and how we synthesised leading research and expertise with our classroom know-how to create a one-of-a-kind mental health programme for schools.
[1] Dorjee, D. (2026). Conceptualising child and adolescent mental health and wellbeing neurodevelopment: An integrative brain networks framework. New Directions for Child and Adolescent Development, 3489051.
[2] Duckworth, A. L., Gendler, T. S., & Gross, J. J. (2014). Self-control in school-age children. Educational Psychologist, 49(3), 199–217.
[3] Duckworth, A. L., White, R. E., Matteucci, A. J., Shearer, A., & Gross, J. J. (2016). A stitch in time: Strategic self-control in high school and college students. Journal of Educational Psychology, 108(3), 329–341.
[4] Dorjee, D. (2026). Making sense of mental health and wellbeing in primary schools: A practical neuroscience-based guide. London: Routledge.