10 Impulse Control Activities for Kids

It can be challenging for a child to wait their turn, especially when they’re bursting with excitement. However, learning impulse control is necessary for a child’s emotion regulation and future success. By practicing impulse control activities for kids, your child can become more in tune with their thoughts and feelings and make healthy, deliberate choices.

Keep things fun, engaging, and memorable with ten of our favorite impulse control activities for kids!

Benefits of Impulse Control Activities for Kids

Instead of rushing into something, your child can reap the benefits of patience and thoughtfulness, which include the following:

• Improved executive functioning. Self-control is one of several executive function skills that enable children better to manage their thoughts, emotions, and actions [*]. Developing such skills can help children resist distractions, engage in productive behaviors, and overcome challenges easily and confidently. Executive functioning is critical in children with focus or hyperfocus issues, including kids with OCD.
• Physical health benefits. Self-control can influence how well a person cares for themselves. Eating nutritious meals daily, finding time for exercise, and getting enough sleep can decrease inflammation, obesity, and substance dependence [*].
• Enhanced emotional intelligence. As children become more self-aware and self-managed, they can improve their emotional intelligence or how they respond to their emotions [*]. When children understand their emotions better, they can nurture healthy friendships and have better chances of academic success.
• Improved symptoms of other conditions. Children with attention deficit hyperactive disorder (ADHD) often struggle to focus on tasks. Practicing impulse control can help keep them on track and even improve specific symptoms like procrastination.

10 Impulse Control Activities for Kids

Developing impulse control in children requires a lot of guidance, but the process doesn’t have to be boring. Try these activities for impulse control to help improve your child’s emotional intelligence and self-awareness.

1. Advanced Simon Says

Simon Says is a classic game that improves children’s listening skills, ability to follow directions, and body control. Most importantly, it encourages them to think before acting. Simon Says is easily customizable—you can adjust its complexity based on the child’s age.

Here’s how to play:

1. Appoint a leader to stand in front of the group.
2. Issue commands like “stand on one foot” or “hop up and down like a rabbit.”
3. Players must only follow these commands if the phrase “Simon says” precedes them.

2. Freeze Dance

As its title suggests, Freeze Dance involves freely dancing to the music and freezing in place when it stops. While it’s a fun way for children to express themselves through purposeful movement, it also offers opportunities to learn impulse control by improving cognitive and physical skills. It also tests children’s listening and coordination skills.

Here’s how to play:

1. Spread out the group and play the music.
2. Let the kids dance anywhere between 10 and 20 seconds.
3. Stop the music and observe who freezes in time.

3. Emotion Charades

Remember, emotional intelligence and impulse control go hand-in-hand, so what better way to nurture both than through a game of emotion charades? Emotion charades connect children to their emotions through facial expressions and body language.

Creating a safer and more enjoyable place to reflect on emotions is a type of exposure and response prevention that can make children more comfortable with “big” or “scary” feelings that trigger specific urges.

Here’s how to play:

1. Write down different feelings on sticky notes or slips of paper. Then, place these in a bowl.
2. Take turns drawing a slip of paper and acting the emotions out.
3. Once someone guesses the emotion correctly, discuss how they came to their conclusion.

4. Jenga

Physical restraint is an excellent way to train emotional restraint, and Jega is a superb outlet! Jenga demands slow, controlled movements and is a fantastic combination of structure and chaos. It requires that players be mindful and focused to succeed.

Here’s how to play:

1. Build the Jenga stack according to the diagram.
2. Take turns removing one block each from the tower. Encourage kids to take their time and think strategically.
3. If the tower falls, start over.

5. The Waiting Game

Trivia games are an excellent avenue for testing one’s general knowledge, but adding a waiting factor can test impulsivity. The waiting game is most effective in larger groups, fostering healthy competition while reinforcing restraint.

Asking each child to wait before they blurt out the answer will help them learn how to wait their turn. This game can be especially effective for children with obsessive-compulsive personality disorder (OCPD), as it counters their severe desires to be in control.

Here’s how to play:

1. Write down a few trivia questions and place two students head-to-head while the rest watch.
2. Ask the question, then ask each child to count to five before they answer.
3. The child who gets the correct answer after the five-second counter wins.

6. Role-Playing

Kids love to act scenarios out, especially when their imaginations run wild. Role-playing can encourage creative thinking and provide opportunities to explore and enact impulse control.

When kids put themselves in someone else’s shoes, they can better appreciate the benefits of being restrained and thoughtful.

Here’s what you can do:

1. Write a few scenarios on slips of paper. For instance, you might write “an argument with a friend” or “picking out a new toy.”
2. Assign roles, then swap them so each participant has a turn.
3. Ask each child to reflect on their decisions and why they made them.

7. The Mirror Game

Being in control means being aware of your emotions and those of others. The mirror game provides an excellent opportunity for exploring feelings, underscoring profound observation and patience.

Here’s how to play:

1. Have two students stand in front of each other.
2. Ask one student to make slow and steady gestures while the other copies these movements and facial expressions.
3. Switch places.

8. Organized Sports

Your child can enjoy organized sports, even if they don’t consider themselves naturally athletic. Whether they have an evident calling for football or basketball, participating in organized sports can train their team collaboration and self-control skills.

Here’s what you can try:

1. Choose a different team sport per week. For instance, you might choose kickball, softball, dodgeball, or capture the flag.
2. Spend time teaching each student the rules. Observe where they struggle and where they thrive.
3. Swap roles when you can. For example, if you’re facilitating basketball, rotate point guards and shooters.

9. Orchestra

Like in sports, members of an orchestra must collaborate to create a beautiful piece of music. This activity teaches children to play on the beat, listen to others, and adjust according to the music flow.

Here’s how to do it:

1. Gather a varied collection of simple instruments.
2. Start with a simple beat and ask each child to chime in individually after every count of four or eight.
3. Change up the beat and observe how each child adjusts.

10. Collaborative Art

Working on a piece of art together will encourage children to be thoughtful about their choices and reflect on how certain elements complement one another. It will also teach them restraint, as they must decide how much or how little to add.

Here’s what you can do:

1. Decide on the medium of art you want to pursue. Have each student vote—they can create a mural, sculpture, or mixed-media figure.
2. Provide the children with the appropriate art materials.
3. Have each child contribute to the piece individually or work on specific elements together.
4. Once the artwork is complete, discuss how each child felt about the process. What part of collaborating was easy? What was challenging?

Tips for Implementing Impulse Control Activities for Kids Effectively

The key to successfully facilitating impulse control for kids is a balanced combination of motivation and monitoring. Implementing these helpful strategies creates a healthy and engaging environment for learning:

• Set clear goals with your child. Achieving impulse control can be tricky if your child isn’t working toward a specific goal. Ask them what they want to achieve through these activities—do they want to be physically stronger? Do they want to be more in tune with their emotions?
• Track your child’s actions. You can reflect on your child’s progress by keeping a diary of their activities and what you’ve observed. Monitor their behaviors and look for areas of improvement.
• Create structured routines. Children thrive on structure, as they can set clear expectations about their day. Create a schedule they can follow easily.

The Bottom Line

It can be frustrating for children not to feel in control, especially when they are young and impatient. These impulse control activities for kids can help them develop patience, restraint, and self-control—characteristics that will pave the way for future success!

For additional resources to support improved impulse control and other executive function deficits feel free to check out our collection of ADHD worksheets.

Sources:

1. Hendry A, Emily J.H. Jones, Charman T. “Executive function in the first three years of life: Precursors, predictors and patterns.” Developmental Review, 2016.
2. Moffitt TE, Arseneault L, Belsky D, et al. “A gradient of childhood self-control predicts health, wealth, and public safety.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2011.
3. Checa P, Fernández-Berrocal P. “The Role of Intelligence Quotient and Emotional Intelligence in Cognitive Control Processes.” Frontiers in Psychology, 2015.