Practice

The Five Senses Pause

Sixty seconds that brings a spinning child — or a spinning adult — back into the room.

The practice

01
Five things you can see
Said out loud, ordinary things. The door handle. That cup. Your shoe. Specific and unremarkable is exactly right.
02
Four things you can feel
Physical contact, not emotion. Feet on the floor. Chair against your back. The cold of the window.
03
Three things you can hear
Including the boring ones — the fridge, a car outside, someone upstairs.
04
Two things you can smell
If nothing is obvious, two things you could smell if you went and found them. The searching is as useful as the finding.
05
One thing you can taste, or one slow breath
Whichever is available. This is where the breath belongs — at the end, once the body has already settled slightly.

Teach it on a good day

A practice introduced for the first time mid-distress reads as a trick being performed on you. Learn it in the car on a Tuesday, at bedtime, waiting for an appointment — somewhere pleasant and undemanding. Then it is a familiar shared thing rather than a technique being deployed.

Adapting it

Under seven: reduce it to three, three, three, and make it a game. Whispering it makes it more compelling, not less.
Teenagers: hand it over rather than leading it. "You don't have to say them out loud." Silent counting works perfectly well.
Sensory-sensitive children: drop smell and taste entirely and stay with sight and touch. Never force a sense that is a known trigger.
For yourself: use it before you open the front door, or in the two minutes between a difficult call and going back to the family.

When it does not work

Sometimes a child is too far into distress to name anything, and pressing on turns a grounding practice into another demand. Stop, stay nearby, stay quiet, and try again when the peak has passed. The practice is for the way up and the way down, not the summit.

When the inside of the head is loud, the outside of the room is the way back.

Try this week

01Learn it together on a calm day, out loud, somewhere ordinary.
02Use it once yourself before you walk into the house.
03Offer it — never instruct it — the next time somebody is spinning.
04Adapt it down to three, three, three for a younger child and let them lead.

The therapist's perspective

This is one of the most transferable practices in clinical work, largely because it requires nothing and can be done anywhere without anybody noticing.

If a child tells you it does not work, believe them, and try it with them again on a calm day rather than abandoning it. Refusal in distress is rarely a judgement on the tool.

Sian

Founder, Thrive Family Company

The Morning Send-Off Sentence

The final ten seconds of a morning tend to be spent on reminders. One consistent sentence instead does something a reminder cannot.

A notebook and a lamp on a bedside table in low evening light

The Evening Inventory

A short, structured way to close a parenting day that neither replays every mistake nor pretends it went well.

A parent sitting on the floor beside a child's bed in low lamplight

The Two-Minute Check-In That Helps Families Stay Connected

Two minutes, same time each day, one question, no follow-ups. The practice works precisely because it asks for so little.