5-minute read. This blog post references the Neurodivergent Toolkit.

You can get it [HERE]

What We Need to Unlearn

There's a belief that remains in a lot of classrooms — including some really amazing ones — and it goes like this:

"Movement breaks work for the kids that can handle them. But if I did one, my dysregulated kids will spin out and I'd never get them back."

The kids that are wound up, anxious, constantly on edge, or have the nervous system of a chihuahua (this is me, I have the nervous system of a chihuahua).

I've heard it from all sorts. I've heard it from new teachers, 25-year veterans, and I also hear it a lot from admin. I’ve definitely thought it myself about my students and my own kid. 🙋♀️ It usually sounds like, there is no way x,y,z can handle this. 

It’s an assumption, which is dangerous and if we’re not careful it can create more harm than it helps.

It’s also completely unfounded and empirically wrong, so…. 

The Energizers Study 🏃

In 2006, Matt Mahar and his team ran a study they called Energizers — short classroom activity breaks delivered by real teachers to 243 elementary students across a real school.

They measured two things:

📈 How much movement each kid got. 👀 How on-task each kid was before and after the break.

Here's what they found:

• On-task behavior rose 8% overall. ✅
• On-task behavior rose 20% in the students who were least on-task to begin with. 🚀

The kids who needed it most got the biggest gain.

Movement based interventions saw a 20% on task gain with the students we struggle with most. The ones who make us second guess trying the strategy in the first place. 

The Same Pattern Keeps Showing Up

Adele Diamond and Kathleen Lee published a massive review in Science the same year — every intervention that helps executive function development in kids 4 to 12, laid side by side. Aerobics, martial arts, yoga, mindfulness, curriculum programs, all of it.

Their finding? 👇

"Children with the weakest executive function gain the most."

That's not a movement finding. That's a how brains develop finding. The kids who are struggling most have the most runway to gain — because the pathway isn't carved yet, and the intervention actually meets them where their brain is right now.

Translation: Universal supports aren't a distraction from the students who need help most. For the students who need help most, universal supports are the help. 💪

So Why Does It Feel Like Movement Winds Them Up?

Because sometimes it does. 😅

Not because movement is wrong. Because how the movement feels matters more than whether it happens.

If a movement break is:

❌ Unstructured ❌ Loud without a container ❌ Longer than 10 minutes with no clear end

 ❌ Followed immediately by a hard cognitive demand with unreliable support

…then yes, the kid with a stressed 🧟 survival brain is going to have a hard time coming back. Not because the movement was bad — because the return was designed poorly.

The Mahar study didn't just plop kids into freeform chaos. It used structured, teacher-led breaks with a clear beginning and end. That's the version that produced the 20% gain.

If the version is freeform, unpredictable, unfinished — it is likely to trigger the threat response and results will be mixed.

🛟 If You're Using The Toolkit

The reason movement breaks fail in the real world is almost never the movement. It's the structure around it. That's a toolkit problem, and it's exactly what the Neurodivergent Toolkit was built for.

Behavior & Needs Detective (start here):

• Run the Student Needs Checklist on the kids you think will probably spin out. When they do struggle with a break, it's almost always one of the 5 NEEDS: Safety (unpredictable), Comfort (sensory/arousal), Autonomy (forced/authenticity), Belonging (feeling judged), or Competency (doing it wrong/failing). Find which one is most compromised for the student or class and the break can be redesigned.

• The Strengths & Struggles Chart for ADHD, ASD, Sensory, and Anxiety tells you what kind of break each brain will actually be regulated by.

The Classroom Environment Kit:

• Routines and Predictability are what turn a chaotic break into a regulated one. Different movements, used in the same ways, is a completely different experience but reduces cognitive load of learning a new “routine”.
• Sensory Friendly shapes what the break should include and avoid — because a 20% gain in on-task behavior can vanish if the break itself triggers sensory overload or reads as a competency threat.
• Boundaries and Conscious Classroom Management hold suggest ways to encourage accountability without excluding or shaming anyone

The Instruction Kit:

• Soft Starts after the break. Don't launch into the hardest task of the day. The 20% gain is real — but you have to phase the activity into something the brain feels 100% competent at.
• Cue Chunk Chew the return: cue the next task, chunk it small, give them a chew moment before you check for understanding.
• Predictability in what comes next means the brain isn't spending its post-movement dopamine 🛜 on threat-scanning.

Don't have The Neurodivergent Toolkit yet? 👉 [HERE]

Closing Thought 🍃

The kid you're most afraid to give a movement break to?

Is the kid the research says will gain the most. 🎯

Your fear feels real. The actual evidence just doesn't back it up.

When a movement break ends badly, it’s almost never the movement itself- it’s the design of the activity. A movement break designed to meet comfort, autonomy, and competency decreases the chance of break ending as an explosion.

But if we can design and roll it out right the benefits are not small.

Studies show that there is a 20% increase focus and regulation for students who need it most.

Related reads:

• If short breaks feel like they're not doing anything → Your 2-Minute Stretch Break Isn't Doing What You Think (the dose matters more than teachers realize).

• If you've been sold on movement as a "focus" tool → Movement Doesn't Help Working Memory — Here's What It Actually Helps.

• If you're wondering why certain kids move constantly → The Movement IS The Regulation Attempt (Not The Problem).

Citations

• Mahar, M. T., Murphy, S. K., Rowe, D. A., Golden, J., Shields, A. T., & Raedeke, T. D. (2006). Effects of a classroom-based program on physical activity and on-task behavior. Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise, 38(12), 2086–2094.

• Diamond, A., & Lee, K. (2011). Interventions shown to aid executive function development in children 4 to 12 years old. Science, 333(6045), 959–964.