“My Teacher says this Fidget Will Make Me Feel Better”: Sensory Tools, Acceptance, and Avoidance in SEL

How do we know if this is helping?

Sensory tools are now common in classrooms. Fidgets, squeeze balls, movement breaks, calming corners, and grounding strategies are often offered to students who are anxious, overwhelmed, or dysregulated. Most of the time, the intention is kind and reasonable: to help students feel better.

But what if feeling better isn’t actually the goal?

RAD is an acceptance-based social-emotional learning (SEL) model informed by Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT). Like other cognitive-behavioural approaches, RAD recognizes that uncomfortable thoughts and feelings—anxiety, frustration, sadness, anger—are a normal part of being human. Where RAD differs is not in acknowledging discomfort, but in how it teaches students to respond to it.

ACT research shows that attempts to suppress or control unwanted thoughts and feelings often backfire. This is known as the rebound effect or ironic process of mental control: the more we try to push internal experiences away, the more strongly they tend to return, especially under stress (Wegner, 1994). Because of this, RAD emphasizes acceptance—making space for thoughts and feelings without needing to eliminate them before acting.

Acceptance does not mean liking discomfort or giving up. It means recognizing that thoughts and feelings are temporary events, and that life can continue while they are present.

Acceptance Is Not Avoidance

A common concern with acceptance-based approaches is the fear that acceptance means doing nothing, lowering expectations about feeling good, or never using strategies to feel better. This is not the case.

It is absolutely appropriate to use strategies that support focus, regulation, and engagement. The key distinction in RAD is why those strategies are used.

In ACT, experiential avoidance refers to attempts to escape, suppress, or control internal experiences when doing so interferes with meaningful action (Hayes et al., 2006). Problems arise when students learn—directly or indirectly—that they must feel different before they can participate.

Acceptance says: “I can do this with the feeling present.”

Avoidance says: “I can’t do this until the feeling goes away.”

This difference becomes especially important when we look at sensory-based supports.

Sensory Tools and Fidgets: Support or Subtle Avoidance?

Sensory tools and fidgets themselves are not the problem. Used skillfully, a fidget or squeeze ball can help a student remain present, manage physiological arousal, or stay engaged in learning. In this case, the tool supports meaningful action while discomfort is present.

However, the function of the tool can quietly shift.

If a student learns, “I need this to make my anxiety stop,” or “I can’t focus unless this feeling goes away,” the strategy may begin to replace acceptance. Over time, the student may rely on external tools to control internal experiences rather than develop the skill of acting alongside them.

Eventually, the uncomfortable thoughts or feelings return—as they always do. When the tool is unavailable or ineffective, the student is left without a broader way to respond.

RAD does not discourage sensory tools. It asks a different question:

Is this tool helping the student engage with life, or helping them avoid their internal experience?

When Tools Come With Too Much Explanation

Another layer of complexity comes from how sensory tools are explained. Often, tools are paired with detailed language about internal processes:

• “This calms your nervous system.”

• “You’re dysregulated.”

• “This will bring you back to baseline.”

While well-intentioned, these explanations can unintentionally pull attention inward. Students may begin monitoring and evaluating their internal state:

• “Am I regulated yet?”

• “Is this working?”

• “What if my body doesn’t calm down?”

  
  

From an ACT perspective, excessive focus on internal events can reduce psychological flexibility and increase distress (Kashdan & Rottenberg, 2010). Instead of learning that life can continue with discomfort present, students may learn that internal states must be fixed before action is possible.

RAD does not aim to make students experts in their nervous systems. This is probably good because most explanations children receive are overly simplistic or even wrong. Rather, RAD aims to help children build the capacity to act meaningfully even when thoughts and feelings are uncomfortable, confusing, or persistent by teaching them important skills. Considering that neuroscience is beyond the scope and competence of most teachers, RAD’s approach is actually empowering. It let's teacchersfocus on the things they can do: teaching their students new skills that help those students do what’s important.

A RAD Reframe: Tools Promote Action, Not Control

Can we still do what is important even if we have uncomfortable feelings?

In RAD, sensory tools are framed as optional supports, not solutions. Rather than emphasizing what a tool is doing inside the body, RAD emphasizes what the student is choosing to do next. The message becomes:

“This is something you can use to support yourself while you do what matters.”

The feeling is allowed to stay. If the tool helps the student accept their feelings and do what is important, then that is great. However, if the tool draws the student into a battle to eliminate uncomfortable feelings of thoughts, and encourages the student to turn away from meaningful action, then it should be reconsidered or not used.

The Takeaway

Acceptance does not mean ignoring feelings.

It does not mean never using strategies to feel better. And it does not mean lowering expectations to ever feel good or better.

Acceptance means we stop organizing behaviour around avoiding discomfort and start organizing it around what matters. Sensory tools can be helpful—but only when they remain supports, not substitutes for acceptance and values-driven behaviour.

We don’t need to feel better to do better.

And when we stop chasing relief, we often find more of it.

References

Hayes, S. C., Strosahl, K. D., & Wilson, K. G. (1999). Acceptance and Commitment Therapy.

Hayes, S. C. et al. (2006). Behaviour Research and Therapy, 44(1), 1–25.

Kashdan, T. B., & Rottenberg, J. (2010). Clinical Psychology Review, 30(7), 865–878.

Wegner, D. M. (1994). Psychological Review, 101(1), 34–52.