From the book-Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief- Percy himself showed his weaknesses in managing emotions and how to deal with distractions during school. Evidence was shown in the book, and the articles that’s referring to Managing emotions/ADHD.
Managing Emotions/Self-Management//
Percy’s choices are often affected by his strong emotions and distractions from others. He can improve choices by working on managing his emotions in a better way. Percy is often frustrated about upcoming things, for example, a quote from p.18:” One evening before my final, I got so frustrated that I threw the Cambridge guide to Greek mythology across my dorm room.”. This quote showed Percy’s frustration caused him to throw books around his dorm room, so he had to use his own way to release his stress. The quote from the article about self-management/ emotion management:” Your emotional responses don’t necessarily have much to do with the current situation, or to reason, but you can overcome them with reason and being aware of your reactions.” Saying that Percy’s reactions may not relate to what happened, it’s just because of his anger that’s growing “inside”. Another example, during the field trip, Percy got very annoyed by Nancy BoBofit, he blurted out his frustrations right from his mouth. “Will you shut up?!?–It came out louder than I meant.”; right after his burst of words, Percy regretted right away. It’s because he failed again, on managing his emotions/feelings. Connected to a quote from the article: ”Stopping before you decide to give your self a chance to think..”. This quote relates to Percy’s action of blurting out words which he later regretted, giving yourself a chance to think about your next reaction is always a good choice when dealing with thoughts and feelings. Speaking about how Percy acts in school, he some times gets “annoyed” by his teacher; “Finally, when our English teacher Mr.Nicoll, asked me for the millionth time why I was too lazy to study for the spelling test, I snapped. I called him an old sot…”. Regarding this action, Percy again blurted out words he’d regret just then, this time they became random nick-names. One advice for him is he should have thought about how his words mean to others, when random words pop out of someone’s mouth, it’d be hard to understand what they actually mean. Again, considering about every possible action and result matters a lot. By managing his own emotions, more effectively, Percy will make better choices.
Attitude Towards School//
Percy’s choices sometimes gets distracted by his ADHD. Therefore, he’s always distracted by the surrounding, he couldn’t pay attention in class. He would have made some better choices if he understand his own situation. “You wouldn’t think he’d cool, but he told stories and jokes and let us play games in class, he was the only teacher whose class didn’t put me to sleep.” Percy talked about his favorite teacher-Mr.Brunner. According to the article about ADHD, scientists stated: “It is not true that people with a diffused attentional style can never focus on one thing, either. They might be very focused when something interests them..”. The fact that Percy might have ADHD ( based on his behaviors), this quote is a great suggestion for his teachers; Mr. Brunner’s way of teaching interested him, Percy is willing to participate in the activities. Meanwhile, the article mentions ADHD isn’t always a bad thing, the matter is how Percy and his teachers treat ADHD. By treating ADHD, a new learning environment could help Percy to concentrate better, might as well be affecting Percy’s attitude towards school. Percy’s choices would improve if more people understand ADHD, and how it would affect someone in a certain way such as their weakness in concentrating.
Overall, conflicts on focusing in class and self-management have been bothering Percy for a long time. Percy would improve his choices, if only he could stop before reacting, give himself a chance to think, and get a deeper understanding of his situation!