FREE: The 5-Step Impulse Intelligence Lesson Using the Flickerling Method.    

The Flickerling concept is introduced before the book is read, but children do not receive a full lesson about it. They are given just enough of the concept to know what to watch for. The book then becomes the teaching experience.

The crucial part of Step 3 is that the teacher repeatedly connects:

EMOTION → FLICKERLING → INTENDED ACTION

  1. INTRODUCE THE FLICKERLING CONCEPT

The adult explains that Flickerlings represent reactions—the RUSHING URGE OR pushing impulse that can arise after a feeling and make you want to do something. Give examples from Hank's Field Guide from the back of the "Rusty Ruins the Fort and Other Important Things.

  1. READ THE BOOK in the surround .mp4 from website (email Publisher@bee-peacock.com) complete with sounds of babbling brook,breese russling through the trees, chirping birds, played on a video projector. 

Children first experience the Flickerlings naturally through the story. They see the characters, encounter their emotions and reactions, and experience the concept without being given a lesson about it first.

  1. TALK ABOUT THE EMOTION THE CHARACTER IS FEELING BEFORE THE FLICKERLING APPEARS

While reading, the adult asks what the character is feeling before the Flickerling appears.

What might be the character's feeling?

Then:

What did that feeling bring about ?

What Flickerling showed up?                                                                                                                                          

Is the Flickerling trying to make the character do something?

This helps children begin connecting the sequence:

Something happens → a feeling occurs → a reaction appears → the reaction pushes toward an action.

  1. RECOGNIZE

Children can be encouraged to begin looking for that same moment in themselves.

What am I feeling?

What reaction starts to show up?

What does it want me to do?

The goal is for children to begin recognizing the reaction as it is happening, rather than only noticing their behavior afterward.

  1. NAME THE IMPULSE

Children learn that a Flickerling can be identified by what it is trying to make them do. The action gives the Flickerling its name.

If the reaction is pushing you to hit, it is  Hit Flickerling.

If it is pushing you to run, it is  Run Flickerling.

If it is pushing you to grab, it is  Grab Flickerling.

The child does not have to come up with an abstract name for what is happening inside. Instead, the child asks:

“What is my Flickerling trying to make me do?”

That question turns an otherwise difficult-to-describe impulse into something concrete that the child can identify, name, and talk about. See the impulse isnt "them" but a separate idea that has come into their mind.

 That is the breakthrough in the method. You captured something really important there.

The question “What is my Flickerling trying to make me do?” creates psychological distance without requiring a child to understand psychological distance.

The impulse is no longer simply:

“I want to hit.”

It becomes:

“Something is trying to make me hit.”

That is a radically different position for the child. The reaction is observable rather than fused with the child’s identity. The child can look at it, name it, talk about it, and eventually decide what to do/or not to do. about it.


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