Why Some Children Rush Their Work — and What That’s Really About

Understanding behaviour, learning, and nervous systems

Rushing is easy to misread.

A child finishes quickly.
Work is incomplete.
Mistakes are obvious.
Care seems absent.

The assumption is often:

• they’re careless

• they’re not trying

• they want to get it over with

But rushing is rarely about effort alone.
Often, it’s about escaping discomfort.

Rushing is not always confidence

For some children, speed looks like competence.

But for many others, speed is a stress response.

When learning feels overwhelming, uncertain, or threatening, the nervous system looks for relief.
Finishing quickly becomes a way to reduce exposure.

The message beneath rushing is often:

“If I get this done fast, the discomfort will stop.”

What’s happening underneath

When a child rushes, their nervous system may be:

• highly aroused

• uncomfortable with uncertainty

• sensitive to evaluation or correction

• eager to return to safety

In this state:

• accuracy drops

• reflection disappears

• working memory narrows

The child isn’t thinking deeply.
They’re trying to get out.

The common response — and why it backfires

Rushing often triggers responses like:

• “Slow down.”

• “Check your work.”

• “You know better than this.”

While well-intentioned, these responses assume the child has access to:

• pause

• reflection

• self-monitoring

Those skills live in the thinking brain — and stress can make them temporarily unavailable.

More pressure rarely produces better thinking.
It usually produces faster escape.

The either/or trap (again)

Rushing can push classrooms into extremes.

Either:

• we accept rushed work to keep things moving
  or

• we clamp down with tight control and repeated correction

Neither approach addresses what’s driving the behaviour.

Learning requires time, but it also requires safety.

Calm slows the brain — not the expectations

Calm doesn’t mean lowering standards.
It means creating conditions where children can stay with the task.

When nervous systems are supported:

• tolerance for uncertainty increases

• mistakes feel less threatening

• attention widens

• thinking deepens

Slowing down becomes possible — not forced.

Supporting depth without pressure

Supporting children who rush may look like:

• reducing time pressure

• breaking tasks into meaningful chunks

• separating thinking from writing

• valuing process over speed

• building predictable rhythms

These supports don’t excuse rushed work.
They support children to engage more fully with learning.

What rushing tells us

Rushing often signals:

• learning feels unsafe

• the demand feels too high

• the child wants relief

Seen this way, rushing is not laziness.
It’s communication.

A reframed question

Instead of asking:

Why won’t this child slow down?

We might ask:

What would help this child feel safe enough to stay with the learning?

That shift moves us from correction to support — and from speed to depth.

Rushing isn’t the opposite of care.
Often, it’s a sign that care is overwhelmed.

These articles explore how stress and calm show up in everyday classroom moments.
The foundations that sit beneath them are explored in
The Daily Needs of Calm, Connected & Creative Classrooms — a practical guide for educators and parents who want to better understand how to support children’s learning, behaviour, and wellbeing.