rdy

ADHD glossary · Family perspectives

Self-monitoring: choose what you want to check about your own task

Vanderbilt's IRIS Center uses self-monitoring in an educational context for students assessing their own behavior and recording what they observe. [1]

By RDY Editorial · Prepared

General education and practical perspectives. Editorial standards.

Which meaning are we using?

This page concerns an optional check of one's own task. It does not cover personality theories that may use the same term, symptom tracking, surveillance, or the interpretation of a clinical scale. The RDY example below is not a classroom behavior program.

An RDY worked example: check the invitation, not the person

This is an invented self-check, with no measured outcome claim.

An adult is drafting a message about a family gathering. Before sending it, they decide to check two things: whether the address is correct and whether the question they want answered is actually present. Their own note says, “Address confirmed. Question still needs wording.” They do not score their concentration or record how often they looked away.

A partner offers to read the draft. The writer declines and asks only for the address to be confirmed. The partner accepts that limit. The writer may delete the check note after sending the message; it is not a household performance record.

Copyable personal task check

My task:
The specific thing I choose to check:
What would count as present or complete in this task:
What I actually found:
My next choice: change / ask / leave it / stop
Who, if anyone, I want to share this with:
Whether I want to keep the note afterward:

For the message example, “Has a question” is a checkable property of the draft. “I was good” is not the task being checked. Keep the note attached to the chosen work, not to a judgment of the person's character.

Different perspectives

The same situation can feel different depending on your place in the family. Start with the perspective that fits, and make room for the other person’s account.

Person checking the work

choose the question and whether to ask another person for feedback.

Parent or caregiver

do not describe your own monitoring of a child as the child's self-monitoring. Explain your actual responsibility separately.

Teen or student

you can ask what a requested record will be used for and distinguish your private note from anything formally required by school. This page does not determine school rules or rights.

Questions you may have

Does someone else have to verify every entry?

Not for this optional RDY note. If another setting requires a record, ask that setting to explain its purpose and process; this page does not interpret those requirements.

Does checking improve performance?

This page makes no effectiveness claim. IRIS discusses educational strategies and research; we have adopted the scoped term only, not those outcomes or its implementation protocol.

How is this different from a checklist?

The reader question here is about who chooses and makes the check. A checklist is one possible written format. Neither format automatically authorizes other people to monitor the writer.

Evidence and limitations

[1] Page 4: Self-Monitoring, The IRIS Center, Vanderbilt University. Accessed September 5, 2026; no publication date displayed. The opening definition supports [1]; publisher HTML was inspected. Its population and setting are students in educational instruction, not a general household trial. We do not reproduce the module's protocol, worksheets, acronyms, or data. No government endorsement is inferred from its funding.

Sources and what they support

These sources support the specific statements identified below. Our practical exercises are suggestions to consider, not evidence of a treatment effect.

  1. Page 4: Self-Monitoring — The IRIS Center, Vanderbilt University

    Source type: institutional.

    Accessed .

    Source check, September 5, 2026: Scoped source check. Passage: First definition sentence under Page 4: Self-Monitoring; retrieved lines 33–35. Limits: Student instructional context, not personality theory or a household protocol. No publication date displayed. No intervention findings, behavior program, or teacher-effectiveness claims adopted.

    Supports: Vanderbilt's IRIS Center uses self-monitoring in an educational context for students assessing their own behavior and recording what they observe.

    Correction check: No correction/retraction notice found in the publisher title and material inspected; focused correction-marker check found none. Not exhaustive bibliographic clearance.

Updates and corrections

Published .

Found a factual error or something unclear? Use the contact route on our Trust page. Read our research method for the evidence approach.