Newspaper Page Text
THURSDAY. FEBRUARY 9. 2023 PICKENS COUNTY PROGRESS PAGE 9B
Family,
MaJtt&iA,
by, Many,
MiyliMjo
Peewit
Mmtm,
Strategies for
children being teased
Helping kids focus
Concentration is like a
muscle that requires regular
exercise to strengthen. Some
kids are born “stronger” in
this area than others, but all
kids can learn strategies and
engage in practices that help
improve their ability to focus
and sustain their attention.
This is an especially im
portant skill for kids to ac
quire. School demands that
students concentrate for long
stretches of time, and as kids
get older, they have extracur
ricular activities after school
that require even more con
centration.
Most children are able to
concentrate on activities that
are fun and intrinsically en
joyable. It’s the ones that are
more boring, difficult, or just
less enjoyable that really
challenge their focus. Yet this
ability to concentrate and
sustain attention on all kinds
of tasks is crucially impor
tant, because it helps kids
learn and improve, which
leads to self-confidence and
positive self-esteem.
Concentration is a lot like
mindfulness, a concept that
has been receiving quite a bit
of attention lately in psychol
ogy and in popular culture.
Mindfulness is the ability to
pay attention to one thing in
the moment, and it has been
shown to have innumerable
mental health benefits, from
increased happiness and
stress management to im
proved academic and test
performance.
But, for mindfulness to
work, you have to focus, and
parents can help their kids in
crease their ability to focus.
Here are some tips to help
your kids build their concen
tration muscles:
Set aside a reasonable
amount of time for your child
to practice focusing on a spe
cific task.
Young children (age 4-5)
can usually concentrate for
somewhere between 5 and
20 minutes, depending on the
task—less time with novel
and challenging tasks, and
more time with those intrin
sically enjoyable activities.
Do one thing at a time.
We may praise the ability
to multitask in our adult
lives, but the research is
clear: multitasking reduces
concentration and diminishes
our performance. In line with
the concept of mindfulness,
do one thing at a time in this
one moment. For young chil
dren, you might simply sing
the alphabet together while
looking at the letters.
For children who are a lit
tle older, say 4th grade, you
can complete one long divi
sion problem at a time to
gether. Don’t look ahead at
all the other problems, just
focus on one at a time.
Set aside homework time
and space.
Because multitasking im
pairs concentration, it’s im
portant to reduce extraneous
distractions. For example, do
homework at a designated
desk or table in a quiet room
with the TV off, the phone in
another room, and the laptop
shut unless it’s needed to
complete a homework as
signment.
Parental monitoring pro
grams can automatically shut
down Internet access after a
set amount of use. As kids
get older, parents can shift to
using self-monitoring soft
ware so teens can independ
ently manage their time. This
way kids don’t get sucked
into a time vortex on Insta-
gram or Snapchat.
Build in planned breaks.
Kids need to get up, move
around, and do something
different and not too taxing
after spending time concen
trating. They will benefit
from taking some time to rest
and recharge, especially after
school homework time.
Younger children can take
a snack or play break, and
teens can take the opportu
nity to check out their
friends’ posts or text with
peers.
Break big tasks down into
smaller, more manageable
pieces.
This is another strategy
for helping children to ap
proach a challenging task. If
your child is learning to tie
her shoes, make the first goal
to master the initial knot,
then move on to making two
loops with the strings until
she knows exactly how to do
that, and so forth.
Practice observing things
in the moment.
Kids can be distracted by
“internal stimuli,” like phys
ical sensations or entertain
ing memories. While a
child’s imagination is a won
derful thing, we also want
them to be able to clear away
distractions and build the
ability to concentrate.
[Mary Migliaro, M.Ed. is
an educator and Parent
Mentor. She may be reached,
maiymigliaro@aol.com.]
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