Helping a child to concentrate

[celebratelife]

Hi mummysniper,


Your child may have a shorter attention span than most kids, which is not surprising - considering today's emphasis on multitasking, multi-channel cable surfing and the likes.

Such children are not suited for seated learning in class for long periods of time. They will usually drift off, fidget, tinker with items on their desks or simply start to move around.

You can consider the following within the home setting:

1. Have him stand while doing work, while taking short rests at times. Some children with shorter attention span like to do this and do not find this tiring. Being in a seated positions sometimes makes them drowsy or sleepy.

2. Have him engage in something while doing hiswork, such as having some biscuits to eat.

3. At time, allow him to rinse their face with water as that will wake him up - for a while.

4. Let him learn by doing, such as asking him to spell words, asking interactive questions such that he needs to respond at certain intervals, asking him about his personal experiences such that it drives his interest to speak more. Of course, being an English teacher, my techniques are limited to lingustic learning. More methods would need to be sought for other subjects he is studying.

5 Talk to your child and ask him what his distractions are. This is the most direct method to address the issue.

Within the class settings, certain things mentioned above cannot be implemented. Your child might be driven to learn through group interactions or hands-on activity. You might like to seek the advice of your child's teachers based on their observations.

I hope that the above helps.

Warmest Regards,
Patrick
http://www.patricktay.wordpress.com

[mummysniper]

Thanks Patrick! Your ideas are very innovative. Standing while doing work reminds me of teachers punishing students during my time.


My child’s eyes wonder everywhere and cannot focus on things I teach. I will definitely try out some of your suggestions.

Thank you so much.

[sharonkhoo]

A very basic starting point, if you haven’t done this already, is to give him a quiet place to work. Preferably facing a blank wall, no other distractions within sight or reach, no people walking by, no TV sounds etc. Also, only allow the essentials to complete each task on the table, and everything else out of sight. A checklist of tasks that he can tick off as he completes them may help him stay on task. All these helped my daughter.

[mummysniper]

Thanks slmkhoo. Your suggestions make a lot of sense. My child sits facing the wall, but when I teach him, his eyes seems to be looking at other contents on the page but not where mu finger is pointing and gives me the blank look each time I ask him to repeat what I have taight.


Will try out your ideas too.

[fstyle28]

Thank you for sharing!

[jojoberry]

try to have multiple short sessions instead of one lengthy session. increase the time for each session after you have built up his stamina.

[erislee]

my current 4yr old boy also facing similar pb… dun like to do wat we told him to do… must tell him at least 2-3 times or show him the way of cane… haiz

[sharonkhoo]

erislee:

my current 4yr old boy also facing similar pb.. dun like to do wat we told him to do.. must tell him at least 2-3 times or show him the way of cane... haiz

There is a difference between short attention span (inability to focus for longer periods) and ignoring parents' instructions. It sounds more like your son does not have attention issues, but is just not obeying your instructions. When my kids were younger than yours, I realised that repeating my instructions several times before meting out punishment just taught them that they had a few chances to ignore me before they needed to obey. So I told them that I would only give an instruction only twice, and if they didn't obey, they would have to be punished. To be fair, I always made sure I had their attention when issuing the instruction the first time, and the 2nd time would come with a warning about punishment. No third time. My punishments were mostly time out or deprivation of privileges which I found worked better than corporal punishment for my kids. After a few times, my kids realised that I meant business.

[Bernard_T]

Asking him to have a structured time plan and set 30 minutes task slots will probably help for a start.