A very common thing observed in children is inability to focus on any activity. While children accomplish multitasking, paying them needed attention is quite strenuous. While completing the homework, learning any new skill they probably need one their parents’ assistance, otherwise they might divert their attention. Few children might complete the task without any distraction but they substitute the task with playing in phone/computer.
Any which way lack of attention causes lot of problems among children.
The incomplete homework, inability to focus during class, missing out important points at school and thus will lead to scoring less in the examination. This will also affect their behavioural aspect.
The average attention span of primary school children is 16 to 25 minutes. High school children can pay attention to 30 to 48 minutes. But few children have maximum 10 to 15 minutes of attention span. They can concentrate morning first two periods, and then later their attention gets diverted. Hence it is not important how long they sit for the work but how much focused they are while doing the task.
However there are few simple activities which will help parents to increase their children’s attention span. These activities are better suitable for primary school children. Children get diverted for various reasons – the task might be uninteresting, boring or tiresome. So you need to understand whether any of these reasons are seen while completing the task.
Immediately after sowing the seed, you cannot expect fruit in the plant, likewise these activities will not give instant results but takes time to get a child to the track.
Here are few activities you can actually make your child to do at home.
1) Joining beads: Take a thread and different colour beads and let your child insert those beads inside the thread. You can give number limits for different colours. This activity not only improves concentration but also helps to develop fine motor skill (hand movement).
2) Matchstick Maths: If you are tired teaching simple calculations to your child , use matchsticks to learn Maths concepts. It not only makes the child understand the concept but also helps to improve the grasping power.
3) Drawing: This is one of the simplest ways to improve your child’s attention span. They need not to be great artistes to do this task. Just choose a colour and just make them scribble inside the circle without crossing the outer line will too will help get a proper understanding of the colour concept and patience while completing the task.
4) Counting coins: Counting coins, lids of the bottle will be one of the easy way to learn as well foster concentration ability.
5) Games: Playing memory games, identifying the difference in pictures , snake and ladder are the most effective games to improve memory as well as concentration.
6) Divide the tasks into chunks: As children cannot pay attention for a longer time, it’s of no use if you make them sit for long hours as their attention span itself is of few minutes. Hence divide the tasks and break it into smaller activities.
However adjusting the time while doing the task also is necessary. After the school hours, child needs to take some amount of rest. Later you can proceed with the homework process. It’s important not to provide breaks in between the process. You can make use of these activities during those break time. Children slowly lessen their hyper activeness. The essential part is to supply healthy food , avoid giving sugar rich food as it makes the child inattentive.
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