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How to Teach Your Child to Concentrate

How Long can You Concentrate for?

Once your child understands the concept of concentration, you can engage him in games to help him value and improve his gift of concentration. Here is one to get you started.

Young children like competitive games, and they are very likely to be able to beat you at this one!

Get an object that you know your child will like. It could be a small toy, or better still a natural object - a feather for instance.

The object of the game is to see who can concentrate on the object longest. Put the object on the table between the players - just two of you to start with, although you can have more players once your child gets familiar with the game. Say, "Let's see who can concentrate on the feather the longest." You don't need to explain the rules; your child will learn them as you go along.

If possible, have a "referee" who is not participating in the game to watch the players and call time out when one of them stops concentrating - the other player being the winner. If you are playing with more than two players, the referee should touch a player that loses concentration, and he or she steps out of the game leaving the remaining players to compete for winning place.

Loss of concentration can be recognized by:

The first thing you want to do is make your child aware of what concentration is, how to recognize the feelings he gets when he is concentrating, and how to recognize what happens when his concentration is broken.

Before you start talking to your child about these things, spend a few days observing him. Try to answer these questions:

• Looking away from the object for more than a second or two
• Closing your eyes for more than a second or two
• Talking
• Giggling
• Falling asleep!

Other games you can play include variations on memory games. For instance, you can have a tray with a dozen objects and a limited time to concentrate on them and memorize them - with an added twist in that anyone who loses their concentration before the time is up has to them close their eyes until time is called!

Conclusion

Once your child understands concentration and how it works, and enjoys playing concentration games, you will want to encourage him to apply his skill to things like schoolwork. After all, it is very easy for your child to concentrate on his favorite toys and hobbies, but he needs to learn that he can concentrate deliberately on less favored but still important activities.

So now that he possesses, understands and appreciates his skill, remember to praise him when he uses it for homework or revision. Point out the benefits of concentrating on these things, and show him encouragement - and he will be able to grasp this skill and make it his own throughout his childhood and put it to good use as an adult.

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