The most important factors that affect your child's concentration
Five Factors Affecting Your Child's Concentration (and How to Recognize Them)
In a world full of distractions, it is not uncommon for students to have trouble concentrating, especially at a young age. But as students get older and have more duties and responsibilities, they should be able to focus their mind on and finish a task.
Focus muscles require regular exercises to strengthen them. Some students may be naturally stronger in this area than others, but all students can learn strategies that will help them improve their ability to focus. After all, focus and concentration are critical skills for students—school and extracurricular activities require students to focus for extended periods of time, not to mention their entry into the world of work.
Find focus
Most students can easily focus on fun and interesting activities but lose their ability to focus on activities that seem boring or difficult. There are also other factors affecting your child's concentration that you may not be aware of - like how much sleep he gets or even a cluttered workspace.
Before helping your child hone concentration skills, it is important that you understand the factors that make focusing difficult in the first place.
Learn more about the most common factors that affect your child's ability to focus, how to recognize when this happens, and tips for helping your child overcome them.
Five factors that affect your child's ability to focus
anxiety or stress
When students multitask or focus on many things at once, they can experience stress or anxiety. As stress increases, the ability to focus becomes more difficult. Sometimes, feeling the need to focus and get work done is the cause of students' stress, which can become a self-defeating cycle.
How does this look:
Procrastination and unwillingness to go to school
Difficulty concentrating or completing schoolwork
Short-term behavioral changes, such as mood swings or disposition
Acting withdrawn or spending a lot of time alone
If your child is feeling stressed and frustrated, sit down with him and figure out the cause of the stress. The causes of school stress can be different for each student, but they can all lead to the same negative effects on academic performance. Encourage your child to close their eyes and take deep breaths until their mind clears and they are ready to focus again
If your child has a lot to do between school, activities, and responsibilities, sit down and rank each one in order of priority. It's important to make sure your child has enough time to get everything done - but every student needs a break from school work to avoid getting burned or herself.
eating habits
What your child eats can have a huge impact on his ability to focus. Eating junk food over healthy, balanced meals and skipping physical activity leads to low energy — making it difficult for students to focus on what needs to be done.
How does this look:
Not eating breakfast
lack of motivation
unexplained fatigue
difficulty paying attention
Low mood or persistent forgetfulness
If your child heads to school hungry, he is more likely to be distracted than ready to learn. Make sure your child eats breakfast every day and eats healthy, balanced meals full of protein and healthy fats. Fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and foods rich in omega-3s are all foods that will help improve your child's concentration.
External divisions
Cell phones, cluttered workplaces, and chatty classmates are the main distractions for students. Some children have a harder time filtering out these distractions than others, which makes paying attention to the teacher more difficult.
How does this look:
Unstructured homework
Frustration with school work
Crowded workspace
Excessive use of cell phones
Distracting others in class
It's hard for students to avoid distractions when they're right in front of them, so it's best to create a workspace where they can focus and prepare themselves for success. Cell phones should be set to Do Not Disturb while doing homework or while in class.
When your child is having trouble concentrating at home, encourage him to get up and take a short break from what he's working on. For class distractions where getting up may not be an option, something as simple as closing your child's eyes and taking a few deep breaths can help refocus the mind.
Unstructured and incomplete notes can be another reason to kill students' focus. If your child has difficulty organizing, offer him or her tools and strategies that will help him. Knowing how to take effective study notes ensures that your child can spend their time revising a topic, rather than searching for the missing information. Agendas and calendars are great for keeping students accountable for due dates and helping to prioritize work.
Boredom and lack of challenge
For some students, what is taught in class is not challenging enough to keep them engaged. This may lead to a loss of interest and they may stop caring completely.
How does this look:
Understands concepts faster than the rest of the class
Routinely gets high scores
Understands the material but receives lower grades
He doesn't seem excited about school
For those who need a bit more of a challenge, tutoring programs can be the key to getting back on the right track. Enrichment programs are intended for students who quickly understand the content of the class and, as a result, get bored at school. These students often need more advanced materials to feel the excitement of (and participate in) learning.
Mastering the Art of Focus
Students, especially younger ones, are full of energy - so it's not realistic to expect them to be completely focused and not distracted at all. However, it is important to provide your child with techniques to improve his concentration skills, starting from an early age.
Once you identify the underlying factors related to your child's inability to focus, you will know exactly how to help build his focus muscles.
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