We train attention at the child: a guide for curious parents
Attention – one of the most important human qualities, so necessary in order to select the necessary information for perception. Every second, the human brain needs to filter out really valuable information from millions of signals coming to it from the outside world.
And, if with adults with attention, as a rule, everything is in order (during the years of “training” the brain simply gets used to filter and select what is most important), then in children this mechanism is far from perfect. That is why the problem of the development of attention in a child is interested in any sensible parents.
How often we find ourselves in situations when it is extremely difficult to attract and keep the attention of our children on important things. This is especially important in the context of the learning process.
This is a very complex psychological process, the violation of which can lead to deviations in the behavior and psyche of the child as a whole. An example of the lack of functioning of the attention system can be traced well on the behavior of so-called hyperactive children, suffering primarily from attention deficit, autitis, etc.
But these questions lie in the competence of doctors. We will talk about perfectly normal in terms of the development of thinking systems and children’s attention. The fact that parents can and should undertake in order to teach the child how to concentrate and also develop this ability.
Child’s ability to concentrate attention: what is important to understand first
Is your child not concentrating on any information that they are trying to convey? Does his attention constantly jump from one type of activity to another? Believe me, for children it is absolutely normal! Over time, your child will definitely learn to concentrate and will be able to quickly switch quickly, for example, from solving math problems to writing texts, etc. (in fairness, we note that not all adults can quickly move from one type of activity to another, completely opposite).
The most natural question in this situation is what can we, conscious parents, take to help a child develop such a valuable quality as attention? And we can really do something! Experts have developed a huge number of various techniques and exercises, in the process of working with which the child trains attention.
It is only important that such work be regular. In addition, never put pressure on a child! Any of your classes attention should be fun, not straining. In the opposite case – you just cause the unwillingness to engage in the children.
The main methods of developing attention in a child
All methods available in the arsenal of pedagogy for the development of attention can be grouped into several large groups, based on their goals:
1. Those that focus on the development of attention. In psychology, they are called “proofreading.” Their essence is to offer the child to find the same letters in the text (for example, the letter “A”) for a certain period of time. It is important that the text be printed rather large. task and search at the same time several letters.
2. Those that are designed to increase the amount of attention, as well as the development of short-term memory. The essence of such exercises is to offer the child to memorize the order of the location of certain items (this can be all that comes up! For example, you can ask the child to remember how the toys are located in his room, then invite him to go and change some items in some places, and when he returns, ask what exactly has changed.) In a word, the field for fantasy is huge – there would be a desire!
3. Those that train the distribution of attention. The most striking example is to offer the child to perform two tasks at the same time. For example, read a verse and after each paragraph read – clap your hands (there are also many options).
4. Those that train the skill of switching attention. The purpose of such exercises is to make the child learn to switch attention quickly. The classic example of such a game is the well-known fun edible – inedible ”,“ Nose-ceiling ”, etc.
Computer games on the development of attention
Maybe it sounds strange, but the attention of the child can be trained with the help of computer games! Here, for example, there is a collection of games in which the child not only has fun, but also develops memory, children’s thinking and attention.
Together with your favorite characters, the child will look for the proposed items, showing his resourcefulness and ingenuity, simultaneously training attention. Great, right? This, of course, is not an alternative to the methods developed by specialists, but only one of the options for a useful pastime at the computer.
