How to help my child focus and concentrate

Think of “Concentration” as if it were a muscle: it needs to be trained progressively, get rest and be nurtured. Also, same as the whole human body, our brain performs a lot better when it is relaxed, oxygenated, and clean from the stress toxins. To help your child focus and concentrate, you need to take care not only of the “brain training” per se but also of the environment and the emotions your child is dealing with. These are the four key factors you need to work on: 

FACTOR #1: Anxiety is the greatest obstacle for concentration
From the Biological standpoint: to focus, our brains take oxygen from our blood. It needs to receive oxygen at the proper pace. When children are anxious, their hearts beat at an accelerated hasty pace and end up bringing too little oxygen way too fast. So, these children’s brains are not properly oxygenated for concentration. 

Furthermore, children struggling with anxiety receive constant “internal stimuli”. These are disrupting and spontaneous thoughts or memories that interrupt their concentration by making them feel alarmed or frightened. This may explain why many children can’t perform a task requiring three or more steps without forgetting a step.  

Anxiety leads to avoidance, the opposite of concentration. Children with anxiety need their parents to work on their “connection”. This is the healthiest and most effective way to find the real source of children’s fears, and helping them deal with it will strengthen their self-confidence. Also, you and your child would benefit if you practice belly-breathing together before trying to concentrate. Steady, diaphragmatic breathing slows your heart rate and clears your mind so you can concentrate. This is an important skill for all of us to learn as early as possible: calming the body through breathing. 

FACTOR #2: Overscheduling and Fatigue
We tend to try to keep our children distracted and busy all the time. Children that are whisked from activity to activity can feel mind-tiredness, they need a downtime to allow their young minds to recover from an activity. Their brains need some boredom time to recover from School. 

While some children will prefer to lay on their beds and watch the ceiling to get lost in their own thoughts for some minutes, other children will find it more beneficial to ride their bikes or play outside. You need to make sure your child has had the chance and time to get bored, to run, walk, or jump around before sitting down to homework. 

FACTOR #3: Feeling overwhelmed
When children are struggling to concentrate, they can be overwhelmed when projects look too big or complex, or when they’ve got many things to do. 

A great tactic to help increase your child's concentration is to split the task up into smaller pieces. Big projects can overwhelm. Even grownups have that feeling of "I don't even know where to start." Splitting the task up will give a child the feeling of progress as the pieces are completed. 

Another tactic is to make a To-do-list. Help your child focus on getting things done by making a list together of everything he or she needs to do for the day. Then let your child cross off each task as he or she finishes it. 

And, of course, you need to show your child how to use “Breathers”. During homework time, make sure your child takes a few breaks. After working for 10 or 20 minutes (depending on his or her age), invite your child to get up and move around, get a glass of water, and then go back to work. It is ok if your child wants to change the subject at homework. Some of us need to switch between courses (like language and sciences) because it allows us to switch the side of the brain we are using and this helps us stay away from tiredness. 

FACTOR #4: Distractions
Children get easily distracted because their young brains are still developing their “data-filters”. Your child’s senses fill his or her brain with a huge amount of information and can “saturate” it. While we grow up, our brains learn to put filters on the data gathered by our senses, so that we only process the relevant information. 

During childhood, many of us need some help to avoid unnecessary data while we are trying to concentrate. These may include conversations, TVs, cell phones, music, aromas, or fragrances, etc. Even the smell of just-baked-cookies keeps children from focusing on homework. Needless to say, hearing their parents arguing will upset children and will make it almost impossible for them to concentrate on what they are doing.  

How to help my child to make friends

Children are not born with social skills. They are learned. Some children may develop these skills faster than others and it will depend on the stimulation and environment they are exposed to. 

It is a fact that a  single-child will tend to struggle more to make friends. It is also a fact that your child will do a lot better with just a little help from you. After all, you only have to show your child how it’s done.

In Tribal Societies, this concern about Social Skills hardly ever exists. Children of all ages hang out together, so the older ones look after the little ones, they play with them and, therefore, “model” the social behavior for them. The little ones just imitate the older ones. In our society, instead, children are grouped by age at daycare, preschool, and school, so there is very little room for “role modeling” unless it comes from their parents.

These 4 Tips should help your child to make friends at school or preschool:

1.    One-on-One Playdates. Have only one friend invited to your house. Let your child choose who will be his or her guest. During play time, you’ll have to “model” the social skills your child needs. Some other day, you take your child to his or her playmate’s house and you keep “modeling” the social skills. Playdates work a lot better if you start only with one playmate at a time and at your house: your child will feel more secure and self-confident. You can increase the number of playmates and switch houses progressively.

2.    Outdoor and Indoor Playgrounds. Climb into the attractions with your child and take an active role in “pretend” play. Let your child see how you “break the ice” and start interacting with other children. Then you take a step back and let your child play. You’ll only step in if your child needs help to defend him o herself.  

3.    Have some Role-Playing when you are alone. Pretend you are a new friend to your child. How would you behave if you were a child who wants to play? You would use phrases like: “Hi. Can we play together”, “Do you like dogs? I have a pet…”, etc.

4.    At Preschool and Elementary School Age, have your child’s friends coming over to your house as often as possible. Kids love to show their toys and having their “little gang” in their own house, and it helps them to be more self-confident at school too. 

Childhood is about having fun and learning by playing. It is our job to do the best we can to help them.  

How to motivate your child to do better in school

We tend to be near-sighted. The grades your child gets in school, your child’s ability in math or reading and his or her attitude towards school are largely explained by your own concept of “Education”.

You can define “Education” as an organized process and system to get the selected knowledge and skills “installed” in your child’s brain or, you can define “Education” as “Learning”: that magical ability we humans have to “Unveil the Secrets of the World”.

Every child is unique. But children have something in common: when inspired, they are capable of everything.

If you inspire your child to learn new things, then you will stop worrying about you child’s grades.   

Try these 6 Tips to Motivate your Child for School while strengthening your "connection" and nurturing his or her self-confidence:

1)    Connection. Communication. Talk to your child every time you can. Answer their questions and ask back. If you can’t find any topic, take a book from Jules Verne and start sharing what you are reading.

2)    Mind Game: Question of the Day. Ask a question: "Why giraffes have such long neck?" or "Why do stars shine only at night?". If you don’t have the answer, you go and look for it together. You get the answer before putting your child to bed. You’ll be asking the questions first. Over time, you’ll see you child comes up with his or her own very interesting questions.

3)    Excursion: Trip to the Bookstore. Take your child to the Library or the Bookstore and have fun in there. Dive together into hundred’s of books and topics. Observe your child. Find out what topics is he or she attracted to. Mine was all into Princesses and, all of a sudden, she is now into “How Machines Work” and “The Kratts”.

4)    Experience: Experiment of the week. There are some very cool experiments you can do at home during the weekend. Your kids will get super excited and they will find out: It is SO fun to learn new stuff!!!. There is a website that has some awesome ideas: www.growingajeweledrose.com

5)    Give the right message. –“Do you know why you go to school? To have FUN. We take you to school to learn because learning new stuff is super fun”-.

6)   Ask the right questions. Stop asking about the quiz. Ask your child what he or she learned today. If there is no answer, share what you learned today. Teach by example. Be the person you want your child to be, your child will follow your example.  

Grades at School or Performance Ratings when working for a big Company, they all get pretty high when you are “Doing what you love to do”. If you put your anxiety or pressure behind your child's education, he or she will very likely end up hating it. The more peaceful you are, the happier and healthier your child will be, and it will show up in his or her learning curve.