Translation from Dr Huang Cong Ning’s blog. Dr Huang is a renowned Pediatrician in Taiwan and has the highest Taiwan media exposure. He is a dad of two and also a parenting author who has rich paternal knowledge and practical expertise to share about parenting.
These are the questions that are often on parents’ mind, “Are there any ways to improve my child’s concentration? Can concentration skills be trained? Experts believe parents play an important role in training and developing a child’s focus and concentration, even when the child is only an infant.
Childhood is a period of curious exploration of the world and every parent agrees that it is beneficial for a child to have good concentration so that he can pay better attention in class and ultimately learn and retain more information. Other than a child’s own character development and school teachers’involvement, every parent plays an even more prominent role in the cognitive development of their child. Hence, parents should take the lead to train their kids early as starting early can be the springboard for improved concentration and attention span.
Can concentration skills be trained? Many psychologists believe that it is possible, especially when your kid is just an infant as this is a crucial period for training a child’s concentration. However, one needs to understand a large part of concentration is also genetic related, but parents should come up with some methods and tricks to help a child to focus better.
Research on infant Attention Span: Getting the micro view
A recent study in “Current Biology” magazine explores ways to help and improve the attention span of a one-year-old baby playing a game.
First, the researchers set up a physical environment for a parent and her one-year-old baby to play toys on a table. A camera was used to detect the baby’s pupil movements in order to monitor and record the baby’s concentration time during the game. When the baby’s eyeball leaves the toy and begins to look at the ceiling or somewhere else, it is an indication that he has lost interest in the toy. In another word, he becomes “distracted.”
Below are three different play modes designed to find out which baby can focus the longest during play:
1. The parent will not move until the baby reaches for the toy. she will then guide the baby how to play, or teach him the name of the toy.
2. The parent picks up a toy randomly and demonstrates to the baby how to play in front of him to make him pay attention.
3. The parent just sits there and does not interact with the baby while the baby is playing.
Under these three scenarios, which baby has the longest attention span on the toys? The answer should be obvious.
Waiting for the child to show interest and then help
The “focus time” recorded by Indiana University refers to the duration of time when the parent takes her eyes off from the toy while the baby is still looking at the toys playing. This is truly what modern parents desire most; a child can still concentrate on his work after the mother leaves the room. This is exactly what the Institute wants to achieve.
The findings were not surprising. Those parents who waited for the baby to take the toys first and then engage with them could continue to stay focus playing on the same toy for a few more seconds even after the parents looked away (yes, a few extra seconds of concentration is a big deal for a one-year-old infant). The second place went to the parents who engaged with the baby from the start and played together. Although the parents successfully captured the baby’s attention at the beginning, the baby quickly turned his gaze to the ceiling as soon as the parents left. As expected, babies whose parents were not involved in the game had the shortest attention span. They stopped playing the toys after a while.
Parent-child interaction can improve attention span in a child
Although this is just a research on an infant’s attention span, the author emphasized that if parents spend more time interacting with their children in the right way, it will certainly improve the attention span of the child in the long run. Based on the results of this study, a question pops up: Is there a need for parents to accompany their children to do homework? I think the best way is to keep the child company in the beginning, go through the homework together by highlighting the important points and then let him continue and finish the homework on his own (leave the room).
In essence, there is no best way to shape how a child thinks, learns and develops as every kid is unique in his or her own way. However, helicopter (a style of child-rearing in which an overprotective mother or father discourages a child’s independence by being too involved in the child’s life) and free-range (a style of child-rearing in which parents allow their children to move about without constant adult supervision, aimed at instilling independence and self-reliance) parenting are definitely not the most effective methods to improve a kid’s attention span.
