Almost every mom I speak to seems to have the same issue - this total lack of concentration when it comes to anything related to school. Mind you, its not a blanket thing, this lack of concentration. Bring out the color pencils and Anoushka can sit for hours together. Read her stories and she will fight sleep tooth and nail the whole night if she can get us to read that long. But the minute you plonk her down for home work or some reading practice and there you have it... "I need to pee, my back is scratching, I want to sharpen my pencil..." I even have a few classic ones..."my pencil is slow, the homework is taking tooo long..."
Anoushka's lack of attention has scared me at times. I mean, she looks at the word "What", spells it correct and then says its "how". Textbooks read in class by the teacher have a tendency of getting learnt by rote, so I need to watch closely to see where its going wrong. Oh and we have had our share of bawling and screaming and shouting... this is after a truck load of patience, several mix and match situations of play first and then study, study and then play, play-study-play-study and many incentive based sessions as well. And then you have days like today when Anoushka is like a whole new child. All CW and HW is done already. Everything is read and spelt perfectly so much so that if I asked her random words she spelt it and then found it in the book.
But I was scared enough to cry on the shoulder of my best friend Google. I just wanted to see what the rest of the world thought. I got a few thoughts that made a lot of sense and am listing them all here and what I think about it. I would love to hear what anyone who reads this thinks and feels about these points.
The first thing - Gosh, most of the western world thinks that the minute your child can't concentrate he or she has ADHD or some other attention deficit order.. I mean come on.. can you blame the kids of today. It is a possibility, no denying it... but not in majority of the cases. So setting that opinion aside... here it is
Viewpoints on lack of concentration
The work of one psychologist I read online mentioned that concentration varies simply because the noise levels at home and that at school are two different things. For children especially in the 5-8 years category, psychologically adjusting to this change in atmospheres can result in broken concentration. So I was wondering whether playing music in the background would work. I so far have mixed results.
Another interesting opinion I came across was this - as school work progresses, the time it takes to complete each task gets longer. Our kids however can't get it into their systems to stick with the job long enough to complete it. A suggestion was to involve kids in activities that are multiple leveled - where to complete a task, they have to go through stages. This, in a while will translate into them being able to spend more time on their school work to complete it. I got Anoushka a story book that is also a coloring book. I have told her to spend a little time everyday coloring it till she is done and has a complete story book. Seems to be working as she spends considerable amount of time on it. And gradually I have seen her able to hold on longer especially with her EVS books.
This next one actually opened my eyes a bit. Kids tend to follow instructions that are short and sweet. At least for me, when she doesn't seem to be getting things right, I tend to nag and that's when most kids switch off. Short and sweet instructions work. Come to think of it, it happens the same way in school with most teachers too. I have begun the short instructions thing and most of the time manage to get the job done.
This next one too made sense to me... this educationist (I can't remember the study) mentioned that with time this concept of age-appropriate books have come. This is basically an image on a page with few words that describe exactly what is there. We get our kids used to this and the minute they are faced with their textbooks, the excess effort just seems too much and they switch off. Books of our generation had a generic picture and we had to depend on the words to know what was happening. It generated a sense of curiosity in us and encouraged us to read. I have kept away all those age appropriate books now and am trying those that are slightly higher. Honestly Anoushka does display that curiosity now.
What we can do
Now this first one has worked brilliantly for me. I have bought a kiddie clock and placed it on Anoushka's table. Every task I give her is timed, following which she loses one privilege - Story time, TV time, playtime.. something or the other. It has worked in eating and homework too. In eating we have this thing called "beat the clock" - each bite starts at one point and we have to follow the seconds hand for 1 or 2 minutes to complete. If the clock wins, one point for it and vice versa.
One child specialist said that she observed that when a group of young children are given a task, they first stand still and think a while on how they want to go about it. Only then does the chaos begin with each one. Most children like to be given time to figure out how to tackle an assignment. When I see Anoushka hesitating these days I try to give her a few minutes to think. She actually has come up with some really sane ways to go about her work.
One of the tricks recommended is to build patience among kids. And yes! I too held my stomach and laughed till I cried when I first read this. But I did try some of the suggestions one of which is when we are alone at home and the day is kind of done, I switch off all the noise making things in the house and ask Anoushka to concentrate and tell me the different sounds she can hear. It takes a few trial rounds for you get past the obvious and then you will be surprised at the things they hear. It helps build concentration and even listening power.
Another thing that has worked personally for us is indirect talking. We noticed that Anoushka was all ears when we talk to somebody visiting or on the phone. She loves it when she is the center of the conversation even though she does not show it. So I started creating imaginary situations where I speak to my husband or mother on the phone and tell them about how "so and so little kid did not do their homework and did this repeatedly till the parents went to the school to have a chat with the teacher." Anoushka cannot bear the thought of anyone saying something bad about her to her teacher and automatically comes on track... for a while... But not once has she mentioned hearing this conversation.
I also realized that each time I tried to get Anoushka to sit down and read she would get all irritated. It took me a while to figure out that in class, the teacher reads out the words and spells only what is important... the same goes with exercises based on each lesson. I tried it the same way where I read out what she doesn't know rather than get her to figure it out. One or two times and then she gets it herself. She just used to get angry that mommy is making me do what teacher did not. And you can't over-rule teacher's words can you.
Phew! these are just some of my thoughts on this ever-worrying lack of concentration. Tell me what you think.
