"Attention" is a common psychological phenomenon, usually called "concentration". When children listen to the radio and watch TV cartoons, their attention will be focused, but they will turn a deaf ear and turn a blind eye to the people and things around them. This is attention.
Cultivating children's attention should start from preschool. This is because the main task of preschool period is to prepare conditions for children's formal learning through some learning activities. Good attention is one of the necessary conditions, which can make children concentrate on their studies after school. Many parents only care about how many words their children have learned and how many pictures they have drawn before going to school, but they ignore the cultivation of their attention. As a result, it is difficult for these children to adapt to formal learning after attending primary school, which is characterized by inattention in class and careless homework, which seriously affects the improvement of academic performance.
How to cultivate children's attention? First of all, we should cultivate children's good behavior habits from the aspects of living habits. The way to take is not a storm, but to start from small things. For example, ask children to go to bed and get up on time; Eat on time, leave no rice in the bowl; Toys are restored after use; Do things seriously, or start all over again ... no details, no education. But not all small things should be taken care of, but those "small things" that are of essential significance to children's growth and quality should be chosen.
What children have never seen or heard can attract their attention with unique charm. Therefore, children should be taken to nature to watch exotic flowers and exotic buildings and cultivate their interest. Interest is the driving force of observation and concentration. It is necessary to help children determine the purpose and task of observation, because children like to look around, have a weak purpose and can't grasp the main point, so they can't get anything. Therefore, parents should put forward some requirements and purposes for their children, inform them of methods, and guide them to grasp the essence, from shallow to deep, and concentrate.
In children's learning, it is not enough to rely solely on attention when they encounter difficulties and interference, or when they encounter boring content. We should consciously cultivate children's self-control ability and make attention subordinate to the purpose and task of the activity. Parents can cultivate their children's self-control by focusing on one thing for a period of time, such as drawing, practicing piano and writing. Don't say one thing at a time and another at a time. It is best to have a fixed time and place for training to form the guidance of psychological activities.
The stronger a child's interest in something, the easier it is to form a stable and focused attention. Parents should not confine their children to study in the room all day, but encourage them to engage in various activities, so that they can explore and develop their abilities and interests and cultivate their attention.
Irregular work and rest and irregular life are the main reasons for children's distraction. Learning is mental work, which consumes a lot of oxygen in the brain. If children are eager for success, forcing them to engage in monotonous learning activities for a long time will inevitably lead to brain fatigue and mental distraction. Psychological experiments show that 3-year-old children can keep their attention for 3-5 minutes, 4-year-old children 10 minutes, and 5-6-year-old children only 15 minutes. Therefore, make a reasonable timetable for children's work and rest, so that children can clearly know when they can enjoy themselves and when they must concentrate on completing their learning tasks and form a good habit of combining work and rest.
At the same time, in order to create a quiet family study atmosphere and let children concentrate on their studies, parents should first be quiet by themselves and don't do anything that distracts their children's attention, such as watching TV, talking loudly or laughing. Parents can also study hard and let their children follow suit with exemplary behavior. When children study, don't nag too much, ask questions, and don't receive guests in the room where children study, which will interfere with children and make them unable to concentrate.
According to the survey, "children's inattention" is a headache for many parents. To correct this problem, we can start with children's health, personality and family environment.
Studies have shown that the degree of children's distraction is inversely proportional to their age: at the age of two, the average attention span is seven minutes; Four years and 12 minutes, five years and 14 minutes. The older a child is, the more he will gradually know how to focus on important things and increase the time of concentration. Therefore, judging whether a child is focused or not should be based on the length of attention of his age, not on the subjective feelings of his parents.
Children's inattention is usually manifested in two situations: first, attention floats, and the focused target will often shift; Second, absent-minded, often immersed in daydreaming, forget the immediate things. The latter is actually not a child with inattention, but his attention is misplaced. As long as parents correct them with their heart and let them turn their minds to the main things, they will often have amazing performance and achievements. There are many reasons for inattention. Physiologically, if the child is unwell, the police force or perception is underdeveloped, he is naturally active, and there is something wrong with the nervous system or brain micro-function, there will be inattention. These conditions must be examined and treated by doctors.
In addition, lack of psychological security and self-confidence, excessive dependence, lack of patience or emotional distress are also the reasons for inattention. Most of these situations are caused by educational methods and growth environment. In addition to solving physical problems, parents should also realize that concentration is actually a behavior habit that can be trained, studied and cultivated. Therefore, while complaining about children's inattention, we should also reflect on ourselves.
For example, children playing games are concentrating on cultivating the habit of concentration. At this time, parents must not disturb, interfere or interrupt at will. Usually, parents can properly match the game time with their daily life, designate a fixed corner to play games, arrange the environment in an orderly way and reduce children's distraction. Parents should not ask their children to do things that are not interesting or beyond their ability. In order to prevent them from escaping the criticism of adults by constantly changing their activities.
In addition, the atmosphere at home must be stable, avoiding moving frequently, and there are too many people coming and going at home. Don't buy too many toys and books for your children at the same time; Make them glance left and right, at a loss, unable to cultivate the habit of being careful, patient, repetitive and focused on one thing.
Parents should set an example and show concentration, persistence and patience. Once you find that your child is paying attention, you should encourage and praise him.
For young children, you can start with telling a story and increase the number to train. As for older children, they are encouraged to do interesting and competent jobs, and when they finish one thing, they start to do another, and the time invested is gradually increasing. In addition to reminding yourself not to be distracted, parents should also show a kind attitude. As long as these methods are adopted, children's inattention can be improved.
Six golden rules to cultivate children's attention
Russian educator ushinski once said, "Attention is the skylight of the soul". Only by opening this window of attention can the sunshine of wisdom fill the audience.
Attention is the basic ability of children's study and life. The quality of attention directly affects children's cognitive, social and emotional development, as well as their academic performance after entering school.
Although the formation of children's attention has a certain relationship with congenital inheritance, the influence of acquired environment and education is more important. Parents should create a good educational environment for their children according to the laws and characteristics of their physical and mental development, and consciously cultivate their attention from the birth of their children to help them develop good attention quality and ability.
(A) to create a quiet and simple environment
Children's attention stability is poor, and it is easy to be diverted by new stimuli, which is the common feature of preschool children. Therefore, according to this feature, parents should eliminate all kinds of factors that may distract their children's attention and create a quiet and simple material environment for their children.
For example, the place where children play quiet games or read books should be far away from the aisle to prevent others from walking back and forth and affecting children's activities; The wall layout should not be too fancy; Items that may attract children's attention, such as TV, candy, etc., should also be placed in a distant position.
Parents should also pay attention to adjusting their words and deeds, put forward appropriate requirements for their children in a timely manner, and form a good interaction model with their children.
For example, when a child is absorbed in something, adults should not disturb the child at will. We often see children absorbed in playing with plastic plug-ins or building blocks. Dad came to ask him if he was full. After a while, grandma came to let the children drink juice. After a while, his mother asked him to help him with his things. Children's activities in just a few minutes were interrupted several times by adults. After a long time, they naturally can't concentrate. Therefore, when children concentrate on their work, parents had better sit down and do some quiet activities to avoid disturbing their children.
(2) Have a regular life
The pace of a child's life and the length of various activities will affect his attention. Therefore, parents should pay attention to arrange their children's life and rest.
Let children's lives be relaxed and full of vitality. The transition between different activities should be peaceful, and children should be prepared for the transition.
For example, when a child runs around outdoors, his heart beats faster and every cell in his body is excited. After entering the room, it is difficult for children to enter quiet activities immediately, such as painting or reading. Some parents ask their children to keep quiet and concentrate immediately. This requirement itself is unreasonable, and it goes against the operating rules of children's body organs.
Ask your child not to concentrate for too long. Research shows that the time for children to concentrate at the end of a large class is about 15 minutes. Therefore, parents should pay attention to adjusting the time when arranging their children's activities, and don't force their children to sit still all day.
(3) Cultivate children's self-discipline ability
Poor self-control of children is another important reason why attention is easily distracted. When a new stimulus appears, adults can restrain themselves from paying attention to it, but it is difficult for children to do so. Therefore, in order to cultivate children's attention, adults can consciously create situations and gradually improve children's self-discipline ability.
Through the game, the requirement of continuous attention is transformed into the behavior rules of the game characters themselves.
For example, play a game of "directing traffic" with children and let them play the role of traffic policemen. It is agreed in advance that each traffic police station will last for 3 minutes, and the shift can only be changed when the time is up. In the game, the requirement of attention duration can be gradually improved. Through different game activities, children can gradually internalize the external rules of the game into internal self-restraint.
Consciously increase interference factors and enhance children's self-control ability.
For example, parents can occasionally pretend to put toys, books or sweets that children are interested in when they are doing something. When children show that they want to give up their current activities and choose new temptations, parents should make clear requirements in time to let their children concentrate.
(d) Train children to pay attention to the breadth of things.
Another manifestation of children's poor attention is that they can't pay attention to multiple things at the same time. So parents should consciously design some activities to cultivate children's attention span.
"guessing game"
First put the car, ball, pencil and other items in front of the child, let the child observe for a few seconds, then let him close his eyes and quietly take away a few items, and then let him say what is missing. This game requires children to pay attention to several items quickly while observing, so as to exercise their attention span.
Matters needing attention
Parents should pay attention to the differences between children's ages and individuals, and the number of items presented, the number of items taken away and the length of observation should be appropriate. For older children, more projects can be presented and the observation time can be shorter.
Stimulate children's interest and demand for activities.
Interest and need are the internal driving force of children's activities and the emotional system that directly affects children's attention. In order to keep children's continuous interest in an activity, parents should pay attention to the difficulty of the activity content to suit their children's level, so that children can feel certain challenges while experiencing the happiness of success.
If the content of the activity has nothing to do with the child's previous experience, the child does not have enough experience preparation and ability preparation, and the task of the activity is beyond his control, even if the form is vivid and interesting, it will not attract their attention; If the task is too difficult, it is not challenging for the child, and the child will not be interested and unable to concentrate.
(6) Clarify the purpose and requirements of the activity.
Attention serves the task. The clearer the task, the more urgent the desire to complete the task, and the more focused and lasting the attention. To make a child's attention last, adults should not force him to do anything, but let him know why he should do it and stimulate his desire to do it well.
Therefore, before the activity, parents should help their children to clarify the purpose and requirements of the activity. During the activity, parents should remind their children in time so that their attention always points in a certain direction.
For example, parents and children plant a bean and put it on the windowsill. In the first few days, children may often come to have a look out of curiosity. But after a long time, the interest tends to fade, and naturally it will not come to visit.
If parents can say to their children before planting beans, "this bean will soon grow long green leaves." If you see it sprouting, come and tell your mother at once. " This gives the child a task. In order to complete the task given by his mother, he must always pay attention.
skill
When parents put forward the purpose and requirements of activities to their children, they should pay attention to the fact that the requirements must be specific and have a clear direction. General and vague requirements have little positive effect on children's attention, because children don't know how to pay attention, when to pay attention and what to pay attention to.
For example, if parents just say "you should pay attention to its changes", children may be at a loss, thus losing interest in observation and unable to concentrate for a long time. At this time, parents are required to clearly put forward specific requirements and point their children's attention to something specific. Therefore, it would be better if parents can say "green leaves are growing" or "look at what has happened to its leaves"