Children are a group of immature physical and mental development, behind the phenomenon of "inattention", there are special physical and psychological development characteristics of children, many parents are misunderstood because of the lack of understanding of relevant knowledge, and over time, parents are painful, and children are also painful. Therefore, it is of great significance to understand the characteristics of children's attention development, the causes of inattention and the ways to cope with them to promote child development and family harmony.
The child may not be blamed for his lack of concentration.
The development of children's attention is directly related to their level of physical and mental development, and compared with adults, the development of children's attention has the following characteristics.
First, unintentional attention is dominant, and intentional attention is relatively passive. For example, children need teachers to repeatedly remind "small eyes to see the teacher", this is because children's excitatory inhibition is produced relatively quickly, the inhibitory effect of the second signal system is weak, and it is easy to be attracted by new, mutated and moving things in the outside world, so intentional attention needs to be guided and strengthened.
Second, the stability of attention is poor. For example, children are always unable to hold on after a while, because the child's nervous system is still in the process of growth and development, and some functions have not yet been fully developed, and if they are in a state of tension for a long time or engage in monotonous and boring activities, the brain will feel tired and unable to maintain concentration for a long time.
Third, the breadth of attention is insufficient. For example, children sometimes "ignore the beginning and the tail", and are prone to errors and mistakes when copying, and cannot read a sentence fluently when reading a text. This is mainly because the reticulation of attention in the child's brain is not yet fully myelinated, so the range of attention in the child is limited.
Fourth, the ability to distribute attention is weak. For example, children have difficulty "doing two things" and have limited ability to "listen and do at the same time" and "write while speaking". Because the premise of assigning attention is that at least one of the activities that are being carried out at the same time is that the individual is very skilled. Children's lack of knowledge and experience, skills and techniques, and insufficient attention control ability lead to weak attention distribution ability.
What factors affect children's inattention?
First, the development of children's attention and cognitive development are closely related to life experience.
First of all, the development of a child's attention is limited by the level of cognitive development. According to the pedagogue Piaget's theory of cognitive development stages, 2 7-year-old children are in the pre-arithmetic stage, and their thinking needs to be carried out with the help of the mental representation of concrete objects, which is irreversible, self-centered, and stereotyped, and cannot carry out abstract thinking operations;7 12-year-old children are in the stage of concrete operations, and although their thinking begins to be reversible, they still need the support of concrete things, and they are not yet able to think about things that do not exist or things that have never happened.
Therefore, children learn perceptually from concrete things, and symbols such as arithmetic, Chinese characters, and words are no different from "garbled characters" in the eyes of children. For example, instead of letting children memorize "2+3=5" and lose interest and confidence in learning in the process of repeated frustrations, it is better to use life scenarios to help children understand the meaning behind the equation: take two oranges first, then three oranges, a total of five oranges. Second, children's knowledge and experience are limited.
Second, children's attention is influenced by emotions and interests.
On the one hand, emotions directly affect the choice and effect of attention. Positive emotions can improve the breadth and flexibility of attention, while negative emotions and mood swings can easily lead to distraction and distraction. Children's ability to regulate emotions is weak, so the impact of emotions on children's attention is more obvious. For example, parents who stare at their child's homework and "increase the volume" when they find that they have made a mistake cause the child to become nervous, or who angrily call the child "stupid" will not be able to focus on the homework itself.
On the other hand, interest directly influences the choice of attention. Children are always unconsciously focused on things of interest. For example, the sound of birdsong, the teacher's bright jewelry, and the view outside the window seem to attract children's attention more when learning content that they are not interested in. Therefore, in the selection and organization of activities, children's interests should be taken care of and made as interesting as possible. Like play is the instinct of many animals, for younger children, you can skillfully combine games and learning, so that children's unintentional attention and intentional attention interaction, so as to achieve twice the learning effect with half the effort.
In addition, children's attention is also affected by a variety of factors such as lifestyle habits, family parenting style, and acquired training and reinforcement. First of all, bad lifestyle habits are not conducive to the development of attention. For example, children's attention can also be adversely affected by lack of sleep for a long time, lack of trace elements such as zinc in their diet, and long-term addiction to electronic products.
Secondly, the cultivation of attention is closely related to the parenting style of parents. For example, parents frequently command their children or repeatedly "interrupt" them when they are focused, chatting with them for a while, and giving them fruit and milk for a while, these behaviors are also not conducive to the development of attention.
At the same time, some sports, art training and mental games are also important ways to cultivate the quality of attention. For example, according to the weak links of children's attention, targeted attention training and reinforcement, through scientific "sight, hearing, movement" training, effectively correct children's "unable to sit still", poor self-control and other bad habits.
What should I do if my child is inattentive?
Create a suitable environment to reduce external interference. Children's attention is easily attracted to new, intensely varied things. Therefore, in order to help children develop good attention qualities, first of all, pay attention to creating a suitable environment, try to choose a quiet, bright, spacious and simple place, and do not put too many irrelevant items except for materials related to the activity.
Secondly, when children are concentrating on ongoing activities, parents should try not to interrupt or shush frequently to promote children's good attention habits. Third, establish a reasonable routine and rest habits, ensure adequate nutrition and sleep, control the amount of time children use electronic products, and eliminate external factors that cause children's attention to be distracted.
Clarify the tasks of the activity and arrange the duration reasonably. On the one hand, it is difficult for children to pay attention to multiple aspects at the same time. Therefore, it can help children clarify activity tasks and break down large tasks into phased small tasks. For example, parents help children disassemble Lego, puzzles, homework, etc. into several parts, and then set the children to complete and time them one by one, which is conducive to improving the concentration and direction of children's attention in activities
Children, on the other hand, have a limited amount of attention span. In general, attention can be maintained for 3 to 5 minutes in a 3-year-old child;4 years old about 10 minutes;5 6 years old about 15 minutes;7 10 years old about 20 minutes;10 12 years old about 25 minutes. Beyond the attention span, children will have difficulty concentrating. Therefore, parents should arrange the duration of activities reasonably, interspersed with other activities or arrange intermittent breaks.
Maintain a positive mood and insist on positive evaluation. Large mood swings, especially negative emotions such as loss and fear, are not conducive to maintaining children's concentration. Therefore, try to create a positive emotional atmosphere for your child. For example, when a child makes progress or puts in an effort, parents should give timely affirmation and encouragement to positively reinforce the child's excellent performanceOn the contrary, when children make mistakes, do not rush to criticize and deny, fall into the misunderstanding of "the more wrong you are, the more afraid you are, the more you are afraid of the more wrong", be more patient and tolerant, and provide children with a relaxed and peaceful psychological environment.
Mobilize children's interest and use games for training. Play is a popular way for children to learn, and parents can strengthen their attention through games and targeted training.
For example, children are required to complete games such as maze walking, finding faults, and Schulte squares within the specified time to improve the breadth, stability and ability to distribute attention. Another example is to train children's auditory attention by allowing children to independently retell the characters, plots, and even details of the story after telling a picture book story. In addition, parents can also take their children to participate in ball games such as badminton and table tennis to train children's visual attention and hand-eye coordination, which are beneficial to the formation of good attention qualities in children.
It is true that it is the nature of children to be active and active, but when their children have obvious attention problems, parents should take their children to an authoritative institution for evaluation and diagnosis in time, and if necessary, they can carry out professional intervention training.
Column: Special Tutor 1538 issue.
*: People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) Education ** Weekly.
Author: Hong Xiumin, Wang Yu, Wang Mei.
Photo.com.