Rohan Sharma is a smart kid. He grasps things easily and understands them well and can even put them into application, still it doesn’t translate into good grades for him at school! His parents are worried as they can’t seem to figure out what is going wrong with him. They have tried sending him to the best of tuitions available; a personal tutor was hired too, but it didn’t help much.
At their wits end, a family friend who was a teacher suggested that the actual culprit might be Rohan’s wavering concentration that might be hampering his ability to get a good grade. Heaving a sigh of relief the Sharma’s realized that all they had to do now was ensure that Rohan concentrated well during lectures.
Following are a few simple tips which will help increase your child’s concentration:
- Keep them away from Sugar:
If your ward is having problems with concentration, the first place to look in is your kitchen! Check his diet – breakfast, snacks, Tiffin and dinner, for sugar content. Most of the times, kids consume a lot of sugar through their favorite snacks, breakfast and other food items, which results in them getting a sugar rush!
Sugar rush is nothing but the presence of the excessive sugar in their bloodstream that makes them hyperactive which makes it difficult for them to concentrate on one singular thing at a time. Furthermore this sugar rush tends to fade away in a span of 3-4 hours and this leads to them becoming lethargic and irritated, further hampering their chances of having a good concentration.
Taking down notes during classes helps. You make a note only after you have heard the teacher say something important; this note making helps your child reinforce what has been taught.
The reinforcement helps your child to not only re-hash the day’s teaching but also helps him to improve his concentration as he has to pay complete attention to what the teacher is saying and later concentrate on trying to re-call what his notes say!
Many of us adults would agree that multi- tasking is quite difficult. In fact Multi-tasking ensures that we cannot concentrate on one single task at hand when we have a bevy of tasks lying in front of us. Now imagine your children who by nature are curios and inquisitive and are sitting with a multitude of books in front of them!
Now throw in the computer, Television and other tempting gadgets in the mix, surely it would be a concentration buster won’t it?
Allocate a certain study time for a certain subject as this will help the child concentrate on one subject and understand it properly. So instead of 1 hour of study for 4 subjects, distribute it over a 20 minute study time for per subject! This distribution will work wonders for your child’s concentration levels.
Breaking study sessions helps children concentrate better. Remember those monotonous board meetings where you could do with a break, now imagine your child sitting through atleast 6 hours of continuous teaching per day at school, seems like a too long board meeting?
Breaking up study sessions seems like a wonderful idea especially when the child is having trouble concentrating. Such breaks serve as revitalizers for the child’s sagging interest and concentration levels when it comes to studying, as taking a few moments off the subject at hand can freshen up the mind.
While you can only hope that your child concentrates in school, at home there are certain areas where you can ensure that his concentration is optimum. For doing so, you need to watch your habits and your family’s habits! See whether some family members have a habit of speaking too loudly or listening to music or TV too loudly? Similarly check whether your habit of supervising over every aspect of your child’s studying is affecting his concentration levels? Also do check whether your child is eating well, is he under any kind of stress at all?
While the family habits can be managed easily, you’ll face difficulty in controlling your habit of supervising over his studies, as some children find the presence of an adult or rather anyone disturbing when it comes to concentrating on their studies. Ensure that he sits to study in a well lit room with good ventilation and least possible noises in the background.
To improve his concentration, look into his diet and cut down on his junk food intake if it is in excess, also try and sort out situations which might be stressing him out, as stress tends to interfere in one’s concentrating ability.
The main thing to be kept in mind here is that you mustn’t seek to improve your child’s concentration only from the academic point of view but from an overall point of view. A good concentration will ensure that even as an adult your child will be able to concentrate better and have a chance at a better professional as well as personal life!
