How to Help an Easily Distracted Child

How to Help an Easily Distracted Child

Do you feel that your child is easily distracted? Has their teacher told you that they can't concentrate in the classroom? It seems clear that your child has an attention problem that may affect their school performance and their learning in general. This is must be taken seriously, because it will lay the path for what follows and will have a bearing on their development.

You should work alongside their teachers and tutors to develop strategies and habits that will help address this behavior and prevent it from escalating. In this article, we at OneHowTo will explain how to help an easily distracted child.

Steps to follow:
1

First and foremost, you need to define your child's specific attention problem; doing so will enable you to set goals you want to achieve.

When your child does not listen to you or is not able to read and follow instructions, eventually they will have no idea what it is that's being asked of them. If this is the case, over time your child will become more and more confused. You'll have to help them catch up and be a source of support for them without judging them in any way.

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Your child might also rush to solve tasks without really understanding why or how. To help with this particular absentminded behavior, you should implement study techniques as recommended by their teacher. If they do not understand what they're doing, these uncertainties will remain unresolved or they might just memorize things without grasping the logic behind it.

Another possibility is that they might know how to resolve a certain issue, but they become distracted and do not manage to see it through. If this is the case, you have to figure out what it is that is distracting your child; they may have a problem that's playing on their mind, or there might be something that is worrying them. Children are like sponges and absorb all the energy from the environment. Talk to them to find the reason behind this constant distraction.

3

Your child may be distracted because they are bored or even unmotivated. You will have to find the source of the problem and find a solution immediately. Talk to their peers and their teacher and watch them to find the root cause. If they eventually need support of any kind, offer it to them. You'll also have to set achievable targets and, when they achieve them, reward their accomplishments. Reward your child with praise and with small rewards (such as a redeemable points system) to serve as motivation.

A good tip to help boost your child's concentration is, for example, to ask them to do their homework after physical exertion. When there are problems with concentration, get your child to use up all that excess physical energy by playing games or practicing a sport of their choice.

4

Other tips that will help break that distracted attitude is to get your child into the habit of repeating what they should do out loud, as if they were giving orders. Although it seems a trivial thing to do, the process of saying what to do out loud pushes them to remember it, follow each step and achieve their goals.

A fun and visual way of helping a distracted child is to hang papers with messages or drawings up which tell them what to do. Another habit that you can teach them is to divide tasks into phases so that you can gradually evaluate their performance. It will also make it easier for you child to achieve a particular goal when it's divided into smaller, more manageable steps.

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If you want to help your child with their absent-minded behavior you can also use specific games. There are many that enhance attention and concentration - in the end everything is possible with a little training and patience.

Some game ideas include playing with memory cards, pairs, discovering hidden elements, spot-the-difference games, questions with several possible answers, role-playing characters with a backstory, join-the-dots or sorting cards by sequences. The options are many, and they will be a great way of boosting your child's attention skills - plus you'll spend quality time together!

If your child enjoys using electronic devices, take a look at our list of educational apps they can try.

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This is how to help an easily distracted child; if you have any tips, please tell us in the comments section!

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