At a young age, children usually find it difficult to focus on one thing at a time. This is because their brain gets diverted with the varied activities that are taking place around them. It is difficult for kids to concentrate at a single activity, as they get lured to something else very soon. The curiosity to know different things leads to restlessness and instability in them. When in a limit, restlessness can be tolerated and even deemed good. However, if in excess, it becomes difficult to handle and can harm growth and development of a child. To get rid of the problem, parents should resort to focus building techniques, like the ones given below.
Techniques for Bringing Focus in Kids
- Bird on a Mountain: This is one of the exercises to build focus of your child. Ask your child to stand still in mountain pose, with feet together, arms at sides, body stretched like a mountain. Now, challenge the kid to stand tall and strong, focusing on the spot, while you try to distract himr by silly actions.
- Flamingo Pose: This technique also begins with mountain pose. Ask your child to slowly lift his right leg up, with knee bent, till his right thigh becomes parallel to the floor. After this, ask him to spread his arms at his sides. Now, slowly and gracefully make him flap his arms like big, beautiful wings of a flamingo. While doing this, ask him to concentrate on his focal point, for deep big breaths. Now resume position and try on the other side.
- Dancer Pose: This also begins with the mountain pose and requires great stability. Ask the child to bend the left knee and take the leg back, putting all the weight on his right foot. Make him bend backwards, to hold his left foot with left hand. Keep your right hand straight and parallel to the ground. As this is not easy to practice, ask your child to hold on to you or have one hand on the wall.
- The Coin Game: It is an interesting game, thoroughly enjoyed by kids. Take a small pile of assorted coins, a cardboard sheet and a stopwatch. Now, choose any five coins from the pile, like three pennies and two nickels, and put them on the table, in a sequence. Now ask your child to look carefully at the arrangement of the coins. After this, cover the coins with the cardboard sheet. Start the stopwatch and ask the child to make the same pattern, with the help of the coins in the pile. This will help in increasing the focus of the child. You can increase the level of the game as per his performance and include pennies, nickels, dimes, quarters, and half dollars for more difficult patterns.
- Mind-Body Integration: This technique is considered to be quite vital in enhancing the focus of a child. For this, just ask your child to sit on a chair, without moving, for a specified time period. Time the duration for which the child is able to achieve it. Repeated practice will show you results in the form of child stability. This activity strengthens the neural connections between the brain and body.
- Crossword Puzzles and Picture Puzzles: These kinds of games are also helpful in enhancing the focus of a child. Crossword puzzles improve attention towards words and sequencing ability, while picture puzzles improve attention and concentration.