Games for the development of children's concentration

Your child is always extremely focused. Whatever he is doing, he is not distracted, does not make mistakes because of being inattentive. It sounds like a fantasy.

What parents can do to help the child find and maintain this great balance between:

• curiosity and focus,
• involuntary and voluntary attention,
• volitional effort and relaxation.

7 mistakes of parents in the development of attention in children

1. The tasks that the child faces are too complicated. If you look at the apples growing on a tree, it is easy to notice that some have already ripened, while others are still quite green. So children of the same age are very different in their development from each other. And just as you can’t order an apple “Become red right now!”, you cannot push the process of psychophysiological maturation of your child. So check the task and the children's ability to cope with it!
2. The requirement to perform long-term work at a time. Moreover, phrases like: “The faster you can do it, the faster you will come back to your staff.” Even adults prefer division into stages. So  divide the task with the child into parts, call it “steps”, and only after that let him proceed to the task set for him.
3. Disregard for minor interference. What adults do not normally pay attention to becomes an annoying distraction for a child. Create a zone with a minimum of external random signals for him - telephone calls, outside conversations, piled things and toys on the table …
4. Disrespect to the efforts of the child. But for him not being distracted from classes is as difficult as for the one who first sits behind the wheel. Remember yourself in this role! At first, you did not understand what you should pay attention to first of all. And you needed training to cope with a new informational stream. Support the child, be on his side, become his “driving instructor”!
5. Neglect of attention training. We continue the old analogy with the development of driving techniques. The more training you have, the faster you get the skill. But! Do not forget about the first mistake. In other words, no matter how much your child trains, if his legs do not reach the gas pedal, he will not be able to drive until he reaches the required height.
6. Ignore that the brain and the whole body are one harmonious system. If a child has just had a disease, or has not had enough sleep, or has not eaten on time, or is weakened, then the result is an inevitable decline in cognitive activity and distracted attention. So a temporary decrease in intellectual loads for this period is necessary!
7. The overload of the child with tasks at the expense of his personal interests. In one of the textbooks on child psychiatry, a case was described when, unable to bear the music school, sports training, learning a foreign language, a child became sick with neurosis. The doctor ordered the parents to left the child alone. And for several weeks the child was just lying on the sofa and ... quietly barking like a dog. Think about it, are you trying to achieve this by constantly depriving a child of the joy of playing their favorite games and doing their favorite things?

So, if you have chosen the right balance between activities and entertainment for your child, here are a few educational games that will bring some pleasure to both your child and you.

Concentration games for preschool children

Any parent can easily find children's books on the shelves of bookstores where the attentive development tasks are published:

• crosswords;
• puzzles;
• tasks like “Find 6 differences”; 
• tasks like “Find a way out of the labyrinth”;
• tasks "Connect the dots and see the picture";
• coloring on the applied contours;
• put the pictures in the right order;
• online attention concentration exercises.

You can start your attention training on our website.

Each of these tasks, of course, contributes to the development of attention in the behavior and activity of the child. However, the problem is that they all require concentration and attention from the child. And what to do if for the child such studies are still complicated? Remember the apple on the tree? What if it is still green? Here are fun and useful games for such cases:

The game "Freeze" or how to teach a child to sit still

Honestly, children play it without you. But, if you want to use this game for concentration, here's what you can do.

Option 1. “Statue”: offer the child to change different postures and make faces. At some point, tell him to “Freeze,” and he should stand still in the position in which he finds himself. And you can even take a picture of him, so that you can laugh together later. Finish after the command "Move."

Option 2. “Freeze - Classic”: On a relatively free evening or day, decide that you will freeze and move after the commands of each other. You can also take pictures.

Option 3. "Sleeping Beauty." The child does not have to go to bed. Remind the child that in the sleeping beauty palace everyone fell asleep in various poses. Let her (and if it is he, then, of course, then this is “Sleeping Prince”) choose a comfortable pose and “fall asleep” while waiting for her rescuer. Mom or dad play their roles at this time - they hunt, lose and search for the road, combat with the dragon (there will be some changes in comparison with the original of the fairy tale, we need them to lengthen the “sleep” time). Under the terms of the game, you can “sleep” with your eyes open, but only until the moment when the prince or beauty will be disenchanted. How? - Of course, a gentle parental kiss!

The game “Let’s sing, friends!” Or how to help a child finish the task

For example, putting away toys in the evenings can cause stress even for the most patient moms and dads. Not only is everyone tired and it is difficult to concentrate in the evening, but also each toy found under the sofa serves the child as an excuse to stop cleaning and switch to the game.

In order to remind the child what he should be focused on right now, think up and sing a song with your baby. For example,

“I will remove the toys, remove them, remove them.

I’ll put everything in place, lay them out, lay them out. ”

Sing together until you finish putting the toys in place. For each such task, you can come up with your own song – stupid and funny. The main thing is that the melody should be simple and easily sung by your child.

The game "Fairy Tale, Revive!" Or how to teach a child to follow the plot attentively

When you read a fairy tale to a child, ask him not to sit still, but to repeat the actions of the characters, following the development of the events. Here Ivanushka is a dark forest, making his way through the dense branches. Here he meets Baba Yaga and bows to her.

Pick up books with plots that are easily reproduced using symbolic actions. Correct the child if he is distracted from the events described. Praise for good visual solutions.

Tasks of attention concentration for younger students

If preschoolers have a basic mastery of skills externally, e.g. through external actions, then loud speech or pronouncing aloud helps to develop concentration of attention in children of primary school age. That is how the well-known psychologist Galperin described the process of forming mental actions. That is why, the following two exercises are aimed at developing attention concentration through loud pronunciation.

"Create by ourselves" or how to increase the attention of the child

When you are reading a book, ask the child questions after each chapter he read about what happened to the characters, where they were, what they said. Before you go on to read the next chapter, fantasize together about what will happen to the characters next. This will create an additional motive for the child to follow the plot more attentively in order to compare your combined version with the author later.

“Explain and teach” or how to teach a child to stay focused on the task

Invite the child to talk out loud about what he is doing at the moment and what he has to do. Give an example of how the presenter in cooking programs teaches the audience to cook:

- “I need a pan.

- I have to warm it up.

“Now we need to cut the carrot ...”

You can ask him to teach you what he is currently doing. Or offer him to explain his actions. Speaking out loud keeps the attention better at a younger school age. But you have to be patient and show sincere interest.

"Tongue twisters" or how to teach to focus on a difficult task

Tongue twisters are phrases that require particularly close attention. You can compete in their learning during long journeys in the car. All passengers can take part in the competition.

Do you want to complicate the task? Learn with your child tongue twisters in a foreign language. Here are, for example, English tongue twisters, offered for this purpose by American child psychologists:

— I can think of six thin things, but I can think of six thick things too.

— If you want to buy, buy, if you don’t want to buy, bye bye!

— She sells sea shells by the sea shore.

— Give papa a cup of proper coffee in a copper coffee cup.

— The blue bluebird blinks.