Swathi Palanivel
Kids are full of energy and to cope with that you have to find some activities to help kids concentrate better. As a mom I struggled to help my child focus on things as her attention kept on dangling from one thing to the other. One minute she’ll be drawing something and in the next she’ll be throwing tantrums around and in the next she’ll again do something else. I badly wanted to improve her focus and concentration while doing things.
After different methods or say, experiments, I found out a few ways to keep my kid engaged and focused in doing certain things in the given time. I would like to share with you those activities to help kids concentrate better. With a little patience and your guidance, you kid could now concentrate better in everything that they do! Read further to know how.
Problems faced by kids to concentrate
There could be any number of reasons why a child couldn’t concentrate on their studies or with the things that they do. Being full of energy and curiosity, the kids’ train of thought shifts randomly. Also, unlike us, who have to finish our tasks no matter what, kids do things only if they are interested to do it. Hence they often end up shifting their attention to random things and lose their focus. With lots and lots of gadgets around, it becomes hard to refrain kids from getting addicted to those gadgets. Here are some secret tips to help your children fall in love with the habit of reading!
Before getting to know about the activities to help kids concentrate, let us first get to know about the reasons why children lose their focus. Those reasons include,
- Lack of interest
- External distractions
- Poor routine
- Lack of sleep
- Conventional teaching methods
Try to identify the reason behind your kids fidgeting behaviours and personalise the activities to help kids concentrate better!
What should we do?
Children sometimes tend to get away from something that they do not understand, as it would bore them. Of course, with curiosity they try to get to know it by themselves. But they need a little push. To help your kids concentrate better, introduce it with a funny story, teach them the basics and then they would be interested to learn it with all their heart!
For instance, for a kid of 3-4, who is in kindergarten, we should introduce simple words through activities that involve lots of pictures, and then teach them the spelling as they look at the picture. By which they could learn words easily by relating it to the pictures. It is important for a kid to know the basics in order to understand something better and to grow interest in it. Though this may seem trivial this is one of the basic activities to help kids concentrate better!
In order to choose some activities to help kids concentrate better and to know better about them, you need to play more with them. Open-ended plays are best suited for that. There are no strict rules or steps to play the game, nor is there any end or closure to the game! Interesting right? Check out this article to know more about Open-ended plays and it’s benefits.
Activities to improve concentration
1.Puzzles
Although you teach your kids the basics and get them started, they could still be distracted in between. Puzzles are one of the interesting activities to help kids concentrate better! The curious nature of kids makes them more involved in solving a puzzle as it focuses on step-by-step processes. Not only does these puzzles help them to focus but also takes away your kids’ screen time by keeping them away from gadgets. Puzzles can be of several kinds such as Jigsaw, Crosswords and Sudoku.
Jigsaw puzzles
Even if your kids are not old enough for a crossword puzzle, you could still train them to be attentive and focused with a jigsaw puzzle! It is basically a picture, cut into several small pieces with a jigsaw. Those small random puzzle pieces are to be arranged in an order to recreate the original image. Even though several online websites offer you these puzzles for free, it is better if you could print these down.
Crosswords
Crosswords are puzzles in which words are interlocked in vertical and horizontal boxes which are to be filled with the clues they are provided with. These crossword puzzles grab your kids’ attention easily and help your kid to be more focused and attentive! You can choose puzzles of different difficulty range and print down the puzzle that is best suited for your kids here
2.Memory Games
Next in the list of activities to help kids concentrate better is Memory Games. Naturally kids’ love to play and explore new things and ideas. With the right games, you could help them to focus without having to put much effort. One such is the ‘memory games’. For this you need nothing more than a few small household items such as a key, water bottle cap, eraser and so on.
- Place 10 – 20 items in an order and cover it up with a cloth.
- Set a timer as you wish. Allow your kid to take a look at those objects in the given time.
- Close those things again with the cloth and ask your kid to recall the objects as they saw it!
These memory games are simple yet one among the efficient activities to help kids concentrate better. Though the kids may get a few things wrong which could frustrate them, the things they recalled correctly will give them a sense of accomplishment. Hence they will love to play this game over and over again! You could increase the number of objects or reduce the time depending on the age and enthusiasm of your kids!
Children tend to get distracted when they are hungry or tired. A little snack and a nap could make them super energetic and more attentive!
3.Timed Activities
Nothing beats the thrill of completing a given task on time! Kids love such timed activities as they love to take up challenges naturally. Timed activities are one of the most sought out activities to help kids concentrate better. You can set up any tasks to your kid and ask them to finish it off in a given time.
For instance, 1. you could give your kids’ an activity in which there are lots of words hiding among many other random letters. You could ask them to find out the hidden words in, say – a minute. 2. Give them a word of 10 letters and let them form new words from the given original word! – all within the given time!
4.Drawing
By ‘drawing’, we don’t mean just some artistic piece of work. Some kids will not be into puzzles as they take quite some effort despite being intriguing. To those kids, we could involve them in other art and craft activities to help kids concentrate better. Kids are attracted to bright colors and love to try different combinations of colors given a chance.
Not only does it help them to improve their focus, but also drawing helps the kids to express their emotions and help them to remain calm and composed. This, in turn, helps them to concentrate on things they do! Another among the attractive activities to help kids concentrate better, you could not miss the cozy water play mat for kids.
Takeaway
It is very natural for the kids to be playful and distracted. At the same time, it is not a Herculean task to make them attentive and focused. You could mold them into anything they want to be. Above mentioned are some of the interesting activities to help kids concentrate better. Besides, you could also
- Set up a routine
- Split large tasks into short ones with few minutes time intervals
- Reward them when they try and succeed to focus
- Set a proper, quite, distraction-free environment
The happier they are, the easier for your kids to concentrate on their studies and also any household activities. With these listed activities, you could ensure your kids happiness as well as their concentration on the things they do! Besides activities to help kids concentrate better, there is music therapy for kids to help them reduce their anxiety. Happy parenting!
