3 Ways To Help Your Child To Be More Focused

The younger the child, the shorter the attention span. As the child grows older, his attention span will gradually grows longer. However, this development can be hastened with some help.

The entire motivation plan for my students in class is very complicated and is linked to each other like an economy. However, I can share the 3 main methods I use to keep a child stay focused on their goals.


1. Checklist Method

Give your child a checklist to help him check if he has completed his work properly. This method is very visual and thus can provide a constant feedback to your child which tasks are still incomplete. It is also very handy for the parents as they can check on the progress of the child's work in one glance.

As the child grows older, help him to come up with the checklist himself. The checklist is also useful in checking if the child has too much work to complete in one round. If the list is very long, you may want to put in an item like 'take a break for 5 minutes' in the middle.


2. Checklist Method 2: Upgrade with Game Theory

This is what I do with my students to make learning more appealing to them. I incorporate game theory into the work.

Instead of just checking off, they burst stars or 'shoot at some monsters'. Once the monster's hit points gets to zero, the child has won and would have completed his work. This simple method works well with younger students. For my older students, their 'game' is more sophisticated and has a longer term goal built into it. (I may share about this in another blog post.)



3. Checklist Method 3: Combination

This was implemented last year to help my students to motivate them to learn their spelling.

A story is shared with the class about the life cycle of a butterfly. Each stage of the life cycle has 20 boxes on them. Each time they score full marks, they will gain 2 stars to put in the boxes. If they did not get full marks, they had to do their corrections and would get 1 star instead. Everyone should get at least one star as long as they finish their corrections. (Everyone should be a winner.) When all 10 boxes are filled up, they upgrade to the next stage of the life cycle.

This is a very good method to motivate children as it is very visual and they will work hard to score for that 2 stars. They will also develop a sense of pride when their animal evolves faster than their peers. It also exposes them to life cycles of animals which is a topic in their Science syllabus.


As you can see, it requires some effort from adults to help the kids stay on task. Trust me, it is well worth the time and effort. Not many teachers employ motivational strategies in their classrooms, but I do. And I can see the long term positive effects they bring.

I hope you will find the methods useful in helping your child to be more focused in his work.

Stay tuned!