by Karen Banes

Created on: May 29, 2008   Last Updated: June 23, 2008

It's certainly a difficult task to try and teach a child the importance of concentration. It's helpful to define concentration in terms he can understand and discuss why it is so important. You can point out to your child how concentrating on a task helps him to perform better and reach his goal more quickly. Use specific examples, such as when he concentrates in a test at school his results will be much better. Perhaps the most helpful thing you can do, though, is provide your child with the tools he needs to naturally improve his concentration.

Some children seem to find concentrating very easy, whilst others struggle to keep their attention focused on anything for more than a few minutes. There are several things you can do to help your child with his concentration.

Firstly, don't expect too much. Recognize that young kids (and a lot of older ones) don't have a very long attention span, especially when studying something they may not be interested in.

Break tasks up. It is useful to teach your child to recognize when his attention has wandered from what he is doing. He can then take a break and return to it later. Many people (including adults) find they learn and study more effectively if they break a task down into manageable (for them) chunks.

A change is as good as a rest (sometimes). If your child struggles to concentrate on homework it may help him to change subjects when his attention is wandering. If he changes from a subject that bores him to one that interests him, or even from a subject he finds easy to one that challenges him, he may get a fresh burst of concentration.

Recognize your child's learning style. Some kids find it easier to concentrate on written text, others need to hear information aloud or discuss it. Some focus naturally on visuals, like graphs and charts, better than just reading the information. Find out how your child learns to help him concentrate on the subject matter in an effective way.

Give your child the environment he needs to concentrate. A quiet, peaceful, comfortable, well-lit area where he can read, study and complete homework tasks is essential. Again, pay attention to his personal learning style. Some kids need perfect silence to concentrate. Others actually concentrate better with a little background noise.

Let him do what he enjoys. Some kids will concentrate for hours on a creative project, such as writing and illustrating their own comic book, but can't concentrate on a set task from a teacher. Whilst it is important

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