7 Tips To Get The Attention Of Children

Getting your children’s attention in their early years can be very challenging. To do this, it is convenient to know better how your mind works and which stimuli are more sensitive. Find out!

Capturing the attention of our children at home is a challenge. Achieving this is perhaps one of the things that consumes us the most time and effort and that many times also generates frustration  because it is certainly very annoying to repeat the same thing to them over and over again while they seem not to listen.

But all is not lost, with a few small adjustments at home you can improve the situation. First it is convenient that you know a few things.

Adjust your expectations

It is important, first of all, to understand that you must adjust your expectations regarding the care of your children according to their age. The younger they are, their attention spans will be shorter, so don’t wear yourself out waiting for a 2-year-old to watch an entire TV show or sit for a long time enrolled in the same activity. The little ones change their focus of attention quickly, it is natural according to their development.

However, as they grow, children develop better skills to stay alert, to maintain their interest in the same activity until they finish, in fact this is essential to guarantee their school and social progress. A 5-year-old is expected to be able to watch an entire television show and a 7-year-old to play a board game through to completion, just to name a couple of examples.

Attention styles

It is also important that you know that there are basically two types of attention, a passive one, which demands little cognitive effort from us, such as the one we use when watching a television program. There is also a more active style of attention, which involves cognitive effort on our part to stay active, this is the type of attention they require, for example school activities or completing a crossword.

In this way, it is common to find children who can remain motionless in front of the television for two hours (passive attention) but are not able to read two paragraphs and comment on what they have read, or remember three instructions you have given or tasks that you have given them. have entrusted (active attention).

Now, here we will tell you what you can do from home to capture the attention of your children and make family dynamics more bearable.

Tips to attract attention at home

• Before sending your child to clean his room or any other task, make sure he is looking at you. It is important, very important that both of you make eye contact, so you can be sure that he has heard you. This at first is a bit annoying for one because it implies stopping what you are doing and moving to where he is, however like any change of habit, it implies an effort on our part. As it grows this will no longer be necessary.

• You can ask him to explain what to do, especially if you have given him several instructions together such as “put the dishes on the table, call your brothers to dinner and serve the water.” To make sure he won’t leave anything out, you can tell him to repeat what he will do in order.
• You can make colorful lists so that your children are a little more independent and do not need a mother to remind them what to do. This is very useful for situations like the morning routine before going to school.
• Try using songs or pneumotechnical rules to teach them to remember lists. For example, use “molonab” to remind you to always bring home the mo chila, the lon chera and the ab rigo. They always find it fun to make up crazy words.
• If what you want is for him to finish what he starts, for example to start tidying up his room and not stop to play and leave the task in oblivion, start by creating the habit of finishing what he begins, you must tell him yourself, that it becomes a kind of family mantra: “finish what you start”. Hobby books or board games are also useful here, little by little you will notice that you spend more time in these types of activities, a sign that your attention spans are getting longer.

• Give the instructions in a few words, try to be as precise as possible. If you embark on a great speech, chances are that before long you will have lost their attention.
• Respect their evolutionary development, do not demand more than what they can give according to their age.

Every mother knows her child better than anyone, so surely you can create other strategies to capture the attention of your children at home. Cheer up!