100 Family Media Literacy Activities, Ages Pre-School through Teen Years

Are You a “High Hopes” Parent?

Attending to Our Children’s Attention Span

Building the Foundation for Resiliency Skills

Live and Play in Your World: Stimulus Addiction and the Growing Brain

Looking for Meaning in All the Right Places

Parenting Today: The World Has Changed, Have We?

Parenting as a Living System

Reading the Screen

Screen Time and Obesity

Screen Violence: Impact on Self as Relational Being

Teaching Children Gratefulness

 Attending to Our Children’s Attention Span (cont.)

As the novel visual images get remembered, the brain naturally wants to seek out similar visual images. In other words, the more images of sex and violence stored in the brain, the more the brain seeks images of sex and violence. And the less the brain wants to think, deliberate, ponder, evaluate, discern, question. The cerebral cortex can’t get “a word in edgewise” when the low brain has been conditioned to seek quick images that titillate.

In simple terms, moving images on a screen trigger alerting and orienting responses, while “executive attention” is eclipsed. Executive attention, as defined by brain researcher Daniel Siegel is characterized by “effortful control.” (4) The child must be working to select, supervise, or focus his/her attention. Real mental effort is required. In his book, The Mindful Brain, Dr. Siegel cites studies that show this form of attention is related to “‘planning or decision making, error detection, new or not-well learned responses, conditions judged to be difficult or dangerous, regulation of thoughts and feelings, and the overcoming of habitual actions.’” (5) He goes on to emphasize that “that the period between 3 and 7 years of age appears to be a profoundly important time for the acquisition of executive attentional functions.” (6)

Helping Children Grow Their Executive Attention Function

There are plenty of activities that can help develop attentional abilities—at any age. Try these four suggestions for a period of 3-6 weeks. Observe the differences in your child, watching carefully for what is working best to help him/her focus, concentrate, and attend more intentionally and easily.

1.         Replace passive TV time with time in active problem-solving.
When children have to think, they have to concentrate, thus practicing what to pay attention to as they meander through a problem solving process. Puzzles, games like chess, and opportunities for quiet reflection give the young brain opportunity to concentrate.

2.         Encourage self-direction.
The executive attention function and self-regulation are interconnected. If your child has opportunities for imaginative, self-directed play, for instance, he or she practices inner directedness while regulating emotional responses. Anytime children make decisions, they are practicing metacognition, inner thought processes that feed selective attention processes. Provide two or three acceptable alternatives to your child, letting her choose one. Then she can give you reasons for her choice. You are allowing her to direct her conscious decision-making process and helping her understand the reasons for her choices.

3.         Open up some time for your child to experience his or her inner world.
Not experiencing boredom doesn’t serve our children well. Boredom is necessary downtime and integral to developing intrinsic motivation, along with an understanding of one’s own creative processes. When concentrating and thinking slowly, ingenuity and inventiveness emerge. Maria Montesorri urged teachers to help youngsters “make silence.” Brain researchers today emphasize that stillness is not a void, but “more like a stabilizing strength” for the brain’s executive functions. (7)

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