SMARTER STUDIES FOR SMARTER KIDS

Does your child have any problem in concentrating and doing his home work? Do you find your child with a dreamy expression on his face when he is supposed to be studying? Children are beginning to explore the world around them. They are learning to think and analyze the cause and effect. Things that may seem mundane to the adult eye are new and wonderful for children. Therefore, they tend to be distracted by the things and happenings around them. However, there are many things you can do to help your child to attain a better concentration levels. There are few set of guidelines to be adopted to achieve out best results i.e :

Set a routine. Set aside a specific time for waking up, having breakfast, and going to school, playtime, study time and dinner. Once your child establishes a routine, he will find it easier to concentrate on his work because he knows that this is the time you have allotted for work and nothing else.

Make sure that the room in which your child sits down to study and do his homework, is one where there is no distraction. Let him read aloud if he feels it will help him from becoming distracted.

Don’t let younger siblings, especially infants play near the room where your school going child studies. Their cries and infant babble may be a big distraction for your child.

Look up the topic which your child is working on and capture his interest by sharing interesting and informative facts with him. Provide kids with small notepads or writing pads which should be attractive with colors and fun related pages.

Make dull topics interesting by playing quizzes and memory games.If your child feels sleepy or hungry, he may not be able to concentrate well so make sure he is not hungry or tired.

Sometimes children tend to lose interest in a particular subject when they fail at it. Encourage your child to persevere. For this, you must show him that you have full confidence in his abilities and that you will help him in any way you can.

If your child needs extra help, offer to help him out or arrange for tuition. Once he begins to understand and master the subject, he will begin to concentrate on his work.

It is a good idea to let your child study along with his peers who are good academic performers. By doing this, your child can pick up tips and ideas from his friends.

Be patient when you deal with your child. Yelling at him or scolding him when your find him distracted will only serve to make him frustrated.

Let your child take short breaks while studying. This will help your child to refresh his mind and memory. Let him take a 10 minute break after 1 or 2 hours of studying.

There are several activities which can help to improve your child’s concentration. Here are a few:

• Read a story to your child and ask him questions related to it. This will help sharpen his memory too.
• When you study anything, we can see through various dimensions i.e Brains, Eyes, Ears, etc… Close your eyes and read or write in your mind by concentrating 100% , he/she never forgets.
• Ask your child about his day. This way, he will make an attempt to recall the events and actions of his day and this in turn will help improve his memory and concentration.
• Count numbers or their multiples and skip one or two in between. Ask your child to find the missing number.
• Strange as it sounds, tongue twisters also help improve concentration. Your child has to listen with great attention to decipher the tongue twister you say. This will teach him to concentrate.
• Lack of concentration is not a problem that is impossible to solve. These few tips should help you assist your child to overcome the problem of low concentration levels and sharpen his memory and learning skills.
• Nowadays mobile phones are getting misused instead of that when they study let them record it and keep handy when they want, they can easily take and use it I.e Playback the audio clip etc….

D Lakshmi