How to Help Kids Fight Distraction

I was walking alongside the road when suddenly a beautiful butterfly caught my attention. It’s very rare to see a butterfly flying around you in metro cities. The pollution and jam packed crowd makes life quite impossible for such beautiful natural being to survive in these cities. So when I noticed a little butterfly flying, I suddenly got distracted. I was chasing the butterfly when suddenly a person pushed me aside and within a fraction of a second everything became dark. The person actually saved my life that day. A car was coming behind me and to save me the person pushed me aside.

This sort of incident could happen to any of us. Distraction in many cases can bring life risking consequences to us. In case of our life also, we often get distracted and chose to walk on the wrong path. This distraction or diversion sometime causes great harm to the academic life of the students. Children always search for new things and get attracted easily. In fact in my school days also, I used to get diverted while doing my homework. A whispering sound or the sound of a TV serial was more than enough to take me away out of track.

Multitasking has become a must in today’s 21st century. A research study shows that when people come across many disturbances while learning particular things or skills, they face difficulties to use these skills in their later life. This means that a focused learning is very much needed to acquire full control over a particular skill. There are some ways by which parents can help their kids to be focused while doing something or learning things. Some of the ways are briefly discussed below:-

1. Television is considered to be one of the prime factors that make kids distracted from their studies. Thus being parents, you should always set limits on the TV watching habits of your kids. Research studies reveled that kids who spend more than 4 hours a day watching television, develop weak memorizing skills. They also face grave difficulties while memorizing a particular topic.

2. We should always provide toys to our kids that encourage their imagination, creativity, problem solving and space awareness skills. Thus it is suggested to provide them with toys that don’t have batteries or those which are run manually. Puzzles and building block can be a good choice in that matter.

3. Always switch off the television set when no one is watching it actively. When you notice your child solving a particular puzzles or busy in doing a craft, let the child enjoy it in a sound environment, without any disturbance.

4. Create a 'quiet spot' in your home where your child can go to rest, look at books, color, or just think. For school age children, it's important to have a spot that is free of too many visual or auditory distractions where they can complete school work, read, and do craft projects.

5. Model 'quiet time' behavior for your child. Let your children see you sitting quietly reading a book, listening to music, or just thinking.

Let's face it, as distractions are a part of modern life and there's no way to completely eliminate all of them.