Help your child stay focused and hit long term goals in sports, academics …. any area of life!

In this video, I share tips and tricks that help your child focus and stay-the-course until they reach their goals.

The secret to stopping mental overwhelm in its tracks? Support “working memory.”

Your working memory is like a white board – it’s the part of your mind where you hold the information needed to go about your day (to-do lists, phone numbers, etc.)

You can lighten your mental load and get a clear head with my tried and true practices for getting information from your working memory onto paper.

Check out this video, follow my tips, and watch your focus grow!

Parents – you can strengthen focus and attention in a way that does not feel like work.

If you want to have fun and help your child at the same time, then learn my favorite game for building these skills — the Metronome Matcher.

How to Play Metronome Matcher

All you need is a tennis ball and a metronome (the tool that is used to keep time in music). You can easily find a free app for a metronome – no trip to the music store needed. 

Set the metronome to a reasonable pace and ask your child to try to match the bouncing of the ball to the click of the metronome. 

I encourage you to try it yourself too! Making it a friendly competition may make it more fun and help the game last longer!

As your child matches their bounces to the metronome beat, they naturally strengthen focus and attention.

Bonus points – if you play this game for the same amount of time repeatedly, your child will build time awareness, too.

Kids are prone to task-switching. Especially those with attention issues. The problem is, when they switch from task-to-task, they force their brains to work harder and the outcome is a lower level of quality. Plus, they exhaust their mental reserves.

Here’s a quick hack to reduce task-switching with three benefits.

Ask them to work for five more minutes and then take a break.

Three Benefits to the Five-Minute Extention:

#1 – You may actually figure out what’s causing the frustration, and more deeply engage with the activity at hand.

#2 – Even if they are still frustrated or bored, you’ve trained their brain that your first response to those feelings is to keep working. 

#3 – You will eventually expand the amount of time they can focus on challenging tasks. 

Your child needs homework breaks. Why? Because, students who learn and think differently can have low stamina, frustration tolerance, and planning skills. And, research shows that brain breaks are helpful supports for those students.

You may think that relaxing with a video game or YouTube video is a good homework break. But those are so fun and immersive that they’re hard to stop. Plus, they can cause long-term distraction and less interest in homework.

Effective homework breaks are quick, structured breaks. They use physical movement, mindfulness exercises, or sensory activities. Remember – different minds, or moods, call for different types of breaks.

Here are my top recommendations for refreshing and refueling your brain:

• A 20-minute walk which increases blood flow to the brain, quickens reaction time and sharpens decision making
• A nourishing snack, like blueberries or pumpkin seeds.
• A water break
• Rest. Even a short nap of around 20 minutes boosts your ability to concentrate by giving your brain a chance to restore depleted energy.  
• Daydreaming, which promotes creativity and consolidates learning. 
• Social interaction, which can boost mood and memory

If you would like more specific ideas for different times of day, check out this brain break bank from understood.org Enjoy!

The Pomodoro Technique is a great technique for keeping the mind alert and focused.  As author Dr. Oakley says, this technique trains you to focus and reinforces that relaxing at the end is critical to the process of learning.”

The Pomodoro Technique is basically the decision to pick one task and work on it distraction-free for 25 – 30 minutes. With a 5 minute break afterwards.

Benefits of the Pomodoro Techniqe include:

• Reduced anxiety, because you do not have to worry about finishing the task.
• Improved retention and skill development.
• It is so simple! Any timer or Google Chrome extension will do. 
• You take a break before the brain is fatigued. Brain fatigue is actually hard to detect, and we tend to work longer than we should. 

If your child has focus issues, pay attention to when their attention starts to fade. Twenty-five minutes could be too big a work block for them. Start with a window of time in which they can achieve a small result with solid focus. That will build self-confidence. You can slowly increase the window of focused time as they strengthen their skills and self-esteem.

Enjoy!