Tips To Help Kids Stay Focused During Virtual Classes
Focusing in class has been a common issue amongst kids forever. It was there when kids were physically attending classes, and it is still there when they are at home. Truth be told, the problem has gotten worse with distance learning, and this time, parents are the ones who need to deal with it.
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Helping your kids stay focused in the virtual classroom is a highly challenging task. Children have a very active imagination, little patience, and usually no interest in boring lectures.
This means you need to get them to stay attentive, which means no daydreaming, no doodling, no fidgeting, and wasting time anywhere else. If you cannot get them to make the best of their current scenario, they will lag in school, and none of us know how long this pandemic issue might go on.
Here’s what you can do to keep your kids focused, sharp, and attentive during online classes and schoolwork.
Designate a workspace
Dedicating a spot in your home for your child to work will improve their productivity levels and focus as every time they will be sitting there, their mind will know they are there to work. It is the same way as it is with us adults. Studies have shown that employees perform better at an office than they do from home, which is why people who were working remotely built home offices.
But designating a space is not enough. You need to ensure that you create a good working environment by minimizing distractions and disturbances.
Keep the TV and mobile phones out of the room, and tell other family members not to disturb or go into the room during study time, or your child will get distracted. This means no cleaning the room or going there to find missing keys, and no blasting loud music or using the blender. Do all of that before or after their study time.
Enforce a routine
Being stuck at home due to the pandemic does not equate to the same as being home during vacations, and you need to make your kids understand that.
Their routine should stay the same as it did during regular school days with the only exception of them saving time on commuting. They need to wake up and go to bed on time, study during virtual classes and have a fixed playtime and TV schedule: no exceptions or unnecessary concessions.
Schedule breaks
Children have a short attention span and have trouble staying focused for long hours so give them short breaks in between as needed to keep them sharp. Without necessary breathers, even if they do sit through a long study time, they will have low productivity, poor understanding of concepts, and zero retention.
Set goals and targets
There is no use in fixing a study time if the required work is not being done, so you need to specify and assert that your children complete their study targets, which you will define depending on your child's current progress and the study load they have from school.
However, make one thing sure. Do not promise them any early offs if they have completed their work or they will not put their 100% in it. You do not want to overburden your child in this already frustrating situation, and you do not want to let them off easy either, so set targets wisely.
Reward hard work
Prepare your child's favorite meal, do a fun activity with them, or treat them to something they love to show them your appreciation for all their hard work, especially if they have completed a difficult target. And do not forget to praise, so they know why they are getting something and can aspire to achieve the same in the future.
Regulate stress
This is already a very stressful, depressing, and frustrating time for all of us. You are not the only one affected by this, so is your kid.
So try to make it easier on them by cutting them some slack where needed, understanding their side, setting reasonable study goals and expectations, letting them video call their friends. This is the aptest time to be practicing stress control techniques with them to help both of you stay healthy and happy during the pandemic.
Have a reasonable plan
Create a reasonable plan by factoring in the study load, your child’s attention span and learning capacity, distractions at home, and more. And be sure to put it down in writing. Create a hard copy of your child's schedule and paste/put it at your child's study station.
If your child needs some extra help, contact Mrs. Myers’ Reading Room in Wisconsin and all across the US. Our experts will be able to better explain hard to grasp concepts to your child. Click here to enroll your child in our free trial classes.
