Is your child’s attention span getting shorter? Good news: focus is a trainable skill.
“The systems in the brain that handle attention and self-control respond really well to the right types of movement, play, and even certain kinds of games,” Dr Ryan Stevenson said.
The Bright Heart Education co-founder said the first step towards improving your child’s attention span was to rethink what ‘helping a child focus’ actually meant.
“When parents say, ‘My child can’t concentrate,’ they usually mean executive function is under strain,” he said.
“That includes working memory, impulse control, and mental flexibility.
“Those are skills you can strengthen.”
He suggested looking at a child’s daily activity mix for regular, breath-raising movement; activities that forced them to wait, plan, or think ahead; and instances where they practiced stopping themselves, like holding a karate stance or pausing before a chess move.
“As an educator, I’m less interested in whether a child can sit still for an hour,” Dr Stevenson said.
“I care more about whether their week gives their brain enough chances to move, plan, listen, wait, and try again.
“When those ingredients are there, better focus usually follows.”
Is your child impulsive, energetic, or drawn to active play? Dr Stevenson suggests signing them up for martial arts or open-skill ball sports, like karate, taekwondo, judo, tennis, table tennis, football, or basketball.
He said traditional martial arts mixed complex movements, strict rules, and respect rituals, all of which placed steady demands on attention and self-control.
“You’re essentially giving the brain dozens of reps in ‘pause before you act’ every session, it’s repeated practice in stopping, choosing, and adapting under mild pressure,” he said.
“That’s exactly what so many children struggle with in the classroom.”
For after-school or weekend ‘quiet time’, turn to strategy and puzzle play – think chess, strategy board games, fast reaction card games, and logic puzzles.
Dr Stevenson said the key was to choose games where kids must remember rules or patterns, wait for their turn, and think a couple of moves ahead.
“From a brain perspective, a 30-minute family game of chess, Spot It!, or a strategy board game may be far better focus practice than an extra half-hour of drilling times tables,” he said.
