Text by Miss Bu’s Writing Group Youran

Scientists have discovered that the cultivation of children’s concentration is related to the development of in-depth thinking. The ability to think deeply is the key to learning ability. If you can develop your child's concentration early, it can help your child's growth.

Experiments have shown that children's concentration improves with age. Babies under one year old can concentrate for no more than 15 seconds. Babies one and a half years old can concentrate on things of interest. More than 5 minutes, the average concentration time of a 2-year-old is about 7 minutes, the average 3-year-old is about 9 minutes, the average 4-year-old is about 12 minutes, and the average 5-year-old is about 14 minutes.

Judging from the above data, children's attention is not easy to last for too long and is easily diverted. So what are the factors that affect concentration? Research shows that there are two main factors that influence the improvement of children's concentration.

Family factors:

Love is the most magical power, which can make dead seedlings show vitality again. Taking love as the main purpose of education will definitely produce miracles of growth.

The world-famous educator Festalock (1746～1827) is famous all over the world for his loving education. This Swedish educator devoted his life to mass education. Under his inspiration, many orphans with mental retardation, even those living on the streets—and even those with bad habits—showed a strong interest in learning. So much so that many famous educators at that time paid attention to his educational methods.

However, the best place for "love education" is our home.

Physiological factors:

The famous neuroscientist Aved Claesen won the Nobel Prize in Medicine in 2000 for his discovery of the miraculous hormone dopamine. The hormone dopamine is responsible for mediating mood, but it is closely related to the process of learning.

Herbach, a famous educator in the 19th century, once proposed the concept of "apperception", which means the process of learning. Only by connecting the unknown with the known can new concepts be mastered.

Kandel, a later neuroscientist, confirmed the correctness of the concept of "apperception" from experimental science by studying the neurotransmission of sea cucumbers. For this work, Kandel also won the Nobel Prize.

It turns out that the hippocampus of the brain is responsible for combining new knowledge (short-term memory) with old knowledge (long-term memory), and the dopamine hormone it secretes promotes the connection of old and new information.

In this way, we discovered from a scientific perspective that emotion is closely related to learning.

Having identified two important factors that affect children’s concentration, what can we do to improve children’s concentration?

Learn in games and effectively improve concentration.

Froebel (1782-1852), the founder of modern kindergarten, once proposed that educating children through games can best enhance children’s interest in learning.

Modern educational psychology has found that even children with ADHD show lack of attention in daily learning tasks, but if they play games, they can usually concentrate. This finding confirms the special value of game teaching.

Children's educator Froebel designed many toys for this purpose, most of which were taken from nature. Firstly, they are adapted to local conditions and are low-cost; secondly, they come from a wide range of sources and are not afraid of damage, so children can try them with confidence.

The inspiration for us here is not to let children study hard, let them explore freely and learn through games, and their concentration will naturally improve.

Exercising the body and tempering the will are powerful guarantees for improving concentration.

The famous Czech educator Locke said 400 years ago: A healthy soul resides in a healthy body!

The person who faithfully practiced this famous saying was the famous scientist Newton.

On the campus of Oxford University, Newton was seen wearing one piece of clothing all year round. It turned out that this was how he exercised his body. In addition, Newton took cold baths all year round.

It can be seen that good health can help us focus on current study.

In addition, exercising can also cultivate perseverance, which is also crucial for learning.

Because the process of learning, like physical exercise, is not accomplished overnight, but a long-term process that lasts. Persistent willpower is the backing of concentration.

Minimize the use of electronic products and let your children focus on their studies.

Today with the rapid development of mobile Internet, electronic products have penetrated into every aspect of our life and study. But the extensive use of electronic products has a great impact on the brain. Some studies have found that prolonged use of electronic products can even change the neural wiring of the brain.

In 2008, an experiment by American education professor Small showed that after 6 days of using the Internet, new netizens showed widespread activity in the prefrontal cortex of their brains, which was the same as that of old netizens. The Internet has changed the wiring of the brain.

Therefore, during the growth period of children, try to avoid using electronic products for a long time. On the one hand, it protects children's vision; on the other hand, it also ensures that children's learning process is free from external interference and allows them to focus on their studies.