To learn and train new skills successfully, good concentration and a good work attitude are of great importance. In practice, however, it often turns out that there are problems here. Sometimes within the child itself, sometimes it concerns external causes. What are the factors that negatively affect concentration and posture?
New skills
Children learn all kinds of new skills in primary school. They learn to read, write, deal with numbers and through world-oriented subjects they get to know their environment and their world. There are also social and creative subjects. All these subjects, all these knowledge and skills to be learned are necessary to survive in our society.
Concentration: Now pay attention!
Offering all these new skills is not enough. Children should also be focused on learning something new. This requires attention and concentration, it also requires a positive work attitude. In practice, it turns out that this is not always easy. Of course you can encourage a child who is not there with his attention with?Hey dude, pay attention! ?? or even with disciplinary action. This assumes that children themselves are responsible for their own ability to concentrate, but that is sometimes a bit more nuanced.
External and internal factors
It is good to realize that there can be all kinds of causes for a poor concentration or work attitude, not all of these causes are in the child itself. For example, two groups can be distinguished that influence optimal concentration or work posture: internal factors (in the child itself) and external factors (outside the child). Of course there are also possible combinations.
Internal factors
The nature of factors within the child can include:
- Emotional
- Neurologically
- Medical
- Disturbed perception
Emotional causes
The death of a pet, friend or family member is of course a drastic and emotional event that disrupts concentration. In some cases the underlying cause is more structural. For example, think of:
- Fears
- Experiencing pleasant or threatening emotions
Neurological causes
In case of brain damage, which can be determined by neurological examination. For example, think of:
- The consequences of an accident
- ADHD or ADD
Medical causes
Consider causes such as:
- Epilepsy
- Hearing difficulties
- Visual problems
Disturbed perception
The world is experienced by the child as one-sided and threatening. For example, think of
- Integration problems
- A form of ASD (autism)
External causes
In addition to the above-mentioned internal factors in the child itself, there are also factors that come from outside, things from the child’s immediate environment or from the way in which education is organized. So here the role of the school and the teacher is also important. The nature of factors outside the child can include:
- Coordination of educational offer
- Coordination of didactic offer
- Pedagogical climate
- Family situation
Coordination of educational offer
Good coordination of the subject matter is important for the motivation of the child, and thus for his ability to concentrate and focus on specific learning tasks. With regard to the degree of coordination of this educational offer, you can think of, for example:
- The child may or may not find the subject matter interesting
- The child is offered a package of learning material that is too simple or too difficult
- The teacher does not tune in sufficiently to the child, for example in the use of language.
- The skills of the teacher are insufficient for proper coordination.
- The teacher does not have sufficient options in his class management. It could either be his own skills, but there could also be organizational problems.
Coordination of didactic offer
In the didactic offer, the active and independent of children must be taken into account. Important points here are:
- Children must be encouraged to learn actively. That does not mean passively waiting for things and the learning material to come, but being actively involved in one’s own learning process.
- Children must, at their own level, function independently as much as possible with due observance of the associated agreements. Children must be autonomous at their own level and thus become responsible for their own learning process.
- The teacher’s own skills. How is the language used, is the teacher sufficiently skilled to offer tasks in smaller learning steps and intermediate objectives, can there be sufficient variation in the didactic offer?
Pedagogical climate
Not only didactics and educational provision are important for the ability of children to concentrate. It is also about the pedagogical climate. Think about:
- Does the child experience sufficient safety within the group
- The number of students and problems within the group
- Setting up group rules, how this is done and how this is checked. Do the teacher (s) and the children treat each other in a respectful manner? Do they experience nuisance from each other?
- The teacher’s ability to create a safe educational environment within the group, in which all children can develop optimally.
Family situation
Children spend a number of hours a day in the educational situation at school, but also a lot of hours in their own family situation. Children are shaped by this mix and experiences in the home situation are inevitably included in the learning situation at school. Consider factors such as:
- Peace within the family
- The rules that are used within the family. Consider, for example, meals and bed times. A tired child will be less able to concentrate or focus on his work with the negative consequences that this entails.
- The way in which the free time is used. Think of watching television, using the computer, sports club, playing in the street, etc.
Action planning
In order to arrive at a clear action plan with a greater chance of success, it is important to arrive at a good diagnosis of the causes of concentration or posture problems. There are several resources for this:
Conversations with parents, children and possibly other teachers or specialists
- Observation
- Focused research
Which method of diagnosis and which tests, if any, are identified, of course, depends on the situation.