I was having a conversation with a parent the other day. She told me how she always get bad reports from school about her son.
Here are some of the things that was written in his report:
“He talks too much in class”
He is easily distracted”
He can’t sit still” He interrupts, he shout out, he is rude to other
He is the class clown” and so on ….
Can you relate? Because I can!
I remembered getting the same kind of school reports every year from my son’s school when he was in school.
Smacking, yelling or taking their iPads away from them will only work for a short period.
Please note that I am not talking about children who have learning difficulties such as ADD or ADHD.
Today’s post is about children who are able to sit still in class, but they’re unable to because they are easily distracted.
So what can you do then?
When my son wasn’t paying attention in class. This is how I helped him.
When my 7-year-old started having trouble focusing at school, I did not think much of it. I told him to pay more attention. But my words did not resonate, apparently. I began getting emails from the teacher about my son’s behavior. He was frequently off task, chatting with friends or moving around the classroom when he was not supposed to, and he was not putting enough effort into his work.
I tried everything to get my son to pay attention in class. Light punishments and more harsh punishments, including yelling, taking away screen time, and timeouts. Nothing works!. I got angry because I believed he was deliberately disobeying me. Once, when I asked him to explain his poor performance in class and he did not say anything, I had to step outside my house before I lost my cool.
At a loss, I did some research. And I realized the reason for my child’s lack of focus is because I wasn’t listening to him well.
Some kids need several conversations to be able to fully express their thoughts and feelings and to explain the motivation for their actions. When I realized this, I corrected my own behavior.
Over time, I saw a pattern in the reasons: disruptive classmates, boring topics, wanting attention and, my favorite, being funny. But what I focused on the most was the disruptive behavior of others. I knew my son was a social butterfly, but if his friends were coming between him and his work, I had to put a stop to that.
I spoke to his teacher about moving his desk to a more secluded area of the classroom. According to my research children with attention challenges tend to perform better with secluded seating in class, so I was optimistic that this would help. Which it did.
These changes, which stemmed from simply listening to my child, resulted in an immediate improvement in his behavior. I was so happy when the emails from the teacher stopped.
Please remember this👇.
✅ Young children do not have the maturity to give specifics on the reasons for their behavior, and parents should not expect that.
Now that he is older, he has changed a lot. He is more disciplined and he is very focused on his goals.
Don’t get me wrong, it takes a lot of patience on my part. And also I think kids get better with age.
However we as parents need to do our part as well. Something as simple as listening more carefully to them will make a lot of difference.
After changing your approach to your children, you may need to give them time to catch up.
Just remember to keep listening and showing empathy and compassion to them and you will see significant changes in their behavior at home and in school!
I hope this helps Happy parenting 🥰
WHEN WE KNOW BETTER WE MUST DO BETTER!
Thanks
Olu xxx
Positive Parenting With Olu 