Seize the critical period and train children's attention, there is an old Chinese saying: the opportunity must not be lost, and the loss will not come again. Many things in the world have a window of opportunity, and if you miss the opportunity, you may fail, at least it will be much more difficult to succeed. Such a window of opportunity exists in the growth and development of animals and humans, which psychologists call a critical period. Speaking of the critical period, I would like to introduce you to an Austrian scientist, Lorenz, who was the first scientist to win the Nobel Prize in Biology as a psychologist.
In 1935, while studying newborn geese, Lorentz discovered that the geese tended to chase the moving objects he first saw during the first day after hatching. If he sees a mother goose, he will follow the mother goose; if he sees a chicken, he will follow the chicken; if he sees Lorenz the experimenter, he will follow Lorenz and think of him as his mother. But if the geese do not contact any animals and people for 24 hours after hatching, the geese will lose this ability, and no matter how the mother goose and people come into contact with the geese, the geese will not chase them. That is to say, within 24 hours after the birth of the geese, it is a critical period for the geese to recognize the mother, and if this critical period is missed, the geese will lose the ability to recognize the mother. He called the reaction of the goose that does not need to be strengthened in a certain period of time as the imprint, and this special period is called the critical period or the sensitive period.
Many later studies have also found that this critical period of development is not only reflected in the geese, but also in all mammals, including humans, and has a critical period. You must have seen children who grew up with their grandmothers and grandmothers, and they may not be able to cultivate the kind of feelings with their parents for the rest of their lives.
Psychologists have found that there is a critical period in almost every human ability, and the critical period is the period when it is easiest for us to form a certain ability. If we receive the right education during this period, we can achieve twice as much with less; and once we miss this period, we will have to spend more effort to make up for it, or even never make up for it.
On the one hand, children will be particularly sensitive to external stimuli during the critical period of a certain ability, and will easily improve their abilities, miss the critical period, no matter how good the external conditions are, no matter how hard the individual tries, the effect will not be so good. On the other hand, the capacity formed during the critical period is irreversible, it can lay a good foundation for the next development, and this influence is lasting, solid, and difficult to forget and change.
For example, the critical period for the development of language proficiency is within the age of ten, during which time mastering a language is a breeze. For example, a child in Beijing can speak Shanghainese for half a year, and then live in Guangzhou for a year, and he can speak Cantonese again; and a child who grew up in Shanghai was admitted to a university in Guangzhou at the age of 18, and after four years he can understand Cantonese and speak a few words, but as soon as he opens his mouth, everyone will know that he is not an authentic Cantonese.
As another example, a German English professor took his five-year-old child to the United States as a visiting professor for two years, and a year later, his six-year-old son asked curiously: "Dad, why is your English pronunciation so bad?" The famous early childhood educator Montessori described the critical period this way: when a child's sensitive period appears, it is like a ray of light will shine on some objects, and the objects that are illuminated become the child's world. During this period, the child is full of passion and impulse for these questions, full of desire to explore and conquer. He can self-regulate during this period and will have more power than usual to solve problems and build experiences on his own.
So let's talk about the critical period of concentration, three and a half years old is the key period of children's attention formation and development, this period of children have some characteristics:
First, the scope of attention is expanded, and more people and things enter their attention range;
Second, many questions will be raised, and the surrounding world will be full of questions;
Third, the attention retention time is short, and unstable, and it is easy to be attracted to the new things around you;
Fourth, intentionalism began to develop, and unintentionalism still existed and had an advantage;
Fifth, frequent movements, exploration everywhere, rarely can be quiet, but when encountering things that interest you, you will show great concentration.
For children in this period, our recommendations are:
First, it is a good thing that the scope of children's attention is expanded, parents should provide more reasonable stimuli, such as buying toys for children, books, etc., and limit electronic products, not to let children see electronic products at all, but to have a degree. When children ask a lot of questions, which are likely to be strange questions, parents should patiently answer and guide them to focus on their own problems, and avoid avoiding or rejecting the questions raised by their children.
Second, the child's attention in this period is not stable enough, attention is limited, parents should avoid letting the child's activity last too long, the activities arranged for the child can not be too full, be sure to let the child have time to relax, and then carry out other activities. Parents can remind them to pay attention to something in their interaction with their children, let them actively search for people and things to pay attention to, or let them actively allocate attention resources to designated things. Because they are exploring the world around them with movement, parents should allow and encourage their children to explore behavior appropriately. When they focus their attention on a certain matter, parents should communicate with their children and explore together so that they can maintain attention duration and stability in things or activities of interest.
The primary school stage is a critical period for children's attention training and correction, at this age, if there is a problem in children's concentration, parents should attach great importance to the necessary correction and training on the basis of scientific diagnosis. Parents can train their children's concentration in the family, and if necessary, seek the help of professional institutions and professionals.
There is such a saying: the child's inattention will automatically disappear with age, this statement is wrong, lack of scientific basis, the real situation is that with age, the child's non-focus behavior is different, some new symptoms replace the original performance, he did not disappear, will not disappear. The earlier the parent intervenes, the more focused the child's concentration.
I heard people say such a sentence, I think it is very reasonable: deceiving others is a moral problem, deceiving yourself is an intellectual problem! We can not self-deception, let alone self-deception to children, children's growth is only once, parents must pay attention to it.