How to Head Off Attention and Writing Problems at the Same Time if You Are Worried
The two populations that I work with that most consistently hate writing and have a heck of a time paying attention are kids with ADHD and Autism. This got me thinking about what it is about writing that is so darn awful. It quickly occurred to me that writing is the activity that requires the greatest degree of focused, one-pointed, and sustained attention. I believe that may be the single most important and common factor in why a child learns to hate this activity.
Recently, when consulting with the family of a 3-year-old adopted child with apparent problems with paying attention and an early distain for writing, the parents voiced concerns about how the child’s school may pressure the child to start writing before he is ready. It occurred to me that I may witnessing the first beginnings of a war that this child may be fighting with adults trying to get him to write for the rest of his academic career. For a child struggling with impulse control, problems focusing, and regulating his emotions, learning to write was going to be hard. If his teacher’s felt compelled to force feed him writing skills when he was physiologically incapable of focusing to the extent he needed to, the demand to write and the behavior of writing could easily become a trigger for behavioral dysregulation.
Fool Proof Ways to Avoid Attention and Impulse Problems Starting in Young Children
I then realized how important it was for children’s mental health to have early, frequent, and enjoyable opportunities to practice creating lines on paper in deliberate and increasingly intricate ways. This is not an issue of literacy. The problem that I am concerned about avoiding is not about reading, although it would remove one of the bigger obstacles to it (kids will learn to read faster if the have the ability to attend to the lesson and persevere in handwriting words). This is about exercising the brain’s ability to maintain a single focus of concentration for extended periods of time. If kids practice writing lines in various patterns for short, but gradually increasing periods of time and levels of intricacy, they will not only develop concentration, but also the power to inhibit impulses to move. Making intricate lines requires the child to sit still.
1) Buy several sets of pre-k workbooks of mazes, connect the dots, and other pre-writing activities that your child would not mind doing.
2) Set up a time that the child can practice every day, preferably the same time and embedded within a routine that happens daily as well.
3) Determine an effective reward the child can have for completing a short pre-writing exercise.
a. This can be an improved dessert, extra books at bedtime, later bedtime, extra 1:1 time, whatever is valuable enough to enable the child to engage in the task without much resistance.
b. If the child is ready, you can use a check system and if he/she does a certain number of days in a week (like 5) then they get a bigger prize.
4) Start with only 5 minutes of work. Make sure to stay near and observe the child working. Praise line straightness, staying within the lines, keeping pen to paper for longer periods, and other indicators of better fine motor control.
a. Avoid displays of negative emotion to the child while doing the work. It is essential that only positive emotion be paired with this activity.
b. Feedback about errors may be okay, but only state it in neutral terms without emotion (I noticed you crossed the line here, I see a space between your line and the boundary, etc.).
5) Keep the atmosphere fun and exciting to pair making lines with positive emotion.
6) Monitor your child’s developing skill level and choose activities that are increasingly more difficult.
7) Over many months, gradually increase the duration of time the child spends drawing lines to increase his/her stamina.
By the time the child is expected to start writing sentences, the child will enjoy the physical and mental challenges and associate them with positive feedback from adults.