Discover Ways to Stay Focused and Avoid Distractions

As there are sufficient distractions around as child grows up, it becomes important to keep the distractions at bay. Distractions are activities that do not provide outcome commensurate to the time spent in it. Excessive gaming, too much time spent in recreational activities, over involvement with the social media and any such wasteful spend of time. 

Keeping the child focused requires a parent to identify the few areas of interest of the child and develop a strong connect with the child for those few only over a prolonged period of time. These should be creative activities where the possibility of excellence requires immense dedication.  

Once engaged in any such activity, a parent would notice that the child gets into a state of flow, spending hours in it. The Positive Psychology framework calls this as the state of engagement. 

Good observation skills are needed of parents to identify these activities and slowly guide the child towards them. In case these activities are ones where a child can later evolve to build a career then it will be a very satisfying and a fulfilling pursuit. Conversely in case a parent and child identify these activities incorrectly, they become a huge stress on the child and a consequent pressure point for the entire family. 

Consider the case of Shubra (name changed for confidentiality). A very good student Shubra was her mother’s pride. She took keen interest in learning multiple languages and joined the Japanese classes. Her proficiency in the language increased multi-fold and she was absolutely fluent in it over the next few years. 

At the same time her interest in science and technology developed and as a part of the project work in high school, she made a drone that would carry out soil analysis while fixing the GPS coordinates. She then sent the project to a college of choice in Japan and as she had cleared the Japanese proficiency examinations, she was readily accepted into the institute. 

With such a planned way of working and focus on the vital few aligned to interests, distractions are minimized and success is assured. It is the parents’ role to identify the right areas to focus upon. The identification of the right area can happen through a combination of education, exposure or expertise. 

Parents’ should encourage the child study and learn as much about the various subjects or topics. Discuss about multiple fields of interest without any prejudice. Exposure can be provided by visiting different areas and engaging in activities like gardening, music, painting, volunteering work and such others. Expertise can be shared by making the child listen to or engage with individuals who have deep expertise in the area. These can be sports, industry, government services and many others like that. 

With this understanding the child will be able to navigate and select a few areas that are of interest. These can then be further evolved to generate a deeper understanding and pursue over time. 

At Yancha, expert guides provide the much needed inputs to parents to carry out the behavioural development of the children. While schools focus on the academic development based on prescribed curriculum, behavioural development and building on the areas of interest of the child is best carried out by the parents. 

The fundamental reason for children to achieve far beyond expectations is the behavioural development carried out by the parents in the formative years of their development. 

At Yancha we guide parents to demonstrate behaviours so that the child’s interest areas are identified and the child then stays away from distractions. The necessary push and pull is provided to help a child strive towards excellence and not slide into mediocrity.