Often parents complain about their unfocused children. However, this only has something to do with a concentration disorder in a few cases. If a child prefers to continue playing with his mobile phone rather than setting the table, this is not a problem of attention.
Even if it does not hear the multiple calls of the parents. Use our Concentration checklist to find out how well your child can concentrate and whether there may be a disorder.
Does your child have problems with concentration?
Only gradually do children learn to concentrate on less exciting things such as homework or tidying up. Take our test and try to clarify what your child’s concentration looks like.
Fill in the concentration checklist
Test: Concentration problems
Our questions
Yes
No
1. do you often have the feeling that your child cannot concentrate well?
2. does your child often have spontaneous ideas, which he or she follows impulsively (without thinking about it beforehand)?
3. does your child show little perseverance in accomplishing tasks he or she does not enjoy? For example, when tidying up, laying the table, taking out garbage or doing homework?
4. Is your child easily distracted during homework? Hunger, thirst, annoying thoughts or unimportant tasks are also part of it.
5. can your child be easily distracted when learning for school, for example when learning vocabulary?
6. Does your child make many scatterbrains or careless mistakes? Could it easily have better grades without these mistakes?
7. does your child often overlook details or details? Doesn’t he pay attention to arithmetic symbols or does he read only superficially?
8. can’t your child finish a game in peace because he still has another idea to put into practice?
9. does your child switch quickly between different types of employment? First he reads, then he has to paint something or call a friend.
10. Do you have to call your child several times before he or she reacts?
Does your child have a lack of concentration?
Evaluation: If you answered more than half of the questions with yes, your child has a lack of concentration. You can train this with many simple exercises so that your child improves his or her ability to concentrate.
Don’t worry, your child can still learn that.
There are many exercises that help with a lack of concentration. Under no circumstances should you exert pressure or threaten your child. It is better to slowly increase the concentration range with playful exercises. For example with this training.
Sometimes the concentration problems are greater
One speaks of a concentration disorder if it is not possible in the long term to keep one’s concentration focused, for example, on an activity. The term is used in medicine, education, psychotherapy and psychiatry to describe symptoms. http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Konzentrationsstörung
Test: Concentration disturbance
Our questions
Yes
No
1. cannot your child concentrate on any activity for 15 to 20 minutes, even in play?
2. does your child almost always have massive problems doing his homework at once? Do his grades already suffer from it?
3. is your child very disorganized (unpunctual, unreliable) and annoys others?
4. Does your child constantly forget or lose something? The jacket, gloves, gym bag, breakfast or appointments?
5. can’t your child wait, does he jump off the table while eating or doesn’t finish playing games?
6. Does your child constantly interrupt and disturb others? Does it not listen to the end and does it fall into their voices?
7. is your child a known troublemaker in class? Has a teacher already addressed this problem?
8. does your child not succeed in remembering and carrying out two tasks at the same time? He irrevocably forgets one of them?
9. is your child very easily distracted by stimuli, so does he interrupt his activities?
10. Is your child extremely dreamy or very restless, so that it attracts attention?
Does your child have a concentration disorder?
Evaluation: If you answered yes to more than half of the questions, your child may have a concentration disorder. Now you should go back and turn on professionals. Make an appointment at an educational counselling centre and have a correct, scientifically tested concentration test carried out. In a subsequent consultation, you will receive suggestions that will help your child.