One of my favorite sessions from Great Homeschool Conventions was about teaching highly distractible kids by Kathy Kuhl.
It may surprise you to learn of my kids, the one who struggles most with focus is Princess. The boys have learned how to focus and get the task done so they can move on to what they WANT to do.
Here’s what teaching Princess is like.
- Explain the concept, write out a brilliant thesis, and draw great illustrations, look down and all 3 kids are rolling on the floor. ROLLING.
- Get the kids refocused and back on tract, and reteach the topic, focusing further in and bringing in more movement and participation into the concept. You have no clue how vital this is.
- Assign the independent work, have the kids repeat back what the assignment is.
- Send the kids to their desk. Princess needs to go to the bathroom or get something she forgot.
- They start working, I work on cleaning, and look up to see her playing with her ponies. Refocus Princess.
- She gets to working, then starts drawing, and we refocus again.
- Repeat variations on this for 20 minutes.
- Meanwhile her brothers are done and playing and Princess has completely shut down because she’s not done.
Why is your child distractible?
That’s the first thing to figure out. Why is your child distracted? I’m still working on this. Some possible distractions for your kids:
- Sight- is their learning area too busy? Are there too many colors or things to see and look at? I think this is partially Princess’ struggles.
- Sound- is the area too quiet or too loud? Some kids need quiet to concentrate, this is Batman. He needs relative quiet to concentrate. Others learn better if there is some amount of background noise or music to block out the other noises. For me I need music of some sort, and I tend to play classical music while we do school work to help me concentrate. Try with your kids to see if music helps or doesn’t help. Once you’ve checked on music, do they need words or no words?
- Textures- this is becoming a more common issue, but are they bothered by the feel of their chair, their clothes? What can you work to control in this area?
Tips on teaching distractible kids
- Limit visual distractions. We all love the educational posters and visual reminders, but that could be overwhelming for your child, try taking them down, and see if that helps (my daughter needs help for math, but I made her mini office in black and white).
- Give them a fidget. Kathy Kuhl defined a fidget as a small toy or item your child can fiddle with to help them concentrate. Some rules she suggested, it has to be small, it has to help, it has to not distract the teacher (who may be a distractible adult), it has to not make noise.
- Take breaks, adults benefit from short breaks, so of course, our distractible kids will as well, we take a break every 20 minutes.
- Set timers, I could write a whole post on using timers, but pick up a redline timer, (this is the Time Timer I just got, affiliate link). This can help them see how much time they have left.
- Cover up the problems they are not working on. I think this might help some of Princess’ struggles with math, if she only sees the problem she’s doing. I know she freaks out less if there is not as much visually there.
- Have your kids draw how distracted they are throughout the day so you can find their best working time. Maybe they concentrate best in late afternoon, so plan the hard stuff then.
Strategies for older distractible kids
Just because your child is older doesn’t mean they are suddenly able to concentrate better, I’m certainly proof of this, as it’s taken me 5 different sessions to write this as I just couldn’t concentrate.
- Teach them how to break a big project down into steps. As they get older we expect more and they become daunted by the sheer amount of work.
- Teach them how to use planners and calendars. Teach your distractible kids this over and over and over again. Then come back to it from a different way.
- Look into audio books, this is a great plan for those kids who just don’t concentrate to read, they can draw, exercise, or CLEAN while listening. I know this is a great motivator for my kids to clean if they can listen to an audio book.
- Set your own rules. Don’t just look to the public school rules, look for how you can set your child up for success.
Change what you teach your distractible kids
We as parents and teachers tend to get into ruts for presentation. We sit there and lecture, or watch a video, or draw it out, and the kids don’t see it. Here are some suggestions for changing your teaching style for your distractible kids:
- Be a facilitator, what are they interested in, let them take a topic and run with it. Provide suggestions, but let your distractible kids take the lead.
- Include exercise, do jumping jacks while saying math facts. Write the words on the sidewalk and run to them as you say them.
- Change where you teach, this isn’t as possible in a public school setting, but for homeschoolers, consider having your lesson at the park, or in the backyard. Change it up.
- Take a break and get back to it. I mentioned this briefly before, but a short break can do wonders for your kids’ ability to concentrate.
Help for the distractible Mom to parent their distractible child
If your child is distractible, more than likely it’s inherited from a parent, and quite possibly from Mom. Many of the same tips that will help your children, will help you. But here’s a few more tips I learned from this lecture at Great Homeschool Conventions.
- The same structure that helps our kids, helps us. If we have a routine (not a schedule) then we know roughly what we should be doing and when. That can be a life-saver, for us that looks like a block schedule.
- Discover what your own fidget is, for me its’ handcrafts or taking large amounts of notes, or drawing (future Ticia 2020 adds in).
- Pray for wisdom, you need to learn when your child is distracted and not focusing correctly, and when they are being disobedient.
- Model forgiveness, show them you can forgive the mistakes, not everything is a learning opportunity, sometimes you show grace and let it slide.
- Sticking to the schedule starts the night before. Know what you want to accomplish AND what you will need.
Resources about the distractible child
I have a long list of books I’m planning on getting after attending this lecture, here’s my to buy list, or general reading list (some of these are affiliate links):
- If I’m Diapering a Watermelon, Then Where’d I Leave the Baby?: Help for the Highly Distractible Mom
- The Out-of-Sync Child Has Fun
- Is Your Child Hyperactive? Inattentive? Impulsive? Distractable?: Helping the ADD/Hyperactive Child
- The Learn Differently blog
- Victus Study Skills (another group I saw at GHC, but didn’t have money for then)
- Heads Up Helping!! Teaching Tips and Techniques for Working With ADD, ADHD, and Other Children with Challenges
So, I’d highly recommend if you’re going to the California homeschool convention you check out Kathy Kuhl’s talk on distractible kids OR any of her talks. They were great. (And thanks to MaryAnne for pointing out I hadn’t finished my sentence)
This is part of iHomeschool Network’s Learning Styles and Personalities.
There is a lot of good information here…I could apply some to my highly distractable kids.
I was thinking you probably have kids with similar struggles to me, and it’s probably why we resonate so well with each other 🙂
I like the title of the first book…sounds about right 🙂
It really does, doesn’t it? I’ve certainly found things in odd places.
What was the second half of your final sentence? Did you get distracted? 😉
I also love the title of that first book. I do feel that motivation is a huge piece of staying focused – so a key to teaching is finding a way to motivate the student to learn…
Apparently yes I did, and I need to go in and finish that sentence.
Very interesting post! I feel so bad for distractible children in public classrooms. I abhor the fact that 7-8 year olds are required to go for 100 minutes (I kid you not!) without a break. Yes, there is a bit of transitioning in that 100 minutes, but usually they don’t leave their desks, they just switch from one math activtity to another. No wonder so many of them are checked out.
I always hated the large blocks of time we had to teach, way back when I was teaching we were required to have 100 minutes of reading/language arts instruction. I broke it up with movement, but still it was a fair amount of sitting still for young kids.
These are great points. For my five year old, highly distractible child I keep it plain, I keep it short, I keep it simple and I keep it repetitive. Most of the time success is whether I can be more stubborn than her!!
Math feels like that for me with Princess some days.
I think because I wasn’t Hearing Right stuff didn’t make sense.. So I had ‘gaps’. I struggled in Geography and especially History because IT MADE NO SENSE .. All Those Words that were really jumbled up stuff coming out of the teachers mouths… Primary school we had 33 kids in a class so that was a very very noisy place.. High school we had 30 kids so Not Conducive to any kids with a hearing problem. Geography was quite VISUAL but I still struggled but History was the worst. … Oh well actually MATHS Was because I had NO idea what so ever because all I was seeing was moving dots and ticks and little sticks…buzzing on the paper. But Sport Art & Music & Amazingly English I did the best in… Sport I loved and I could kick the Bullies Butts lol… And I was never reading the music black dots etc on white paper making me feel like I could physically spew if I looked at it too long… Good Article to read … Just adding there are physiological aspects like deafness that make a kid looked distracted ????????. Doveton High School Victoria AUSTRALIA
That is 100% true, and something we as parents/teachers should be on the lookout for (what factors might be contributing to it). I think the key factor in all parenting/teaching decisions is to find what works for the child and teach them how to adapt to the world.
Thank you! My sweetie S. Is distractible! I know for a fact if we were in public school they would have pushed me to have her on adhd meds. She is a kinesthetic/distractible student who needs understanding and a different teaching style. This is a great resource.
Thank you. I think so many kids in public school who are on meds are there because they are kinesthetic learners.
My 5 year old is very distractable!! I think a fidget would be a great idea as she is always fiddling while she should be concentrating, but what would be something I can introduce as her fidget?? Thank you
Back when I taught first grade I let the kids use stress relief balls. I’ve also seen play dough used effectively for that.
I teach preschool, and my own kids have been accommodated for add and adhd . We homeschool my daughter now.
Here are some things to try:
Chewing gum while working
Eating something crunchy while working
Working for short amounts of time, like 15-20 minutes
Using curriculum that is based in projects where kids can read the directions and create dioramas, booklets, dramas, art, etc with little memorization and testing to show competence
Go on a walk while explaining directions or discussing a book
Use an exercise ball for your child to sit on
Play music softly
Work on the floor
Do a team project
ADD kids don’t care as much about facts, they are sensitive and compassionate, so teach them about the “why’s”: how we care for the world, why people made decisions in history, why or how things work together, how God fits in with each subject
“Ground” an unfocused child with a calming touch on the shoulder and encourage a deep breath in the nose and out the mouth several times
Take a break with songs by Dr. Jean
Those are good suggestions.
Back when I was teaching I used to play music quietly and I tried it with my kids, but it actually distracts my daughter worse. So it will depend on the ADD kid for the music.
I’m a super mega detracted adult. Has anyone found any help with that? My husband and mother all say it really isn’t my fault, that Lupus and Fibromyalgia have contributed greatly to my crazy mind ha! I’m going to check out the book for adults but also tips would be appreciated. Please feel free to email me mgmommy0930(at)yahoo (dot) come
My daughter has severe combined ADHD so distractions are half of our issue – a really great idea to help keep her focused is to create ways for her work to be hands on activities – as she gets older we have phased out math counters and added laminated math problems and let her use dry erase markers or we make them into puzzle pieces – math question on one side, the answers on the other and she has to put them all together instead of writing everything out which is her #1 issue writing is a major struggle the mental focus to write is ‘hard work’ orally she can answer any question so by removing some of the physical writing she focuses better and is still doing the required work. For language arts we laminate hands on pieces as much as we can and then provide a worksheet to fill – she can do it as she works through the activity or at the end but she has to turn the sheet in, in order to move on. Works well most of the time. If you only plan to do things once with an activity instead of laminating it just print on paper and cut them out – recycling instead of reusing over and over.
Those are great ideas!
Thank you so much for sharing this! I have a child just like this. She will spin 100 times as she counts to 100. Yep, she’s very dizzy at the end!
Ha ha ha ha, I can just picture that, and I could easily picture my daughter doing that too. Thanks for the smile this morning.
Love your web site I just started homeschooling my preschooler this year it’s a big step for him as well as me I love your web site as I am a distracted mom and so is my son but he is a hands on learner as well which has made teaching a little bit more challenging but he is an only child so no sibling distractions. Your site is a big help for me 🙂
I’m so glad to hear it’s been a big help! Preschool is a great time to figure out how you want to do school, you’ve got such a great time ahead of you.
The spring weather has really had an effect lately on my kids. Definitely need these tips!
My kids are grown but I have 2 grandkids. Lots of wisdom in this post!
Thanks! I reread it from time to time myself to remind myself what I should be doing.
Perfect. I’m a distractible adult and have a rigid folder & post it note system to stay focused & organized. I’m a big believer in fidgets for kids and for the stand-up desks with the foot swing underneath. I’ve instructed entire enrichment sessions with a distractible child standing, swinging his foot and staying completely on task for our hour. Thanks, great article, pinned it, found you via Twitter ( @lookwelearn posted it)
That sounds like a great system, do you by any chance have a link to it?
I just ordered several fidgets for the kids and I, and I can’t wait for it to come.
So glad you liked it.
Hi Ticia,
My system is a modified version of the “Tickler File” system set out in David Allen’s book “Getting Things Done.” It did away with “To Do” lists as such for me and helped me focus on one project at a time, breaking each project into action steps. Great book, even if you just take from it what works for you. 🙂