How to become more attentive: practical recommendations, exercises and feedback

The kid is often distracted during classes, the adolescent's academic performance is reduced due to non-assiduity in the classroom, and the adult regularly forgets where he placed the remote control or keys ... The problem for all is connected with the lack of attention, not the cognitive process, but organizing their functioning . Attention is a state of consciousness that allows you to clearly and fully reflect reality. How can you become more attentive and what is needed for this?

Attention properties

A unique tool of focusing on something or someone has a number of properties that can be developed. Attention is characterized by:

• Volume - the number of objects perceived simultaneously in fractions of a second (in the norm from 4 to 6);
• Stability - retention time;
• Concentration (clarity of perception), allowing not to be distracted by less significant signals;
• Switchability - the speed of the transition from one to another, a more important object;
• Distribution - ability to parallel processes;
• Orientation (objectivity) - the allocation of certain signals as the main ones inside or outside.

How to help the child become attentive: the recommendations of a psychologist

For future success in training with a preschooler, you need to engage in training not only cognitive processes (memory, thinking, imagination), but also attention. In the subconscious period, the child is situational, so for classes it is necessary to create certain conditions:

• Comfort associated with observing the regime of the day, the lack of the need to fulfill other needs, the adaptability of the premises;
• Emotional saturation of employment with the change of activity, attractive for the baby;
• A clear and step-by-step presentation of the instructions in a benevolent tone, for it organizes the baby and develops future planning;
• Help in the fight against distracting factors in the form of verbal benchmarks: "We will finish the task first, and then play with the machine";
• Support of interest.

Having created the necessary atmosphere, you can begin to perform exercises that solve the problem, how to become more attentive.

Exercises for the baby

The game "Three points" on the amount of attention

The child who has settled down in a comfortable position, is given three tasks. In the instructions they are listed at the same time. Task: perform all the actions correctly and in the specified sequence. To do this, he is given a cheerful team: "One, two and three, run faster." Sample task: 1. Three times to clap your hands. 2. Name the second letter of the alphabet. 3. Pick up a soft toy.

If the task is successfully completed, you can complicate: 1. Clap your hands as many times as you are. 2. Write the first three letters of the alphabet on the paper. 3. Pick up a thing whose name begins with the letter "c".

Game "Signs" to switch attention

It's better to spend such fun with the group, but it's also possible with one baby. How can a child become attentive if he does not know how to navigate the situation? This helps the signs-switches, invented by adults during any game: the words "Stop game", the ringing of an alarm clock or a bell, a picture shown to the participants.

Game "Corrector" on the distribution of attention

The lesson is suitable for an older preschooler who knows the letters. He is given a text with a large font, where it is necessary to find and cross out all the letters "O". If during the game the kid does this chaotically, it should be corrected. Complications of the task: 1. Delete one letter and emphasize another. 2. Run the task for a while. 3. Arrange a competition with another child or an adult. Consciously skipping the letters, instruct both to check the assignment of the opponent.

How to become more attentive to a teenager

A teenager is able to perform more complex tasks, increasing the amount of attention. He can offer a sign, where in various geometric figures numbers are put, for example 8, 3, 9. Figures can be any: a triangle, a square, a circle. Before starting the demonstration of the tablets, you should be warned that the numbers will be displayed. Lifting them for a second, you can suggest writing down the numbers in a row, finding the amount, the product. Then ask to name the figures in which they are depicted. In the following classes, the number of figures and tablets should be increased if the student easily copes with the task.

An interesting mathematical problem of switching attention is the requirement to write two numbers in a column. The next pair of figures will consist of: the upper one - from the unit of the sum of the first two, and the lower one - just the transferred upper one. For example, 3 and 5 are taken. At the top there will be 8, at the bottom - 3. The next pair of figures is formed on the same basis. It turns out 1 and 8. The intrigue is that the participant is given a new task, in which the units of the sum are written down, and the bottom number is carried up. After mastering a new task, the participant is offered their chaotic change by a certain signal.

Computer Help

Without modern technologies it is more difficult to define and develop such a feature of attention as concentration. Computer video game Play attention with a special armband, where the sensor is built in, registers the degree of concentration of attention, as well as the level of thinking. The game is made on the principle of techniques used by American astronauts.

A huge number of computer programs responds to requests, how to become more attentive. In addition to games, complexes of exercises for the development of basic attention properties were created. "Superweek" is one of them, which includes eleven sets of tasks: "Search", "Replacement", "Sorting", "Errors", "Sum", "Corrector", "Three", "Breath", "Figure" , "Checker", "Rhythm". These complexes are available on the Internet, they are based on the interest of school-age children.

Group trainings

In large cities, there are psychological centers that conduct group trainings for older adolescents and adults of different orientations. One of the most popular is the development of memory and imaginative thinking. In parallel, they all solve the problem of how to become an attentive person, because they are based on perception, observation, concentration. Exercises rely on the basic properties of attention, developing and improving them. A whole science of eidetics has been created - a tool for working with any volume of information of people of different ages.

There is a technique for activating the right hemisphere of the brain (St. Petersburg), the Superbamyat course on the basis of the Presidential School (Moscow), using the ideas and practice of John Atkinson. To train, you need a motivation based on existing problems, either when working with information, or in everyday life.

Feedback from program participants

In Warsaw, once sold out items left in transport, not in demand during the year. Many inattentive passengers gathered on it, hoping to buy their favorite bags, hats, gloves. One of them actually discovered and bought his former umbrella, the same day again leaving him on the bus. There is a violation of concentration and distribution of attention. How to become more attentive in everyday life, what is the most suitable way for such people? The feedback from participants in the training programs shows that they are able to push the boundaries of the usual. A person from five repetitions remembers for years that which he could not learn earlier. Discontents concern only specific trainers, their quality of work and the formation of a dialogue with the participants.

There are special classes for preschool children and primary school students. Their quality is also highly appreciated by parents. The main criterion is to improve the child's performance, to develop skills that help to gain knowledge independently. Good reviews of computer programs that provide real help to children of school age. At the same time, when answering the question of how to become more attentive in life, many agree that with properly organized regular classes with the kids in the pre-school period, a sufficient basis is created for self- development of attention in later life.