Page 150 - The Intentional Parent

child is being hurt, be persistent. This is definitely a case where the squeaky wheel gets the grease.
ATTENTION AND CONCENTRATION
My second-grade-aged son takes three hours to do a twenty- minute homework assignment. He sits at the table and just tunes out. He sharpens pencils, walks around aimlessly, or doodles on his homework papers. When he does his work, his effort is poor and his work is well below what we know he is capable of doing. Why does he waste so much time, when he can be playing with his friends within a half hour after he starts his work?
It is possible that your son has a problem with maintaining attention and concentration. It would be a good idea to have him evaluated for a condition known as Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD). While many hyperactive children have ADD, many children who are not hyperactive also suffer from it (some estimate that it may affect one in every seven to ten children). The main symptoms are inability to focus, procrastinating over work, difficulty maintaining attention on even simple tasks, "zoning out," and a high degree of frustration over simple but concentration-intense work, such as schoolwork. Some common techniques that are used with children who have these problems include breaking larger tasks into smaller tasks, using checklists to help organize and complete work, removing distractions from the homework environment, allowing your child to dictate work that doesn't have penmanship as the main focus, and requiring smaller amounts of high quality work, as opposed to large amounts of work that will result in frustration and annoyance. Contact your child's teacher to discuss ways of better structuring your child's work habits. Then contact your pediatrician, who will
The Intentional Parent by Peter J. Favaro, Ph.D. 150