Early on in life, school is purely for fun and gentle learning. Children are playing more than they are learning at their desks. It’s a great time to be young and heading off to school every morning, because you’re surrounded by your friends and it’s basically, like a slumber party every day. However, there is still a very specific curriculum that teachers will be putting your children through. It’s usually here where children begin to show signs or patterns of behavior, which could be troubling. Catching the signs of ADHD, autism or any other kind of impairment that stops your child from concentrating is vital for their growth. But how on earth do you spot signs that your child isn’t able to focus in class?
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Missing information and homework
Children will have textbooks they take home and bring to class. They are often used to give out homework but it will be caveated with what is taught to them in class. Sitting down with your children to help them with their homework should be a regular occurrence. Does your child struggle with the homework because they can’t remember what the teacher told them? When children find it difficult to piece together the information they were given in class to their textbooks, this is a clear sign that something is up.
Teachers will always explain the complex concepts of questions and subject matters. It’s very rare to find children being told to purely use their textbooks to answer questions. Does your child take notes in class to help them with homework? If they don’t, ask them to do so from now on. You should expect to see notes taken for their homework next time they have assignments. If your child isn’t taking notes, then you should speak with them to find out why not? It could be because they’re distracted, unable to follow what the teacher is saying, lazy, or overconfident of their understanding of the topic. Ask very specific questions to get to the bottom of it.
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Muffled and quiet
If your child says to you that they find the teacher is too quiet for them to listen to, pay close attention to their following answers to these questions.
- Do they hear muffled sounds or words instead of clear speech?
- Do they have trouble hearing consonants?
- Do they often need sentences repeated for them?
- Do they become withdrawn from conversations in the middle of them?
- Do they choose to avoid social situations with crowds?
If your child answered yes to one or all of these questions, take them to an audiologist. They could be showing symptoms of early hearing loss and the quicker you catch this, the better. There are plenty of hearing aids for children but you should make sure you choose a pediatric for your child. Children need to hear lots of different sounds at once since they are in a noisy, busy, sometimes chaotic classroom. They will also need to be given tests to see what the sensitivity should be for their still-developing ears. You must be there with them so you can ask key questions to the pediatrician. The hearing aids that pediatrics supply will have indicator lights. This lets parents know when they need to change a battery or when the child has manually changed a setting on the device. It will also ensure that their soft and still growing ears will not be uncomfortable with a hardened hearing aid which is usually for adults.
Get them excited
It’s tough being a parent but it can and should also be fun. Sometimes children don’t fully understand the subjects they’re being taught. They may not realize how the things they learn in class are useful to them in everyday life. It’s your job as the parent, to make learning fun. It should be relevant to their lives personally. They should feel a connection to the problems they solve in maths and science.
Why not conduct experiments or real-world examples of their education? For example, take them to a science museum and show them how electrons and protons work. They’ll more than likely be some kind of interactive exhibit, with a description of how things work. There are plenty of at-home chemistry experiments you can do out in your garden. Look on YouTube for ideas and get your kids involved!
Sometimes it’s purely distractions that are preoccupying your child’s focus in the classroom. This is something you can speak about with their teacher. It could be due to biological reasons such as early hearing loss. Speak with your child and ask specific questions to get to the bottom of it.