Deep Concentration

In the young child there are observable characteristics of behavior that help us know that a child is following normal development. These characteristics follow: love of order, love of work, deep spontaneous concentration, attachment to reality, love of silence and working alone, sublimation of the possessive instinct, power to act from real choice not just curiosity or impulsivity, trust and obedience, independence and initiative, as well as spontaneous self-discipline. The past two weeks we looked at love of order and love of work. Today we'll consider the development of deep spontaneous concentration.

Children naturally come to an intense self-generated ability to focus attention. It is how we are wired as human beings to learn.

The modern-day world offers many distractions and a variety of attractions that didn't exist 50 or 60 years ago. Today, the amount of technological change we see in a year may well be more than many people saw in a lifetime a century ago.

Before I started kindergarten my days were spent at home. The radio created a serene backdrop with quiet music. Television provided a rainy day diversion. My weekly car trip was on Sundays to go to church and to drive to visit my grandparents 30 miles away.

The distractions in my life were few, and as I developed focus I learned to ignore distractions. As I learned to read, I also learned to tune out the noise from my brothers and sisters. To this day it takes a tap on my shoulder to get my attention if I'm reading.

My childhood environment made it easy to develop deep self-generated concentration. I was given quiet, uninterrupted time, and the objects in my environment were appropriate. The adults in my environment--my parents and grandparents--created structure by keeping regular meal, snack and bedtimes. This protected my time and attention needed to develop concentration.

Our children's brains are seeking opportunities to create this deep concentration by choosing activities that are interesting to them, that they have time to explore and complete and that they have the opportunity to repeat.

When these opportunities are not available to a child (and to adults also) frustration builds. Reactions to not being involved with interesting activities due to environmental and time constraints fall within the spectrum of anger on one end and apathy on the other.

Newly enrolled Jocinta shuffled into her preschool classroom. There was no pep in her step. No enthusiasm in her smile. Jocinta showed little interest in any activity. Even songs like the Hokey Pokey didn't engage her. Jocinta didn't cause any problems. She was quietly unexcited about life. She complained daily about her stomach hurting.

After a couple of weeks trying to engage Jocinta in what are usually irresistible activities for preschoolers, her teacher visited with Jocinta's parents. Asking about what a typical week looked like for Jocinta, her teacher discovered that Jocinta had disjointed days. On Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, after morning preschool Jocinta went to a babysitter with various caregivers and children. On Tuesdays and Thursdays Jocinta stayed at her grandparents' homes. Dinner was in different restaurants every night. Bedtimes and dinner times were based on Jocinta's parents' work schedule.

Her parents viewed Jocinta's personality as reserved and shy. What Jocinta's teacher saw instead was a child who never had the time to learn to focus her attention and create natural spontaneous concentration.

Fortunately, Jocinta's parents were open to the idea of creating a more predictable daily routine for Jocinta. Dinner and bedtimes were scheduled, and grandparents volunteered to create a consistent afternoon situation.

Within six weeks Jocinta bounced out of her car in the mornings, ready to get busy with the day's activities. Her eyes sparkled, her cheeks looked round and rosy, and she laughed easily as she sang, “If You're Happy and You Know It.”

A consistent environment with clear expectations and transparent structure helped Jocinta develop deep spontaneous concentration, a sign of healthy and normal development of the young child.

Next week: Attachment to Reality

Kids Talk™ is a column dealing with early childhood development issues written by Maren Stark Schmidt. Mrs. Schmidt founded a Montessori school and holds a Masters of Education from Loyola College in Maryland.

She has over 25 years experience working with young children and holds teaching credentials from the Association Montessori Internationale. She is also Creative Director for a video-based reading series for children ages three to six, The Shining Light Reading Series. Contact her via e-mail at maren@shininglightreading.com.

Complete Collection of the Shining Light Reading Series Now Available on DVD
Visit www.shininglightreading.com for more information.

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©2009 KIDS TALK™
25877 East Bright Avenue
Welches, OR 97067
503.550.3143
maren@kidstalknews.com

Kids Talk is published in conjunction with Scribe Marketing

Children Love Meaningful Activity

The young child's love of work, or being involved in meaningful activity, is an inborn trait. With proper nourishment this love survives a lifetime. Even in utero the child is involved in what can only be classified as work--growing and moving in a confined environment.

Movement defines a child's activity from the first kick in the womb or grasp of a finger, to learning to sit up, crawl, walk, talk and thousands of other activities. The child has an innate need to move, and movement, in turn, aids development and learning in the human being.

Freedom to move, within the limits of safety, is essential to our positive growth. And do children love to move!

Children's movements may not seem like purposeful work to us. If we could sit back and watch a child in an environment where we didn't have to worry about them getting into something they shouldn't, we might observe the children's natural impulses. With interesting objects in the environment and motives to be involved in activity, we should see children moving to explore and orient themselves and choosing to be involved in self-selected meaningful activities.

On the first day of school, three-year-old Andreas was constantly on the move. In the course of an hour, Andreas had touched almost a hundred different objects in the classroom. He climbed the bookshelves to reach framed pictures on the top shelves. His needs for movement and creating order seemed to be at full speed. His activity was exhausting to watch, and his movements pushed the envelope of safety.

On the second day of class, Andreas' teacher invited him to sit next to her and watch the other children in the classroom who were working on self-selected activities. Andreas' sense of order started to come into play as he watched how the other children where interacting with the objects and people in the classroom. When his teacher asked him what looked interesting to him, Andreas mentioned sweeping with a broom. After having a lesson on how to sweep wood shavings into a square outlined on the floor and then use a dust pan, Andreas spent 15 minutes sweeping up large wood shavings, re-scattering the shavings and sweeping them up again.

Movement directed towards purposeful work created calmness in Andreas. In these moments of calm reflection, Andreas was able to choose another interesting activity, do it to his satisfaction, return the activity to order and then choose the next activity. In this way Andreas created a cycle of work, lengthening his concentration and aiding his learning.

Andreas' teacher helped Andreas by connecting his innate love of work to an interesting and purposeful activity of his choice. His teacher's understanding and support of the inborn characteristics of young children--love of order and love of work--calmed Andreas' hyperactivity. Instead of seeing his behavior as impossibly chaotic, Andreas' teacher understood that there was a young boy trying to connect to his natural love of activity, or work.

Next week: Deep Concentration

Kids Talk™ is a column dealing with early childhood development issues written by Maren Stark Schmidt. Mrs. Schmidt founded a Montessori school and holds a Masters of Education from Loyola College in Maryland.

She has over 25 years experience working with young children and holds teaching credentials from the Association Montessori Internationale. She is also Creative Director for a video-based reading series for children ages three to six, The Shining Light Reading Series. Contact her via e-mail at maren@shininglightreading.com.

Complete Collection of the Shining Light Reading Series Now Available on DVD
Visit www.shininglightreading.com for more information.

Ask your local newspaper to carry Kids Talk. Call, write or e-mail your local newspaper editor and recommend Kids Talk.

Would you like to send Kids Talk to friends and family or receive Kids Talk e-mail updates in your own inbox? Sign up for FREE here:
Click here for a FREE subscription.

©2009 KIDS TALK™
25877 East Bright Avenue
Welches, OR 97067
503.550.3143
maren@kidstalknews.com

Kids Talk is published in conjunction with Scribe Marketing

Love of Order

As parents and teachers we are concerned about doing the right things with our children. When our children go through difficult periods, we can spend nights tossing and turning about what can be the matter.

As our tools can be friend or foe, depending on how we use them, it can be helpful if we understand the innate development characteristics of children under the age of seven.

Children are born with special affinities that aid their development. Over the next few weeks we will be examining these characteristics of the young child that help us know that a child is following normal development or is encountering difficulties where adult help is necessary. Children who are on-track with their development display all or most of the following: love of order, love of work, deep spontaneous concentration, attachment to reality, love of silence and working alone, sublimation of the possessive instinct, power to act from real choice not just curiosity or impulsivity, trust and obedience, independence and initiative, as well as spontaneous self-discipline.

The young child possesses a love of order that adults sometimes trample all over, because as we become older this sensitivity is less central to our lives and learning. Learning success for the young child, though, depends on this connection and understanding of order.

Brain research is showing that during the first six years of life the neural matter of the brain is growing at a tremendous rate. The brain creates neural pathways with the sensory information is it acquiring. We might liken this process to a footpath being created at a new school by students walking across campus. The most direct paths are created over time, becoming wider, deeper and at some point are paved to make clear connections between buildings. As certain sensory pathways are trod in the brain, future access is being almost guaranteed by the children's repetition of experiences, driven by a love of order.

Classification of objects and experiences in the child's environment are also forming. Making connections of similar qualities among objects is an important skill for adult thinking. Examples of the types of classifications the children are making follow: These are wooden objects. These are all the items we need to bake a cake. These are all the materials we need to build a house. Adults who lack critical thinking skills also do not have an ability to classify objects effectively.

It is the child's innate sense for finding and creating order that helps build later logical thinking.

As adults, we disrupt a child's sense of order mainly by being unaware of this order, by changing the child's environment, which includes people as well as objects, and by not giving the child enough time to explore and orient him- or herself.

For the child with a strong sense of order changing a seemingly insignificant object in the child's environment may create great anxiety. Rearranging the dining room furniture might provoke a crying jag in a two-year-old. When we are aware of the child's sense of order we can be on the lookout for behavioral changes and try to connect them to changes in the child's surroundings. Mom or Dad wearing a new outfit or new cologne may be enough to put a three-year-old out of sorts.

Not having enough time to explore and orient themselves can prevent our children from tapping into their inborn sense of order that promotes positive brain development. Being taken from event to event or being distracted from exploration through television or computer usage are but a few of the many ways we disrupt our children's sense of order.

Help your child's natural development by being aware of the importance of the child's innate love of order.

Next week: Children Love Meaningful Activity

Kids Talk™ is a column dealing with early childhood development issues written by Maren Stark Schmidt. Mrs. Schmidt founded a Montessori school and holds a Masters of Education from Loyola College in Maryland.

She has over 25 years experience working with young children and holds teaching credentials from the Association Montessori Internationale. She is also Creative Director for a video-based reading series for children ages three to six, The Shining Light Reading Series. Contact her via e-mail at maren@shininglightreading.com.

Complete Collection of the Shining Light Reading Series Now Available on DVD
Visit www.shininglightreading.com for more information.

Ask your local newspaper to carry Kids Talk. Call, write or e-mail your local newspaper editor and recommend Kids Talk.

Would you like to send Kids Talk to friends and family or receive Kids Talk e-mail updates in your own inbox? Sign up for FREE here:
Click here for a FREE subscription.

©2009 KIDS TALK™
25877 East Bright Avenue
Welches, OR 97067
503.550.3143
maren@kidstalknews.com

Kids Talk is published in conjunction with Scribe Marketing

Do the Hokey Pokey

In the gardening shop I looked up to discover a sign over my head. ''What If the Hokey Pokey Is What It's All About?'' For whatever reasons, I started to laugh. Uncontrollably. My husband came from across the store to see what could be so funny.

For weeks afterwards Mark and I had a running joke with ''What If…?''

Later I realized that the reason I perceived this sign as so humorous is that the words contain a basic truth. What is this fundamental truth?

Let me back up a little. During this time of the Hokey Pokey joke, I was researching current findings on brain development. The hand working with the mind is understood as perhaps the most essential element to optimum brain development. The words from the song, ''put your right hand in'' and ''put your left hand in'' may be the keys to creating learning success for all of our lives.

Almost a fourth of the real estate in the sensory motor cortex of our brains receives sensory information from the hands. Another fourth of the sensory motor cortex deals with input from the eyes, ears and mouth.

Basically, our hands dominate sensory input into our brains. Whenever we can involve the hand in learning, we should. It's as though we double the input, and thus learning and memory, when we use our hands.

Once we get the hands involved in learning, and idle curiosity is satisfied, the hands and the mind guide all the other parts of the body to engage. ''Put your leg in, put your leg out.'' As we extend our self-control to all parts of the body, we ''shake it all about'' to gain a full experience.

Hopefully, we've all experienced being intensely interested in something that made learning exhilarating and challenges thrilling. Understanding new concepts in those conditions comes easily. This idea of fun learning is referred to as ''being in flow'' by learning researchers. When we put our ''whole selves in''--we are fully engaged in an interesting activity. It's as if we are doing the Hokey Pokey as we turn ourselves around and poke and prod ideas from different angles.

The engagement in a self-selected activity that absorbs the entire personality is perhaps our most powerful learning tool, for children or adults. ''Put your whole self in, and shake it all about,'' and learning is fun, easy and productive.

Researchers who look at happiness in older and retired populations say that three factors contribute to a healthy long life: stay involved in your community, be involved in personally meaningful activities and laugh often.

Young or old, the meaning of life might be summed up as the song says: ''Do the Hokey Pokey. That's what it's all about.''

Laugh. Do personally meaningful work. Be part of your community. ''That's what it's all about.''

Next week: Love of Order

Kids Talk™ is a column dealing with early childhood development issues written by Maren Stark Schmidt. Mrs. Schmidt founded a Montessori school and holds a Masters of Education from Loyola College in Maryland.

She has over 25 years experience working with young children and holds teaching credentials from the Association Montessori Internationale. She is also Creative Director for a video-based reading series for children ages three to six, The Shining Light Reading Series. Contact her via e-mail at maren@shininglightreading.com.

Complete Collection of the Shining Light Reading Series Now Available on DVD
Visit www.shininglightreading.com for more information.

Ask your local newspaper to carry Kids Talk. Call, write or e-mail your local newspaper editor and recommend Kids Talk.

Would you like to send Kids Talk to friends and family or receive Kids Talk e-mail updates in your own inbox? Sign up for FREE here:
Click here for a FREE subscription.

©2009 KIDS TALK™
25877 East Bright Avenue
Welches, OR 97067
503.550.3143
maren@kidstalknews.com

Kids Talk is published in conjunction with Scribe Marketing