Next come balance and coordination games. The cerebellum, which is part of the central nervous system at the back of our brains, is responsible for coordination and balance. Balance and coordination are very important factors in focus and attention. However, we don't want to move to these harder balance exercises until the child has mastery of the basics. Again, there will be children who are exceptions to the rule - children who don't do well with balance and coordination but can focus and concentrate very well. These activities and games can help either child - the one who has difficulty in focusing and attending as well as the child who can focus and attend but is weak in balance and coordination.
Basic Balance Activities. Begin with some simple exercises. You can use Koosh pads (round pads, about a foot in diameter, with air foam in them) that you can stand on. (Adults do this to practice their balance and coordination; they also use a balance board where you balance on a board that is resting on a ball and try to keep from falling to one side or the other.) You can also use a balance beam, which could be a piece of wood with enough width for the child's shoe and can be stabilized so it doesn't tip over.
Start with the child standing on two of these Koosh pads and see if he can balance and for how long. If he can do this effortlessly, have him do it with his eyes closed. Then see if you can increase the time he can do this by a few seconds each day. What Is Psychosocial Treatment
Then do the same kind of activity standing on one Koosh pad - eyes open, then eyes closed. Then throw a foam ball to the child and have him catch it and throw it back to you while balancing. Then talk to the child and sing songs together while he is balancing with eyes open, then with eyes closed. You can make silly sounds and play copycat games in which the child makes silly sounds with you, with or without music.
On One Leg While Doing Other Activities. Then you can advance up the ladder to doing all the above activities while the child is on one leg - right leg, and then the left leg - while balancing on a Koosh pad. Then do the same with eyes opened, eyes closed, throwing, catching, singing songs, making silly sounds together, or just having a general chitchat.
You can complicate this even further by having the child catch a ball thrown a little higher so he has a little harder time catching it, while on one leg. The child can throw the ball into a basket while balancing.
On a Balance Board. Once the child has mastered these tasks in balance and coordination using the Koosh pad, you can try the same activities on the balance board (a board resting on a ball). While on the balance board - eyes open, eyes closed, throwing, catching, adding vocalizations - see if the child can throw, catch, and talk all at the same time. If this goes well and the child is a pro at it, you can throw balloons at the child while he tries to avoid the balloons by moving back and forth.
On the Balance Beam. Then you can play some games in which the child is like a gymnast walking on the balance beam but while balloons are coming at him. He has to duck, catch, and throw the balloons while balancing.
All these tasks really improve balance and coordination and can be made a lot of fun for children to do. They build up not just attention and concentration but future dance or athletic skills or current athletic skills because all such activities involve balance and coordination. It is a mistake to assume that children who concentrate easily and focus on schoolwork are not necessarily good at dance, sports, or other activities. These skills should and can go together, although there are exceptions to the rule.
The central goal here is to get many parts of the nervous system working together in a coordinated fashion. This is what really enhances children's ability to regulate and control themselves, and thus to concentrate and focus.
Fine Motor Exercises
As a child develops and gets into the toddler and preschool stages, he is doing more with his fingers and hands, and we want to facilitate that - beyond picking up Cheerios with thumb and forefinger. With a small child, you might ask, "Well, where is that car?" or "Where is that bird?" She may point with her fist or with a finger. If she points with a full fist, that tells us some games that exercise the fine motor system may be needed.
Finger Games. Fine motor games start with little copycat games and rhythmic activities with fingers like playing a make-believe piano or just moving hands and fingers in rhythm. You can go from opening and closing fists and squishing toes to wiggling individual fingers and playing with finger puppets. What Is Psychosocial Treatment
Coloring and Drawing. Coloring and drawing are great for fine motor skills and inspire attention. You can start with scribble-scrabble games in which you make a shape and then the child adds something onto the shape and so forth. For example, the child might make a circle and you add eyes and the child adds a little nose and so on, back and forth. Next, the child can do some coloring and eventually copy specific shapes - first lines, then circles, then rectangles, triangles, and diamonds, and then sequences of shapes.
The goal here is to help children make shapes with lines in all different directions - vertical, horizontal, and connecting the lines together. You can make a bunch of dots and ask the child to connect them together. About 50 percent freelance (creative coloring and drawing) and 50 percent copy work helps in learning basics.
If the child has trouble holding the crayon or pencil and just fists it, let him start off fisting it, and gradually he will get control over his hands and fingers. An older child (past the age of three and a half or four) who is still fisting the pencil or crayon might need the help of an occupational therapist to learn how to grasp it in a way that gives him more flexibility.
If children do these exercises effortlessly, you can go on to making complicated shapes, perhaps making a man out of a diamond, circles, squares, and rectangles - a little robot man, for example - with endless fun variations. To learn more, you can check out What Is Psychosocial Treatment.
