As the child gets older, his reflective thinking becomes stronger and stronger. He can identify his desires more confidently. He can recognize when he is calm and relaxed, or intense and active. If he needs a lot of adventure and excitement, he can deliberately choose to get involved in sports, dance, and outdoor exploration. If he likes more quiet time by himself, he can read or draw or write. These are his decisions. You can support your child in the kinds of activities that help him become calm and regulated and engage his full focus and interests. The reflective child becomes your partner in telling you what he needs, why he needs it, and how it makes him feel.
Regression In Thinking Level
Of course, if the child's emotions are very intense, if he is really overwhelmed, like any adult he can regress and become a polarized thinker or go back to becoming impulsive, scattered, or withdrawn. It happens to the best of us. We all need to recognize high intensities of emotion or sudden shifts. Now, one hopes, a child will become reflective enough to notice his behavior and say, "Gee, I'm out of sorts today. What have I been eating? What have I been doing? What's going on that might be making me nervous?" He can notice that he has been staying up late and was exposed to a lot of loud noises for three days in a row and his system is getting overwhelmed.
Always expect regressions when there are intense changes in the child's sensory world as well as the emotional world, in his relationships. Each new level of emotional development and thinking gives the child greater and greater mastery of his behavior, including his level of attention and activity.
Encouraging Emotional Development and Thinking Skills
When helping children to progress through these levels of emotional development and thinking that make possible self-regulation, attention, and focus, there are certain key steps for caregivers to keep in mind.
1. Help all the senses and the motor system to work together in harmony.
In any game or activity, try to have the child looking, listening, moving, doing, and sometimes even smelling and tasting. How Do I Find Out If I Have ADD
2. Engage in long conversations, verbal and nonverbal
Few children with attentional problems are able to carry on a long conversation or exchange of emotional signals.
Often, they just have fragmented conversations instead of ten- to fifteen-minute dialogues. Make sure that your conversations cover many different areas of the child's interests, raising real issues, like homework, sibling rivalry, TV habits, and special privileges.
3. Increase the range of emotions that the child can express and tolerate.
Disappointment, frustration, and anger are some of the emotions that are difficult for children with attention problems and self-regulation. Some become day-dreamers, staring out the window when the teacher asks a hard question - "spaced out." Others become active or aggressive or have meltdowns or tantrums. Often this is because they can't handle negative emotions. For others, it may be the complexity that overwhelms them or a fear of failure. Bringing these feelings to the surface during relaxed chats will help a child recognize and control them.
When you are talking with a child, pay attention to her facial expressions. The child's verbal expression is not as important as being able to experience the feeling. If the child is verbal, have her describe the feeling. Let her express the full range of feelings from sadness to excitement, disappointment to happiness, anger to joy. Do this gradually by taking advantage of emotions that may arise as part of a natural conversation. For example, chatting about a schoolmate who "always has the answers" may bring up frustration.
4. Follow the child's lead and interests.
If a child wants to talk about baseball or dinosaurs and shows interest with interaction, engagement, emotional signaling, and so on, follow his lead. You can throw in other topics and help broaden the conversation once the child is engaged and motivated. The child's interest should be the starting point for the interaction, but it doesn't have to be the ending point. Gradually throw in different themes, building on the child's concerns and pleasures.
Even if the child's immediate interests are rather narrow and repetitive - for example, playing computer games - if you join her in them, you can encourage creativity. Throw in conflict and curveballs to expand the themes. Ask how the people who are being attacked in the game are feeling, or how the game might have turned out differently. What would she have the players do if a crisis arose during the game?
When a child is fantasizing, make sure the dialogue is logical and always makes sense. It can be imaginative, but it should be based on a logical sequence - the magical power works because of A, B, or C. How Do I Find Out If I Have ADD
5. Challenge the child's logic and self-reflection.
Children with attention problems tend to think in fragmented pieces rather than connecting all the dots. We described this earlier with sequencing abilities, but logic will be needed in all spheres of learning and work. When talking about homework, for example, the child may suddenly switch to talking about a favorite computer game. Challenge the child to make sense: "I'm confused. I thought you were telling me about homework, and now we're talking about that computer game." "Well, Morn, talking about math homework reminded me of the game because you have to count in the game, too." Challenge the child to connect his thought patterns together and explain the connections. Debates about school rules, penalties, fairness, or even bedtime hours can bring out the child's best logical thinking.
Logic also helps with reflective thinking. A child with attention problems may not be able to reflect on an earlier instance in light of a current one and say, for example, "I got through the other test okay. Why am I nervous about this one?" This ability will be needed in planning a schedule or evaluating the child's own work to make sure all the pieces are in place. You can promote this by asking for the child's opinions: "Is there anything missing in your essay?" "I don't know." "Well, how did you reach that conclusion?" Or you might ask, "How does your first paragraph relate to the others?" "I'm not sure." "How can you stay on your main point?" "Maybe I can list all the points I want to make and put them in boxes and then put the boxes in order." As you can see, logical thinking, sequencing, and the ability to reflect on one's work are closely related skills that bear on a child's ability to keep focused and attentive in school and other pursuits. To learn more, you can check out How Do I Find Out If I Have ADD.
