One day, I caught Jonas*, a student in my study skills class, watching The Office instead of completing an assignment for his History class.
*name totally made up to protect the innocent*
I’d only turned away from him for maybe 30 seconds! *face palm*
He quickly swiped back to the assignment he needed to work on, which was totally blank except for his name. I’m all about transparency, so I had him swipe back to that screen. In swiping, I uncovered MORE screens with a mix of Youtube videos, random Google searches, and online games.
He attempted to reassure me that he had plenty of time to finish it and that he kept all those screens open because was an excellent multitasker. When I let him know that nobody is actually good at multitasking, he argued me down until I gave him the very same facts I’ll be sharing with you shortly.
What Jonas and I worked on after that moment was improving his ability to focus on a task. Using these strategies has helped him improve his focus and I want the same for your middle schooler. You ready? Read on to learn strategies you can use immediately to help your middle schooler improve their focus and get stuff done right the first time.
Move them away from multitasking.
Multitasking is a skill that many people pride themselves on being able to do. I did, too…for a while.
I hate to break it to you, but most people actually can’t multitask as well as they think they can.
Sure, we have the ability to switch back and forth between tasks very quickly. But research shows that when we do that, we actually produce lower quality work than if we’d focused on one thing at a time.
This is because our big, beautiful brains actually have limited resources to devote to work-related tasks. So trying to do two things at once requires us to pull resources from the same area, which actually makes it harder for us to focus and get stuff done.
And when it’s harder to focus, it’s harder to accomplish a task, which can lead to silly mistakes, irritation, and shutdown.
Think about when you’re driving down the road. Most of us can’t simultaneously drive to our destination, avoid potholes, talk to our friend in the passenger seat, and scroll social media. We’d crash! (tell that to my husband :/)
Encourage your middle schooler to work on one task at a time. If they want to “multitask”, try having them complete each assignment in chunks or setting a timer for work sessions.
Most middle schoolers can work on a task for ~30 minutes with solid focus. This time will likely decrease for students with executive function challenges, so do what is best for your child.
Limit Distractions
Let’s jump back to Jonas for a moment. He and I had a conversation one day where we listed out all of the things that distract him. Surprise surprise – electronic devices were a HUGE distraction for him. We made some decisions about what he could do to create work environments for success and it made a HUGE difference for him.
Think about what is super distracting for your middle schooler. Common distractions that I’ve seen can be cell phones, tablets, video games, TVs, computers, and even books. Get those outta those work spaces!
If the distracting things are in sight, it’s going to make it really hard to resist temptation. And this will be even more challenging for middle schoolers with executive function challenges.
If they need to work on a computer, you might have to get creative depending upon what settings are available to you. You should turn off any notifications, keep only necessary tabs open on the computer, and have them work in full screen mode.
If the area that they work in is near a TV, turn it off so that the background noise isn’t distracting. Consider setting limits to gaming/Netflix binges/social media scrolling during the week and, while I would never discourage reading, encourage your middle schooler to save their book for after they’ve taken care of business.
Provide Them With Choices
Can I be real for a moment? It is HARD to stay focused on something you hate doing. And the reality is that every task we have to do isn’t full of fun and excitement. This is why it’s so easy to spend hours binge watching Netflix, but can become fatigued and distracted after we spend 30 minutes cleaning or folding laundry.
Unless those are things you enjoy – and if it is, please come to my house and help meeee.
Providing your middle schooler with choices helps with buy in.
While you might not have power over WHAT they do, you can absolutely give them some choice around when they do it or in which order they do it.
For some kids, just asking “What do you want to work on first?” will work. As always, know thy child! Some middle schoolers might need you to give them a forced choice, which I like to describe as a choice that is within mama’s realm of acceptable options.
Present them with 2-3 choices that you’re perfectly fine with and have them select the one that they like the most (or hate the least). For example, say “Would you rather work on math or history first?” or “Do you want to do half of your math now and half later, or would you rather do it all at once?”.
Peep my other blog post (linked here) for more info about why I think choice is so important for middle schoolers (along with a few other things I wish people knew about them).
So there you have it – 3 of my top tips for helping middle schoolers boost their focus. If you’d like your child to have more help with improving their focus (or generally improving their learning), I’d love to help. Click here to sign up for a free consultation and chat more with me about executive function coaching and see if it’s a good fit for you.
Until next time,
