How do I get my two year old to focus?

First of all, you don’t ‘get’ a two year old to do anything!

My nearly 2 year old seems to do what he wants as far as I can see.

His favourite word at the moment is ‘no’!

I ask him to do something and he usually says ‘no’!

Focus is not something I expect him to do well at the age of nearly 2.

However, many of my clients have this expectation that their child should be able to focus for longer periods of time. Most of my youngest students are currently either 2 or 3 years of age.

I understand them. After all, they are preparing their children for their 4+ Assessments which will take place in the next 4-9 months. In their 4+ Assessments, their child will be expected to focus for a very long amount of time.

So let’s change the question ever so slightly?

How can I support my two year old to focus?

Now, this question is a lot easier to answer.

There are so many ways that you can support your two year old to focus.

Here are my top 3:

1. Provide them with opportunities to do a single activity within a specified time duration. You will have the expectation of the time duration, they won’t understand this yet. You will say something like this…

‘We are going to sit on the floor and we are going to do the puzzle. I would like you to only focus on the puzzle for 2 minutes.’

You will then clear the area so that there are minimal distractions and your child is only focused on that one activity.

Start with smaller time durations and then build up to longer time durations.

If your child gets distracted, starts looking around or simply doesn’t want to engage in the task, never make it a problem. Just gently encourage them to come back to the task. Sometimes they will and sometimes they won’t. The problem I see is when parents get cross or frustrated that their child is not meeting their expectation. I promise you that this will never help the situation.

It takes practise, patience and perseverance. Eventually your child will focus for your expected amount of time.

2. Provide them with activities that encourage focus.

Youtube have endless options of focus videos for very young children. Just take a look and choose the ones that you like and that you know your child will like. Today, we were doing phonics and we were popping bubbles to practise the sound ‘p’. My son was really getting into it so I went to Youtube and searched for ‘Focus bubbles for kids’ and an incredible video came up which he adored.

Always try to go with what interests your child. This will allow them to focus lots more.

At only 22 months old, my son watched this video 4 times and focused on it for its entire duration each time. Educational screen time is fine with me (I do limit it however)

3. Model to them how you focus.

Children learn through copying what you do. You are their role model. You are their inspiration. I often model what I would like my son to do. I often sit next to him as he is reading independently and get out my own book. I can see him watching me through the corner of his little eye! I model to him how I focus on my book (even for just 30 seconds) A few days later, I will often see him copying what he saw me doing!

Support your child with their focus and concentration skills by trying these three strategies.