Frank Barnhill, M.D.

A third grade teacher once told me that she felt if she could help her hyperactive kids pay attention, then she could do twice as much for her other students.  Of course those hyperactive kids are probably ADHD’ers and she’s right.  I’ve heard similar remarks from many teachers.  If you know how to help maintain an ADHDer’s attention span, then you should have no trouble doing the same for all ages from four to forty.  Let’s take a look at a few insights and suggestions all these teachers have related over the past twenty years.

In general, I’m sure that you have noticed you can keep anybody’s attention if they’re being exposed to something new and exciting or fast and stimulating.  Many a movie has failed at the box office because it didn’t provide these elements and the audience became bored.  Guess what?  That’s what happens with ADHD kids.  If things are not new, exciting, scary, fast or highly stimulating, then they just get bored and won’t pay attention.  Watch and see how fast an ADHD’er will pull out his video game when he gets bored or no longer interested.  These video games are sort of like baby sitters and keep kids occupied when they are bored.  Some experts feel this type of “babysitting” is bad for the child, as it teaches the child that his emotions must run wide open all the time.  It’s hard to teach patience through video games.  And when these children have no patience, it can severely try your patience.  We’ll deal with developing a child’s “patience factor” in another article.  So, keep an eye out for it soon.

So, how do you provide a fast, exciting, new, highly stimulating experience for a child, day and day out?  If you’re a teacher with thirty other kids to teach, or a mom or dad that has to work to make ends meet, it seems almost impossible.  I bet some of you feel so frustrated by the time you try, that you regret being a teacher or even a parent.  Maybe this is why teachers find it so hard to effectively teach and come home to their family without signs of emotional burnout.  It’s probably why some parents throw their hands up shouting; “you’ll never learn anything, I quit!” “You’re not driving me crazy trying to get stuff through that thick skull.” Unfortunately, the task of helping a child keep their attention span long enough to learn properly is not that simple.

There is a common misunderstanding that fast and new refers to speed and something never before seen.  A sixth grade teacher properly educated me about fast and new several years ago.  He told me that if he had to create something new and fast experiences five times a day five days a week, his hair would never turn gray, because he would pull it out by the roots.

His approach to fast and new was to include “new twists” on old teaching plans and to have enough of them ready to keep the pace of the class fast such that “the kids never have time to slow down enough to get bored, until I‘m sure that I have adequately covered my materials ”.  He invented games to test memory and comprehension such as “Science Jeopardy”.  He split the class into four teams, and had each team member give the question to a science answer.  The team with the most points was rewarded with “new cool pencils or markers”.  You and I would have loved this teacher!

A fourth grade teacher shared her version of “fast and furious” with me last year.  She only spent 20 to 25 minutes on a topic, before abruptly changing to another.  For example, she started class with what she called “an easy get started” subject such as spelling, then suddenly changed to math exactly on minute 21.  Of course she warned the kids in advance that these transitions would happen, but not when they would occur.  She felt her kids had to pay attention because they were so stimulated by the fast and furious experience she created.  Once in the morning and afternoon she gave them 5-minute “pit stops” to catch their brains.  Studies have shown that 20 to 25 minutes of presentation material is about the most that the average person with ADHD can absorb.

A seventh grade teacher once gave me insight into her methods to help kids concentrate during test taking.  She let her kids draw half sheets of paper slips out a fish bowl before the test started.  Each slip of paper had a test question typed on it and each child pulled out four slips.  They answered the questions directly on the drawn slips and when finished, these were turned in with the rest of the written test.  Talk about exciting!  Everyone essentially had a different test.  For the kids, it was like playing the lottery, to see who could draw four “easy” questions and who would get stuck with hard ones.

In review, holding a kid’s attention means providing experiences that stimulate emotions, are new or unique, fast and challenging, scary or highly stimulating, or just plain fun.  These teachers have also shown one of the other facets of helping students maintain attention; that of interacting in the smallest groups possible.  One on one interaction is usually the most attention riveting method, but of course it’s impossible with thirty kids.  Do you think the seventh grade teacher’s test method is close to one on one?  You betcha!  One on one doesn’t just mean the literal, it can also mean giving the child an experience that makes them feel they are getting special attention.

I hope you’ve found something you can use from these teacher insights.  All of the above could be changed to help kids study at home or even at church.  They can also be modified to help adults at work or even at home!