This post explains why a busy, fast environment can hinder thinking in our children and explore how parents can provide time and space to think.

Slowing down is a low cost and high impact way to help your child practice focused thinking.

  1. Is your child too busy to think? An environment of hurry hinders thinking.
  2. Time and space for thinking can produce deeper engagement with a task.
  3. Try This [infographic]
  4. Takeaways

Too Busy to Think

Modern American culture glorifies “busy.” Our own lack of margin, as adults, can manifest in time pressures for our children. Rushing from activity to activity removes the open time necessary to focus, think, create, or innovate. Overscheduling can be exhausting not just physically but also mentally–children who are overscheduled are hindered in their ability to solve problems and make good decisions1.

An environment of hurry hinders thinking.

Between our adult agendas and our children’s schedules, down time could be called the new American Dream. Down time is needed more than ever, and more elusive now than ever.

Down time is critical because it provides opportunities for 1) play, 2) relaxation, and 3) connection1. These are essential ingredients for healthy brains:

  1. Play is a child’s “work”. Play allows experimentation, testing, and practice.
  2. Relaxation is an antidote to stress, which is important because stress blocks our access to the front of our brains (the prefrontal cortex) where more advanced thinking occurs.
  3. Connection is essential in grounding our children and knowing that they have a safe person with whom they can make mistakes and grow. Connection fosters resilience (capacity to endure hardship) and a growth mindset (ability to learn and grow with practice) in our children. 

Our fast pace can hinder our children when they lack opportunities for focused play, lack a physical environment to promote thinking due to stimulation and distraction, or when the fast pace leads us as parents to rush them through play and disrupt their focus.

Over time, our brains can become hardwired for fast and shallow thoughts rather than deep thinking or focused attention.

Our children—and us– need time and space to think.

Time and space for thinking can produce deeper engagement with a task.

Have you ever been so focused on a project, absorbed in a book, or captivated by a challenging problem that you became unaware of your surroundings? After being in this focused state, did you feel a sense of satisfaction in your work, or relief from common worries that occupy your mind?

In everyday life you might hear someone say they were “in the zone” at work. In modern psychological research, this is called hyperfocus, sustained attention, or even a “flow state.” (*See the end of this article for two important clarifications about the labels hyperfocus and flow).

Researchers describe flow as “full task engagement2” that involves absorption with a task and less thinking about oneself. There are a few key criteria: 1) the task is fun or interesting, 2) there is sustained attention, 3) the environment is diminished (time flies and you aren’t paying attention to your surroundings), and 4) task performance improves (you are able to do your work well).

While there is not consensus regarding which parts of the brain are specifically linked to hyperfocus (possibly a combination of attention networks)3, there are known benefits2 to flow:

  • stimulus of the reward system in the brain (positive emotions and satisfaction)
  • improved task performance
  • enhanced concentration

It is beneficial for our children to become engrossed in a task. And the most typical flow experience is play4! Children typically choose play tasks that are fun or interesting to them (the first criteria of flow), but whether or not they deeply immersive themselves in play depends on the child, the environment, and their capacity for sustained attention (typically increasing with maturity). As adults, we can’t always predict when our child will get “in the zone” for deep play, but we can create an environment that supports their concentration efforts.

Focused play is incredibly useful to our children both now and for their future endeavors. Think about the concentration needed to practice playing a new piece of music, or sit and think through a challenging LEGO® set, or construct a castle from wood scraps in the backyard. Later in life, they will need to focus and take exams, write papers, create presentations, and solve real-world problems in business, politics, the classroom, the operating room, the church, or wherever they choose to work and create.

Does your pace of life allow time for you and your children to deeply focus on something interesting? Can you lose yourself in a great book? Can your son lose track of time while he paints? Can your daughter tune out the rest of the world when she is coloring?

Try This

Making time for thinking provides opportunity for focused thinking. A physical space that promotes focused attention sets up our child’s brain for success. The parent’s role is to warmly support focused attention by watching and knowing when to encourage and when to hold back and resist interrupting.

Make time for focused thinking

  • When? Choose a gap between activities on your paper planner or Google calendar and leave that white space. Choose a time when your child is well rested and already fed. During that time, provide your child with a single open ended toy or specific task that can lead to immersive play. For example, provide only a train and set of tracks, or only a basket of building blocks.
    • Consider exchanging an extracurricular for open play, particularly in young children. “Even structured after school activities may take a toll on a child’s ability to stay engaged with one thing for as long as it takes to lose herself in it.5”
  • How much time? As long as it takes for a child to lose themselves in one single activity. It is okay if the window of time is small at first. Aim for a few minutes at first and then encourage longer periods of play as the child’s capacity for sustained attention improves. Choose a realistic expectation (only a few minutes for very young children) and remember that their capabilities improve over time, not in one play session.

Make space for focused thinking

Our child’s environment (the physical place and the people around them) can promote or disrupt attention.

  • The physical place
    • A screen free environment is the best for building attention skills. Fast paced moving images and intuitive programming remove the workload from your child’s brain, and we want your child to think for himself rather than distracting from cognitive work with a moving image.
    • Decrease obvious sources of stimulation such as loud noises, music (unless it is classic or instrumental), or very bright lights.
    • Choose outside6 as often as possible. All children benefit from calming effects nature play, and even children with known attention deficits have shown fewer symptoms after time outdoors6.
  • The parent
    • School aged children may benefit from solitude, while younger children will likely benefit from having a parent nearby. Space for thinking does not always have to include solitude, which is sometimes unrealistic and does not reflect typical learning and play that occurs in pairs and groups in young children.
    • A parent’s involvement can positively or negatively impact a child’s attention.
      • Observe before you interrupt. When your child is working independently on a task and looks very focused, it may actually be distracting to verbally praise and interrupt.
      • Controlling how the child plays or intruding in play is counterproductive to building attention or independent thinking skills7.
        • In a study on focused attention in toddlers, researchers explored connections between mothers’ parenting and toddlers’ attention and found that a mother’s control of play was negatively related to attention scores:
          • “Although more active guidance may facilitate attention and play in infants and younger toddlers, parental behaviors that continue to reflect high levels of behavioral control or explicit direction and intervention can be inappropriate for more skilled toddlers, providing little support for children’s own natural tendencies to engage with objects and tasks in the environment and instead being disruptive or frustrating. For children who are already poorly attentive, parental interference may be particularly detrimental…7“
        • The study also reported negative impacts of mothers intruding in play, such as “overwhelming the child with a barrage of stimulation, changing the focus of play without regard to the child’s interest, or physically manipulating the child or the child’s actions.7“
      • In the same longitudinal study7, greater use of mothers’ praise during teaching tasks (not independent tasks) predicted higher attention and both mothers’ warmth (i.e. affectionate or supportive) and mothers‘ positive affect (positive mood or expressions) were positively related to attention.
        • Essentially, mothers who were warm, positive, and encouraging at the right times were most beneficial for their child’s attention.

Takeaways

By providing time and space for our children to practice focused thinking (low cost), we encourage important cognitive skills (high impact)

Slowing the pace of life can create thriving little thinkers. Leave margin in life! Leave room for learning, exploration, creativity, or design. Give your child room to wonder. Leave space and time for curiosity.

If we fill the child’s schedule to the brim, where is the room for his thoughts? 

Providing margin in your child’s schedule may actually save you money if you choose to eliminate costs toward entertainment or schedule-fillers. Structured extracurriculars can be wonderful, but not if they dominate the schedule and eat all of your child’s margin for focused play. Talk with your spouse and your child about what activities to keep and which to try another time. Decreasing distractions in your environment does not incur costs. Taking your child outside also costs nothing, and greatly benefits attention skills. As the parent, you can support thinking as a supportive and warm observer (and encourager) of your child’s play. Your presence takes connection, not coin.

Downtime impacts our children’s brains and our family cultures. It provides opportunities for play, relaxation, and connection. Slowing down creates opportunities for learning. Hurry hinders thinking. A physical space that promotes focused attention sets up our child’s brain for success. A supportive, observant parent can positively impact a child’s attention. Children need to practice focused attention through play to build important skills for their futures.

Want to Learn More?

If you struggle with interrupting your child’s concentration during work or play, read How to Encourage Independent Thinking for a simple hack.

Does your child enjoy building? Practice focused attention using LEGO® bricks and build thinking skills in the process. Read 5 Ways LEGO® Bricks Promote Learning to find out more.

Two Clarifications on Flow and Hyperfocus

  1. Hyperfocus is often mentioned in the context of autism, schizophrenia, or ADD/ADHD in which attention is impacted by neurological changes, but hyperfocus occurs in neurotypical individuals as well (people with typical neurological development) and is incredibly useful2.
  2. To be clear, this flow state is specific to being absorbed in a task, so it is NOT the same use of “flow” used in eastern religion. It isn’t referring to zen, taoism or other attempts to empty the mind. It is task specific.

References

  1. Cleveland Clinic (2018). Is Your Child Overscheduled? Kids Need “Down Time” https://health.clevelandclinic.org/is-your-child-overscheduled-kids-need-down-time/
  2. Ashinoff & Abu-Akel (2021). Hyperfocus: The Forgotten Frontier of Attention https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7851038/pdf/426_2019_Article_1245.pdf
  3. Linden, Tops, & Bakker (2020). Go with the Flow: A Neuroscientific View on Being Fully Engaged https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7983950/pdf/EJN-53-947.pdf
  4. Csikszentmihaly (2014). Flow and the Foundations of Positive Psychology: The Collected Works of Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (ebook) https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-94-017-9088-8
  5. Perry (2009). Creative Kids Learn to Flow (Part 1) https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/creating-in-flow/200911/creative-kids-learn-flow-part-1?amp=#amp_tf=From%20%251%24s&aoh=16667956941485&csi=1&referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com
  6. Lund (2018). Top 5 Benefits of Chldren Playing Outside. Sanford Health https://news.sanfordhealth.org/childrens/play-outside/ 
  7. Gaertner, Spinrad, & Eisenberg (2008). Focused Attention in Toddlers: Measurement, Stability, and Relations to Negative Emotion and Parenting https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2607062/pdf/nihms-81608.pdf
January 1, 2023
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