Trouble Focusing

Title: "Trouble Focusing? New Checklist Can Help Parents Make Evaluations" Author: Rebecca Jackson 1.8.2015 http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rebecca-jackson/focus-checklist_b_6430274.html I read the article "Trouble Focusing? New Checklist Can Help Parents Make Evaluations", which talked about focusing more on creating habits instead of resolutions. The author's intended audience is parents, especially of children that have extra difficulty focusing in the classroom or to do homework. Many parents get frustrated, and the author was noticing this common theme of questions from parents emailing in. Instead of focusing on the end result all the time, Jackson explains that it is better to focus on changing habits, specifically teaching "concentrated focus", a core idea from the book The Learning Habit, based on research from Brown University School of Medicine. Jackson touches on how important it is to introduce something in the right way to children with focusing difficulties. Children like games and generally respond better when you introduce something as a game instead of just saying "we're going to sit down and focus now". The article has a checklist that parents can use to evaluate their child's progress focusing, because sometimes it can be difficult to see the progress at first. It's called the Pressman Focus Checklist, and contains 11 questions to help parents with their evaluations. I think this article is relevant to any parents that are feeling frustrated constantly trying to focus their child who struggles with it. It's important to provide parents with resources like this so that students that may be having a little extra difficulties, or maybe have a learning disability, are not falling behind and are getting that extra bit of help they need.