Pay attention.
As a child that phrase meant to stop whatever else I was doing and focus on the requested activity.
The phrase, paying attention, connotes immobility.
Here’s the paradox of paying attention.
Learning involves movement. Movement done automatically activates few new connections in the brain for learning. When we pay attention to our movements, especially for the young child, learning occurs at an accelerated pace when compared to the type of learning where we sit and pay attention to someone’s else’s movements of talking and showing.
Deep learning patterns are created in the brain when we pay attention to our own movements, instead of someone else’s. For important learning our children need to pay attention to what they are doing and feeling instead focusing their attention on what we are doing. Anat Baniel in her book, Kids Beyond Limits, tells us about five ways to tell if a child is turning attention towards his or her own actions.
Inner Stare: There is a transformational moment when a child shifts focus; we see a cessation of movement, an inward stare with little or no blinking, perhaps for more seconds than seem healthy. Many people mistake this moment for not paying attention and say something like, “Snap out of it.” In the process we interrupt the child’s mind and body initiating an important connection in order to work together. The inner stare tells us the child’s mind is focusing on his or her body and an anticipated movement. We should watch instead of interrupt this stare.
Following: When we see a child follow something with his eyes, we have a clue that the mind and body have connected to work in tandem. We’ll see the child use his or her eyes to follow a moving object, his or her own movements, or a sound. With following, we can see the child focus attention.
Anticipatory Participation: When we re-experience something, we anticipate what is going to come next. For example, when I hear the first three notes of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony, I predict that I’m going to hear more, and I stop to listen. We know our children are focusing attention when we see even minute movements that show anticipation and involvement in what is going to happen next. The bounce of a ball. The phone ringing. The water faucet running.
Joy: One of the sure signs that the body and the mind are engaging to move and learn together is that there is delight in the experience. We see laughter, smiles, or a calm sense of deep satisfaction.
It’s All A Game: When the child’s body and mind are engaged an activity becomes fun. To our adult eyes this important work of the child looks like play. This deep engagement of mind and body appears to be fun and games. Scientific research shows that we learn more when we are laughing and having fun.
Baniel tells us that there are three types of movement our child can feel and bring attention to:
- physical movement,
- emotions as movement, and
- thinking as movement.
Your child’s placing attention on any self-movement or movement that you are doing with him or her heightens brain functions and helps organize movement overall.
Our emotions move. The meaning of the word, emotion, is from the Latin, emovere, or to move out. We need to help our child learn to pay attention to these inward manifestations that want to move out and be expressed.
Thinking, the movement of ideas, informs our ability to create. Helping our children pay attention to their thoughts helps a child engage the mind and body to work together.
Learning to pay attention involves movement. Let’s help our children unite their bodies and their minds in order to pay attention to movement—physical, emotional and cognitive.
