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Help! My kid isn't paying attention in school

Tips to help your child stay seated and pay attention in the classroom

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Originally published in Today's Parent September 2010

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Picture a seven-year-old sitting in a classroom of 25 kids. There’s a baseball game going on outside the window, her friend is whispering something to her, and someone’s chair is making a scraping noise. Filtering out all these stimuli and focusing on what her teacher is saying is called selective attention. Focusing or refocusing after you’ve been distracted is a complex ability that develops as kids grow, says Stratton.

How long the average grade-two student should be able to pay attention is hard to pin down, she says. Experts say anywhere from one to five minutes per year of age. That means up 40 minutes for an eight-year-old — pretty challenging for most kids.

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