The secret of removing distractions
Helping distracted kids focus with simple techniques.
No matter how good the book that you’re reading is, do you ever have that itch to jump to the next fascinating book on your list?
Or, maybe as a brilliant book nears its end, you feel anxiety because you are coming to the end of something wonderful and you don't want it to end. Or, perhaps the stack is low and you don’t know what your next “reading fix” will be?
This is my dilemma! I love reading to learn more about how to make the lives of children and their parents easier - we can never learn enough! So, I find myself distracted by the next good title.
At the moment, that book is 'The boy who was raised as a Dog' by Dr Bruce Perry. Isn't the title just so intriguing? It comes highly recommended by many of my therapist friends and is highly reviewed online. Even Oprah Winfrey recommends this book.
Isn't the title just so intriguing?
Dr Perry understood the importance of rhythm.
As a warm-up intro, I decided to listen to one of Dr Perry's YouTube lectures while cooking the family meal. Chopping and listening to lectures is a match made in heaven, therapeutic in every way possible. As I was halfway through the second vine tomato, what he said struck me .
“The role of safety, predictability, nurturing play, shapes us and how we think and behave...”
All of a sudden, like that famous clip in Jaws, I zoomed in on the truth…
You see, my teacher and mentor, Bill Hubert, founder of Bal-A-Vis-X, is a firm believer in the importance of rhythm. But I have always wondered why this particular therapy works so well? How does this therapy transport anxious children to a state of reason and calmness? Why does it work time and time again?
As I halved that second tomato, it hit me. Dr Perry was talking about predictability. Predictable outcomes for predictable activities gives us a deep emotional sense of safety. That safety can be experienced when we repeat the action. Rhythm is created when you repeat predictable actions. Therefore rhythm gives both predictability and a deeper sense of safety as we move from ‘random’ to ‘order’.
But predictability is not the whole story in activating the brain and body. Something else is required, and that critical ingredient is vestibular movement.
What is vestibular movement?
Our vestibular sense is the brain’s way of noticing movement and adapting the body’s response accordingly.
When your child moves their head up, down, side to side, forward or backward, sensory receptors in their inner ear capture information about the speed and direction of that movement in relation to gravitational pull. In response the brain switches on other senses, such as sight and hearing. Muscles create counter movement, to help create the optimum response to this vestibular movement.
With brain, body and senses coordinated, your child has the best information available to automatically complete the movement whilst keeping their balance. Therefore they can, for example, lean down to pick something up, without overbalancing.
The better that the vestibular system links with other senses, the easier it is to achieve focus. Subtle improvements help develop new levels of focus. That is to say, that the body is more physically coordinated and organised, making it easier to sit still in a learning situation, and to focus on the job at hand.
By activating the brain and the body, and using every part of our system, we effectively drown out distracting thoughts. This holistic respite trains the body to experience how it feels to have control… and short bursts of focus can be lengthened with every predictable repetition.
Going to the park and having a play outside does a world of good, but a child who gets over-stimulated by frantic activity is not calmed by this. By comparison, there is great security in sitting on a swing or rocking and moving with smoothness rather than awkward jerkiness.
Is your child or student highly distractible?
Is your child constantly distracted and can’t get their homework done? You may want to look into our one-to-one therapy In the sessions we cover a series of simple balance and coordination exercises. Repeating these daily with your child for ten to twenty minutes will enable you to engage your faculties and senses, control distractions and improve concentration.
Dyslexia? Dyspraxia? ADHD? ASD? Speech & Language? Developmental Delay? Anxiety?
Is every school day a struggle? As a parent, you may feel exhausted and on this journey alone. Each year you see the gap getting wider. You need to do something - change the approach, help your child learn for themselves, find a way to turn this around - to help while you can - do this NOW. the first step is free.
