It's hard to learn when you're stressed

A nervous, tense or agitated child will always find it difficult to get down to homework (even just to start). Same difficulties in listening in class, understanding or remembering.

Children can very well be stressed, and their stress initially disturbs concentration, i.e. attention and the ability to focus on learning. From the start, you can limit the sources of distraction: by gathering the necessary equipment around you, and by settling in a quiet place, which – without being completely silent – ​​must be “apart”.

At the time of homeworkthe greatest difficulties arise with children which do not hold in place and which move in the unconscious hope of slipping away. Their behavior dilutes their cognitive faculties, and inevitably risks upsetting parents already saturated by their own day. The restlessness of the children creates an electric atmosphere that makes the parent explode at the slightest difficulty.

You will never be able to make a nervous child still, and his poor posture or repeated movements only increase your impatience. The time you spend repeating to him to “stand straight” or “stop fidgeting” is wasted time and unnecessarily lengthens the homework, as well as degrades the quality of the exchange.

From time to time, observe your child’s parasitic gestures (foot shaking, swinging from one buttock to the other, clicking with a pen, etc.). Rather than ordering him to stop, make him aware of it, by explaining to him that these automatic gestures occupy part of his brain, which cannot therefore be mobilized for homework. These gestures increase concentration drain.

Repeating to a child “concentrate! is futile if you don’t explain how to do it. When he is carried away by his ideas, it is difficult for him to reinvest the present and the subject to which he must attach himself. To concentrate means to “focus towards the center” and this center is constituted by his body, which he can physically feel. But the child always tends to scatter on the outside (therefore to lose focus), also for lack of interest in what he is doing. He seeks distraction.

In sophrology, we will use: breathing to calm down, awareness of the position of the body (support points), focusing on the feet (which touch the ground) or centering techniques…

A child’s stress can disturb his concentration, or his ability to memorize.

Learning is one thing, and you and your child can spend a lot of time there. But all this is only useful if he manages – when he is alone – to restore or reuse what he has learned.

However, some parents are dismayed to find that, despite hours of work, their child only obtains a poor result – or ends a test crying that he “didn’t know anything anymore”.

The first explanation relates to the quality of learning. If the lessons have been memorized by force, or in exhaustion, they hardly hold up over time.

The second reason is stress. In a situation of being questioned (therefore, potentially evaluated) a child can find himself in a state of anxiety which blocks restitution. The reason lies in the alchemy of the brain. At the heart of our “central unit” sits the limbic system, commonly considered our center of emotions. The cerebral amygdala plays the role of a vigilant doorman, decoding external stimuli to determine whether or not they constitute a danger or a threat. If the situation is calm, the amygdala is also and the hippocampus, very close, can therefore let in new knowledge and store it.

On the other hand, if the amygdala perceives a potential danger, its attention is mobilized on defense, on maintaining internal security, to the detriment of memorization. The child must imperatively calm down to have access to what he has stored. And he must have sufficient self-confidence to use or put into practice with ease what he has learned.

Text: Laurence Roux-Fouillet – http://www.espaceducalme.com