Elementary School: How To Help Your Child Increase His Or Her Attention Span

How can I help my elementary school-age child increase his or her attention span?

I think helping children to pay attention and to stay on task is sometimes a function of the task itself. What we want to do as parents or teachers is to make sure that the task we are having the child do is appropriately challenging, so that they want to try. That is, it has to be a goal that they can achieve, and that they see is achievable for them. If they perceive the goal of the task as too complicated, or not achievable, they they'll break off their attention and their goal-directed behavior.