High School Attention Span
How long is a high school-age child's attention span?
It's been said that a high school child's attention span is between eight and fourteen minutes. Of course, we know that in any given class period, which is up to fifty minutes long, the child is expected to stay on task and at attention. That's because the period's broken up into different challenges for the high school children. At first they may be observing the teacher demonstrating, modeling or presenting new information in some way. Then, for the rest of the period, those students are asked to perform themselves in some way, whether that be a quiz or a practice for the test, or reproducing what the teacher has shown them. The combination of all of those different activities lead to time on task of much longer than the attention span of eight to fourteen minutes.
How can I determine if my high school-age child has a short attention span?
If a high school child has a short attention span, we would hear reports from the school that the child's not staying on task or engaged for the entire instructional period. At home it's very hard to determine whether a high school child's having trouble with their attention span because most tasks a high school student engages in are about 1-15 minutes long. “Hi, Mom! Bye, Mom! Hey, Dad, can I borrow the keys?” They're always on the go, and they're always multitasking. In the area of homework, however, we might notice that the child is having trouble staying on task, completing homework and sticking to it. This is indicative of a short attention span.
How can I help my high school-age child increase their attention span?
We can help high school-aged kids with their attention span in helping them to know themselves a little better. "What is a good period of time for you to work on this homework?", for example. "Is fifteen minutes a good period?", then you take a little brake, and do something else, and you come back. Its very important that we help kids to pace themselves. We call it self regulation. Some of us can stay on task for hours and hours because we know we're going to be successful and because we're hyper-attentive. Other people who aren't so hyper-attentive can stay on task and be engaged if they break it up - if they break the task up into smaller parts that they see success at is possible. Then they'll stay on the task. If we can help our children to learn that skill of self regulation, we can help them to pay attention better.
