Distraction in class

[SatdayHatday]

I have a 10 year old DD who gets distracted at school. Teacher thinks she is perfectly capable but gets distracted and doesn't concentrate.

Has anyone come across this and managed to improve it? Do you think screen time at home effect's it?

Any thoughts welcome

Do you have any issues at home? Is she having issues concentrating or is she just finding school boring? Inattentive ADHD (and other ND issues) often completely overlooked in girls, but I’d expect you to be seeing issues at home if that was the case. What does DD say about it?

Thanks for your reply.

No issues at home I don't think. She does like her iPad and I let her use it quite a lot which is why I mentioned screen time. I'm conscious by reducing this may help a lot.

School hasn't mentioned any ND nor have previous teachers mentioned the concentration thing. I would say she doesn't seem to get on with this teacher. I've seen her happy and chat to previous teachers at parent teacher meetings for example and this time she shut down in front of her current teacher. She tells me when she asks for help the teacher tells her she should be listening and doesn't help her. I can see that teacher maybe fed up of her behaviour and the relationship may have broken down somewhat.

Maybe there is a distraction at the class which affect her more than others due to where she sits or with whom she does group work.
Some children are easily distracted by noisy behavior of others. I think it especially applies to children from quieter homes e.g they don’t have siblings or their siblings are much older.

Get her hearing tested, unless it’s been done in the last few months, even if you don’t think there is a problem. I’d also get her eyesight checked as she might be concentrating on looking and tuning out her hearing to focus on that. If, for example, she is sitting further back or to the side in this classroom or the acoustics aren’t great she might be struggling this year where she was just about managing before.

You don’t mention what your daughter says is happening. That is also key.

This is a common issue. Have you spoken to your daughter about it? What or whom, is distracting her? Does she get distracted at home? Does she enjoy her lessons in school or is she simply bored? What sort of activities and subjects does she enjoy? Sadly, the state school curriculum in the UK is very narrow now. Often, there's very little opportunity for creativity due to the emphasis on testing and many children (understandably) find school uninspiring. As for screens, my 9 year old is not allowed screen time (nintendo, tablet etc) during the week, although he does watch some TV after school to wind down. Studies have shown that screen time for children can have a negative effect on their health in a number of ways, including their attention span.

How long is she spending on the iPad ?

Ive had to buy a kindle because I couldn't read a book using the kindle app on my ipad because I would read for half a sentence and then I'd think 'I wonder what happened to Angus Deayton' then before I knew it was happening I wasn't reading any more, I was googling Angus Deayton. I can feel my brain sort of wandering off. But it doesn't happen when I'm reading a book or using my kindle.

Maybe look at what she's doing on her ipad. If she's playing instant gratification type games like Kwazy Kupcakes it's probably not helping her concentration.