There is no greater heritage which you can give your child to aid in
his mental development, character building, and success winning than a
trained ability to control his attention and concentration. In fact, to
the degree in which he is able to do this, will he be able to control
himself and later to control others. The ability to do these two
things is a part of the capacity of every successful man. Every effort
that you will put forth to aid the child in the development of these
faculties will repay you in many ways.
Attention is the application of the senses to the subject in mind.
Attention controlled and prolonged is Concentration.
The opposite, absent-mindedness, is simply involuntary or uncontrolled
attention.
The principal aid you can give the child is to teach him how to
induce and control attention and to know its enemies and how to avoid
them. Attention may be discussed under several different heads, but
we shall confine ourselves to aids in inducing it. It must be led,
not compelled or driven by will force. You may exert all the force
you possess to center your attention upon one object for a prolonged
period, but in spite of all you can do it will soon wander.
It is said that the longest period of time in which a mind will attend,
without rest, to one subject, is a few seconds. At the end of that time
there must come consciously or unconsciously, a period of relaxation.
William James, the psychologist, says that "doing work which requires
concentration is like driving a hungry horse along a road lined on
both sides with green grass. If left to himself the horse will stop to
nibble. It is only by continual jerking and urging that he can be kept
moving forward."
"In the same way the mind is inclined to wander. There must be
conscious ability upon the part of the individual to urge it along and
keep it busy at the task in hand."
The first stimulus to the attention is change. Prof. James says: "No
one can possibly attend consciously to an object that does not change."
A continual and unvarying sound soon makes no impression, you become
used to it so that your mind no longer pays any attention to it. A
picture may be very interesting but if you gaze at one object in it
steadily you will soon go to sleep.